What happens in each act — the turns the story hangs on.
Take one beat at a time and break it into the scenes that make it happen on screen.
Episode ideas beyond the pilot.
A picture of who your characters are to each other. Your hero sits at the center; everyone else rings around them.
★ Hero — your hero, in the middle. ↔ a mutual relationship. → a one-way relationship (the arrow points from → to).
Use ＋ Character (top bar) to add someone. You need at least two before you can connect anyone.
Two ways: tap the + beneath a character then tap another — or drag from one character onto another. Either way you’ll be asked to label the relationship and pick mutual or one-way.
Drag (or +) between two already-linked characters to edit that link. Click a character to open its full card in the Characters tab.
You can flesh out role, want, need and more in the Characters tab.
Film is external — write only what the audience can see and hear. You can’t write a character’s private thoughts; externalize them through action, behavior, dialogue, or a device like V.O. or a flashback.
INT. interior · EXT. exterior · INT./EXT. both. Then LOCATION in caps, an em-dash, and the time of day.
INT. DINER — NIGHT EXT. LIGHTHOUSE — DAY
Time of day: DAY, NIGHT, DAWN, DUSK, CONTINUOUS, LATER. In Fountain, a line starting with INT/EXT becomes a heading; force one with a leading dot: .ROOFTOP.
Present tense, lean, only what’s seen/heard. A character’s name is CAPS the first time they appear.
MARA, 29, wipes the counter with the dead eyes of someone lying to her parents. Her phone buzzes. She ignores it.
Speaker’s name in caps, lines beneath. No quotation marks — the format signals speech. Quotes only for text a character literally reads aloud.
MARA The diner’s not the business anymore.
A brief delivery or action cue under the cue. Use sparingly.
MARA (quiet, not looking up) I know what I’m doing.
(V.O.) voice-over — narration / a voice with no source in the scene. (O.S.) off-screen — present but out of frame. (CONT’D) same speaker continuing.
MARA (V.O.) Everyone back home thinks I’m a lawyer.
Right-aligned, used rarely (a cut is implied by the next heading). CUT TO: · SMASH CUT TO: · DISSOLVE TO: · FADE OUT.
Show, don’t tell · present tense · ~1 page ≈ 1 minute of screen time · let white space breathe · externalize everything.
A factual read on your script’s length and shape — no opinions, just the numbers against industry norms.
Enter catches it · Shift+Enter for a new line · ⌘K opens this anywhere
Make it small enough to hit on a bad day. The win is showing up.
Your browser reads the script aloud, a different voice per character. Hearing it is the fastest way to find clunky dialogue.
One voice at a time. If you covered the names, could you tell who’s talking?
From idea to screenplay
Develop your idea, test whether it runs, and write the draft — with your work following you to any screen.
No passwords, ever. Your work syncs to your account — and is always yours to download. Privacy