Hi again! Ok, according to David Trottier's book, we should not end a page with a scene heading. I want to know if this includes secondary headings too. Thanks people!!!
ending a page with scene headings & mini slugs
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Yes. Don't end a page with any kind of heading, or with a character name with the dialogue carrying over to the following page.
Dedicated screenwriting software will prevent this from happening.
NMS
When it's a new scene-heading and it falls at the very bottom of a page, it's called an "orphan." Final Draft won't even allow orphans to happen. The prgramming automatically shoots you onto the next page.
As for secondary headings (or "mini-slugs") I'm torn on this one myself. So I play it safe and never do it. (I never even paid attention to whether Final Draft sends it to the next page because I usually just very hastilly make it an "ACTION" instead of an actual "SCENE-HEADING." And so the programming defaults for Final Draft are unable to make the decision for me.)
::ETA::
Darn you, NMS, you beat me to it again!
Hmm, ok. Thanks. I am using MM2000 and it does not correct that stuff it seems. I have dialogue spilling over onto other pages too. I'll go correct it all now. 
Wait, so is it ok to end a page like this:
EXAMPLE:
The car stops within an inch of a screaming
-------------------------------------------PAGE BREAK
EDWARDS
who dives out of the way.
EXAMPLE:
The car stops within an inch of a screaming
-------------------------------------------PAGE BREAK
EDWARDS
who dives out of the way.
don't waste your time making these corrections during the writing process. it will be a never ending go around. you will be (or should be) making so many changes and rewrites that wherever that page break is now it's sure to be moved by the time you print it out.
and if david trottier says do it this way, not that way there is no need to question it. he's written the fricken screenwriter's bible, dude. don't you get it?!
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MM2000 corrects everything you want it to correct -- you have control. The software will not allow orphaned scene headings right at the bottom of a page, they will be pushed over onto the next page so they remain linked with that scene's action/dialogue.
Options exist to control action and dialogue breaks:
Select Format > Edit Script Formats > Page Breaks button
If you don't want action lines to break, you can set "Break Action" to Do Not Break Action
If you don't want dialogue to break, you can set "Break Dialogue" to Do Not Break Dialogue
I like having these options active, it encourages me to write shorter, easier-to-read action and dialogue blocks. If I'm not paying close attention and get near the bottom of a page, and a whole block of dialogue gets moved onto the next page, leaving a noticable gap at the bottom of the previous page, I know it's time to edit.
You can also tick the "Save as Defaults for all New Scripts" box to save these settings so they are already switched on when you start a new script.
-Derek
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I appreciate you're only writing an example to illustrate your question, but I just wouldn't write it that way, it's breaking the action up for no particular reason, making it harder to understand rather than easier (which should be your goal).
How about a scene mini-slug example instead?
EXT. MCMANSION IN THE SUBURBS - NIGHT
Edwards watches the darkened house from his parked car.
He pulls down a ski mask, hiding his face.
INT. ENTRANCE HALL - NIGHT
The lock clicks -- the door opens -- Edwards slips inside.
LIVING ROOM
Edwards uses a tiny flashlight to search the room.
KITCHEN
-------------------------------------------PAGE BREAK
Edwards checks drawers, cupboards, under the sink.
...I wouldn't manually push KITCHEN onto the next page. If that's what you're asking?
-Derek
But if you don't manually push it to the top of the next page won't you be ending a page with a heading - which shouldn't be done?
This is exactly why I find it so difficult to decide on it myself.
And here, we have two conflicting opinions in the thread by NMS and Derek, both of whom usually have awesome answers.
Part of me feels like maybe the "cliff-hanger" aspect of pushing the mini-slug onto the next page can work.
Maybe the solution is this ...
... Maybe we can end the action paragraph found at the bottom of the page with an elipsis, thus enhancing the "cliff-hanger" intentionality for the reader. That way, we can simultaneously satisfy BOTH the NMSes out there AND the Dereks out there. (And we can also make our script into a literal "page-turner!"
)
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A simple edit -- inserting a blank line or two -- to push the KITCHEN mini-slug over onto the next page would do the biz.
But that doesn't really matter, for a couple of reasons.
As you re-edit other pages, inserting lines and deleting lines, the placement of KITCHEN is going to be altered anyway. It might end up halfway down the next page. It might end up appearing two pages earlier. You might delete the scene. Who knows what could happen? So why angst about whether KITCHEN gets moved onto the next page right now?
Also bear in mind, you're writing a spec script. The person who'll be reading this is a script reader. As long as they notice that the scene has moved to the kitchen, that's all that matters.
