Screenplay

Werdsmith lets you create beautiful, perfectly formatted scripts for movies and TV shows and share them with other writers or actors.

You can capture scene ideas or dialogue on the go, and easily export to a desktop screenwriting app if you need to.

In Screenplay Mode, Werdsmith has zero formatting buttons. Instead, our Ghostwriter formats your work for you as you write, adding sluglines, suggesting your character names, and making the whole process easier and faster.

If you’ve ever written a screenplay before, we use the standard Hollywood screenplay format, so it’ll all be very familiar.

If you haven’t, here’s a quick guide to get you started.

Don't worry, you won't have to remember these instructions. Ghostwriter will prompt you as you type.

Sluglines

Each scene in a screenplay starts with a slugline. Some examples of sluglines include:

INT. BARBER SHOP - DAY
EXT. FOOTBALL FIELD - NIGHT
INT./EXT. CAMPING TENT - SUNSET

The slugline tells the director where and when the scene takes place.

You write “INT.” if the scene is indoors (INT. is short for INTERIOR) and “EXT.” if the scene is outdoors (EXT. is short for EXTERIOR).

After the INT. or EXT. you write where the scene is. For example “JOHN’S HOUSE” or “THE LIBRARY”.

Finally, you add a dash and the time of day, usually “DAY” or “NIGHT”.

3 things to remember:

1. Sluglines are in ALL CAPS.
2. For scenes that happen both outside and inside, just write “INT./EXT.”.
3. Sometimes you want to write a slugline like “TWO DAYS LATER”. Just put a hash (#) at the start of the line and we’ll make it into a slugline.

Dialog

Whenever a character speaks in your screenplay, just write their name in CAPITALS, press return, then type what they’re saying.

JULIET
Wherefore art thou Romeo?

Once you start writing, Ghostwriter will remember what characters are in your screenplay and suggest them, so you don’t have to type them each time.

If your character has lowercase letters in it, like “McDONALD”, or is only one letter long, like “M”, just put an @-symbol at the beginning of their name. For example:

@McDONALD
I have a lowercase letter in my name!

When you preview your screenplay the @-symbol will disappear.

Transitions

Screenplays sometimes show “transitions”, which is a fancy word for when one scene changes to another.

The most common transitions are “CUT TO:” and "FADE TO:" but any line that starts with ">" or ends with “TO:” will become a transition.

CUT TO:
>CROSS DISSOLVE

Action

Any text that isn't dialogue or a slugline is called action. Usually this means notes about the action that's happening in the scene. For example:

JOHN
Where is everybody?
A tumbleweed rolls across the screen.

Parentheticals

“Parentheticals” is just another fancy word for when you want to write how your character says something. In screenplays, parentheticals are written in brackets.

SALLY
(Sarcastically)
Great to see you, too!

The parenthetical must start with an open-bracket, end with a close-bracket and come right after the character’s name.

You don’t need to write a parenthetical for everything your character says, only when it’s not obvious how they would say it.

Other formatting

In action or dialog you can use rich formatting.

You can add bold, italics and hidden notes to your text by selecting a word (or group of words) and choosing a formatting option.

Instead of confusing formatting that you can't see, we add asterisks around the highlighted words, so you can easily change the formatting as you write.

The easiest way to use the formatting buttons is to highlight a word and press "bold" or "italics". You can also type the asterisks manually.

The asterisks are hidden when you finish editing, and they aren't shown to your readers if you share your project.

SARAH gets into a *Mercedes Benz*.
PETER
Wait for **me**!

Hidden Notes

To write a note-to-self, surround your text in curly brackets. These notes will be hidden from your readers.

There is a loud explosion. {Maybe make this scene a bit less dramatic?}

Export

When you export your screenplay as a document, it’ll be exported in the Hollywood format and industry standard font (Courier New) that film studios expect.