It's More Like Guidelines, Anyway

Screenplay Formatting

Brian Koppelman told us: 

All screenwriting books are bullshit. All. Read screenplays. Watch movies.

Let them be your guide.

I agree. What’s also true, is that the complete newbie needs to know a few things – like what a screenplay looks like and how to format it.

Dave Trottier in his The Screenwriter’s Bible gives a lot of great information for the newbie screenwriter. And his columns are full of good suggestions. SUGGESTIONS. 

When Koppelman tells us to read screenplays, one of the first things to notice is how often the best ones break the rules. You action paras should only be 4 lines long? Break up your actions pages with dialogue? No camera directions? Read The Usual Suspects. How many rules can you break on page 1?

But even Trottier will tell you that the point is to tell your story. That’s what McQuarrie did. I have no advice. I just want to keep the idea alive that we aren’t engineers, even though a story does have to be structured, at least a bit. We’re story tellers.

I have an absolute love for reference books. I think Trottier’s is an excellent one. But to understand screenwriting:

Read screenplays. Watch movies.