GlossaryPage elements
Dialogue
Dialogue 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.
Dialogue is set in its own indented block under the character cue. The narrow measure is deliberate: it keeps speeches from sprawling and gives a rough visual sense of how long a line will play on screen.
Parentheticals (wrylies) can sit inside a dialogue block to note delivery or a small action, but they are used sparingly — most direction belongs to the actor and director, not the page.
SAM
You said nine. It's nine-thirty.
JORDAN
(checking the door)
I said about nine.