How Do You Format A Screenplay Without Screenwriting Software?
I wrote my first screenplay on a $7 plastic toy Japanese typewriter when I was flat broke. While screenplay formatting software like Final Draft and Movie Magic Screenwriter are great timesavers and are considered by many screenwriters and producers as the industry standard, you can manually format your screenplay without spending the (approximately) $250. Manual formatting is not as daunting a task as you might imagine. Acquire at least a couple copies of screenplays, preferably from films that have already been produced. Study these scripts and compare each script’s formatting. For my first script, I bought several used screenplays from the venerable Larry Edmunds Bookstore on Hollywood Boulevard. If you can’t make it to L.A., you can find freebie screenplay samples online at sites such as Drew’s Script-O-Rama. For the most part, submission script formatting involves just four elements: Scene Headings, Scene Action Descriptions, Character Names (dialogue headers), and Character Dialo
