38 terms · plain English
The screenwriting glossary
Every term a screenplay throws at you, defined without jargon — what it means, how to format it, and where it fits in the craft. From the slugline at the top of a scene to the STET on a coloured revision page.
Page elements
- (MORE) / (CONT'D)(MORE) and (CONT'D) keep a single speech intact across a page break. When a character's dialogue runs off the bottom of a page, (MORE) sits beneath the last line and (CONT'D) rides next to the character cue when the speech resumes at the top of the next page. Most software inserts both automatically.Read
- Action lineAn action line is the prose in a screenplay that describes what the audience sees and hears — movement, behaviour, and visual detail — between the dialogue. It is written in the present tense, set full-width on the page, and kept lean: a screenplay describes only what the camera can capture.Read
- Character cueA character cue is the uppercase name centred above a block of dialogue that tells the reader who is speaking. Extensions like (V.O.), (O.S.), or (CONT'D) attach to the cue to mark voice-over, off-screen delivery, or continued speech across a page break.Read
- DialogueDialogue is the spoken text a character delivers in a screenplay. It sits in a narrow column beneath the character cue, indented from both margins. Screenplay dialogue is formatted distinctly from action so a reader — and an actor — can find every line at a glance.Read
- Dual dialogueDual dialogue is the formatting used when two characters speak at the same time, with their lines set in two side-by-side columns. It signals that the speeches overlap rather than alternate — useful for arguments, interruptions, and crowd moments where simultaneity is the point.Read
- Fade In"FADE IN:" is the transition that traditionally opens a screenplay, set flush left at the very top of page one. Its mirror, "FADE OUT.", closes the script. The pair brackets the screenplay the way a curtain frames a stage — the image rising from and settling back into black.Read
- Mini-slugA mini-slug is a short, partial scene heading used to move the eye within a single location without resetting the scene. Writers use them — a single word like "KITCHEN" or "ON THE PHONE" — to control pace and direct attention inside a master scene, without the overhead of a full slugline.Read
- Off-Screen (O.S.)Off-screen, abbreviated (O.S.), marks dialogue or sound from a source that is physically present in the scene but outside the frame — a character calling from the next room. On multi-camera shows the equivalent is (O.C.), off-camera. Both attach to the character cue.Read
- ParentheticalA parenthetical, sometimes called a wryly, is a short instruction in parentheses inside a dialogue block. It notes how a line is delivered or what a character does mid-speech — "(whispering)", "(to Sam)". Used sparingly, it clarifies; overused, it steps on the actor's job.Read
- SluglineA slugline is the scene heading that opens every scene in a screenplay. It names whether the scene is interior or exterior, the location, and the time of day — for example, "INT. KITCHEN — NIGHT." Sluglines are set in all caps and tell the reader, and later the crew, exactly where and when the action happens.Read
- TransitionA transition is an uppercase cue — "CUT TO:", "DISSOLVE TO:", "SMASH CUT TO:" — that marks how one scene gives way to the next. Set flush right, transitions signal an edit. Modern spec scripts use them lightly, since a hard cut between scenes is already implied.Read
- Voice-Over (V.O.)Voice-over, abbreviated (V.O.), marks dialogue spoken by a character who is not physically present in the scene as a sound source — narration, a remembered line, a phone voice routed through a device. The (V.O.) extension sits next to the character cue to flag it for the reader and the sound team.Read
Craft technique
- Cold openA cold open, also called a teaser, is the scene that runs before a show's title sequence. It drops the audience into action with no setup, doing three jobs at once: hooking attention, establishing tone, and planting the question the episode will answer. Common in television and many features.Read
- IntercutAn intercut is an instruction to cut back and forth between two locations that are happening at the same time — most often a phone call between two rooms. Writing "INTERCUT" once lets the dialogue alternate without repeating a full slugline for every switch, keeping the exchange fast on the page.Read
- Match cutA match cut transitions between two scenes by aligning a shape, motion, or composition across the join — a thrown bone cutting to a spacecraft, a round mirror to a round moon. Written "MATCH CUT TO:", it links scenes through visual rhyme, carrying an idea forward without dialogue.Read
- MontageA montage is a sequence of short shots, presented as a list, that compresses time or shows a process — training, falling in love, a city waking up. In a screenplay it is headed "MONTAGE" and broken into lettered or bulleted beats, each a single image, often scored to carry the passage of time.Read
- Smash cutA smash cut is an abrupt, jarring transition from one scene to a sharply contrasting one — loud to silent, calm to chaos — with no easing between them. Written "SMASH CUT TO:" flush right, it is used for shock, comedy, or to slam two opposing images together for effect.Read
- TagA tag is a short scene at the very end of a television episode, after the final act break, used to land a last laugh, a quiet character beat, or a hook into the next episode. It is the bookend to the teaser — brief, pointed, and often played over or just before the end credits.Read
- TeaserA teaser is the pre-title scene in a television script, named for its job of teasing the audience into the episode. In hour drama it is the engine that sets up the week's story; the closing counterpart, the tag, is a short scene after the final act that lands a button or a hook into next week.Read
Story structure
- Act breakAn act break is the structural turning point where one act ends and the next begins — a decisive shift that raises the stakes and changes the direction of the story. In television it is also the literal break for a commercial, written to leave the audience on a hook that survives the ad.Read
- All is lostThe all-is-lost moment is the story's low point, late in the second act, where the protagonist's plan collapses and the goal looks unreachable. It is the dramatic floor — the defeat that forces the character to change before the final push — and is often immediately followed by the "dark night of the soul."Read
- BeatA beat is the smallest unit of story — a single moment of change, decision, or shift in a character's emotional position. Writers also use "beat" as an in-script pause, written on its own line, to mark a held moment in dialogue. In both senses it is the basic pulse of dramatic action.Read
- Beat sheetA beat sheet is a one-page outline that maps a story's major turning points — opening image, catalyst, midpoint, all-is-lost, finale — before a word of script is written. The best-known is Blake Snyder's fifteen-beat Save the Cat sheet, which assigns each beat an approximate page in a feature.Read
- MidpointThe midpoint is the major turn at the centre of a story, around the halfway mark, that reframes the protagonist's situation — a false victory, a false defeat, or a revelation that changes the stakes. It splits the long second act in two and gives the middle of a script its forward drive.Read
- SceneA scene is a single unit of dramatic action that takes place in one location and one continuous stretch of time, opened by a slugline. It is the basic building block of a screenplay: a scene begins when the place or time changes and carries one clear piece of the story forward.Read
- SequenceA sequence is a run of scenes that together form one self-contained movement of a story, with its own small beginning, middle, and end. The classic feature is often built as roughly eight sequences of ten to fifteen minutes each — a mid-level unit between the individual scene and the full act.Read
Documents & drafts
- LoglineA logline is a one- or two-sentence summary of a screenplay that names the protagonist, their goal, and the central conflict standing in the way. It is the script's elevator pitch — but more than marketing, it is a structural test: if you cannot write a clean logline, the story usually has a hole.Read
- ScriptmentA scriptment is a hybrid document, part script and part treatment, that mixes prose storytelling with occasional formatted scenes and dialogue. Coined by James Cameron, it lets a writer sketch a film at treatment speed while dropping into full scene format wherever a moment needs to play in detail.Read
- Spec scriptA spec script is a screenplay written on speculation — without a commission or a buyer — to sell on the open market or to showcase a writer's voice. Spec format is clean and reader-focused: no shot numbers, no camera directions, no production markup, since its only job is to be read and bought.Read
- SynopsisA synopsis is a brief prose summary of a screenplay's story, usually a paragraph to a page, that captures the premise, the main characters, and the arc through to the ending. Unlike a logline it includes the resolution, and unlike a treatment it stays high-level rather than scene-by-scene.Read
- TreatmentA treatment is a prose retelling of a screenplay's full story, written in the present tense and running anywhere from one to a dozen-plus pages. It walks through the plot scene by scene without dialogue or formatting, used to develop, pitch, or sell a story before the script exists.Read
Production & revisions
- A-pageAn A-page is an inserted page in a locked shooting script that adds material without renumbering the pages that follow. When new content lengthens page 12, the overflow becomes page 12A (then 12B, and so on), so page 13 keeps its number and every department's existing references stay valid.Read
- OMIT / OMITTEDOMIT, or OMITTED, is the label that replaces a deleted scene in a locked shooting script. Rather than removing scene 47 and renumbering everything after it, the script keeps the number and marks it "47 OMITTED," so the deletion is visible and every later scene number stays exactly where it was.Read
- Revision marksRevision marks are the asterisks in the right margin of a shooting script that flag exactly which lines changed in the latest revision. Paired with a rotating sequence of coloured pages — blue, pink, yellow, and so on — they let a crew see at a glance what is new without re-reading the whole script.Read
- Scene numbersScene numbers are the figures placed beside each slugline in a shooting script so every scene has a stable address. Once a script is "locked," these numbers never change: new scenes get letter suffixes (47A) and deleted scenes are marked OMITTED, so the whole crew keeps referring to the same set.Read
- Shooting scriptA shooting script is the production-locked version of a screenplay, with every scene numbered and revisions tracked, used by the crew to plan and shoot the film. Unlike a spec, it carries scene numbers, locked pages, and coloured revision pages so the whole production references one stable document.Read
- SidesSides are the small excerpts of a script handed out for a specific purpose — the few pages an actor reads for an audition, or the scenes scheduled for a single day of shooting. Pulled from the full screenplay, sides give a performer or crew exactly the pages they need and nothing more.Read
- STETSTET is the proofreading mark — Latin for "let it stand" — used on a revised shooting script to cancel a change and restore the original text. When a line was altered in a previous revision and the team decides to revert it, STET in the margin tells everyone to ignore the edit and keep the line as it was.Read