If the prodco buys your script? It's likely that someone will rework it anyway, replacing mini-slugs with scene headings, creating a production script. Mini-slugs give a faster, lighter read, that's all. They're really just place-holders for the full scene headings.
Hence my "it just doesn't matter" opinion. But I'm also just another aspiring screenwriter, same as you. I'm only offering advice, not gospel.
-Derek
But that doesn't really matter, for a couple of reasons.
As you re-edit other pages, inserting lines and deleting lines, the placement of KITCHEN is going to be altered anyway. It might end up halfway down the next page. It might end up appearing two pages earlier. You might delete the scene. Who knows what could happen? So why angst about whether KITCHEN gets moved onto the next page right now?
Also bear in mind, you're writing a spec script. The person who'll be reading this is a script reader. As long as they notice that the scene has moved to the kitchen, that's all that matters.
If the prodco buys your script? It's likely that someone will rework it anyway, replacing mini-slugs with scene headings, creating a production script. Mini-slugs give a faster, lighter read, that's all. They're really just place-holders for the full scene headings.
Hence my "it just doesn't matter" opinion. But I'm also just another aspiring screenwriter, same as you. I'm only offering advice, not gospel.
-Derek
Well, we're running into two different issues.
For me, a scene heading should indicate a Scene Location.
INT., PIT OF HELL, MORNING
or
PIT OF HELL
or
IN THE LOBBY
or sometimes if, for instance, you've got a big party scene, and you want to delineate groups of people within that party who may be moving around, you might say:
WITH GEORGE AND MARY
If I were writing and found that I had a slug line, like any of the above at the very bottom of the page, I would push it the top of the next page. Final Draft, as others have said, does this automatically.
What I probably *wouldn't* do, in the absence of an automatic feature that made such corrections, would be to push it to the top of the next page as I went along, because obviously, over the course of writing and rewriting, just where all of these things are going to finally end up will change a hundred times before the script reaches that point where I'm going to send it out and you don't want it to be full of those extra spaces that no longer have any reason for being there.
So if I didn't have a dedicated program that fixed that stuff as I went along, I'd wait until I had a finished draft ready to go, make a separate copy, a "send draft" -- and then go through it and make those adjustments just for that particular draft, and send it out.
Then, if I needed to go back, make changes, cuts, adjustments, revisions, I'd go back to the working draft, do whatever I had to do, and again, only when I wanted to send it out, would I make another "send" draft -- and fix all of those widow/orphan issues.
That's one issue.
But to me:
MICHAEL
is not a slug line, not even a mini-slug line.
I know that people do it, and that they even use this weird construction that goes something like - I was writing this
SCREENPLAY
when suddenly the urge came across me to write this
SLUG LINE
that really didn't have anything in particular to do with a change in location but was really sort of designed to be a kind of stand in for a
CLOSE-UP
or maybe something like that, so it's really much more a matter of my trying to
DIRECT ON THE PAGE
rather than actually using slug lines, whether complete or partial as they should be used, which is to specify locations and changes of locations, and instead use them in some sort of free-form way that isn't so great.
So to have a sentence that ends in the middle at the bottom of a page, because you have that odd construction in which a word in a slug line is being used as part of a sentence, or to have the slug line itself at the bottom of the page -- either one doesn't work, because that whole construction, to my mind, doesn't really work.
And yes, I know that a certain number of screenwriters do use it. But I must tell you that I really don't like it. It's taking something that has a really specific and meaningful production purpose -- that is, slug lines, and sort of turning it into something like free verse.
So, to me, the ultimate solution to this issue is to simply not use that problematic construction.
NMS
nmstevens said:
I think the only issue there regarding Final Draft (at least in the way my machine is set up) is that typing
ON A NEW LINE IN CAPS
doesn't mean anything to Final Draft until you highlight it and format it into a scene heading. Ergo, it won't shunt to the next page automatically just by typing it all in caps on its own line. You have to tell Final Draft what it's supposed to be.
But I wouldn't worry about this sort of thing until printing either. What you change now will invariably change again before that time.
YMMV
Or, what you can do to save time -- is this.
You want to write AT BOB'S PLACE as a short slug.
So you space down, type,
INT AT BOB'S PLACE
Final Draft sees the "int", and immediately recognizes it as a slug line and formats it that way.
Then, once you've typed "AT BOB'S PLACE" just space back and delete the INT. It's actually faster than having to highlight, go up and use the drop-down menu to identify the line as a slug line. And even with the INT gone, FD still recognizes the line as a slug line and preserves the appropriate formatting.
NMS
Nice one, Neal.
eta - I think you have to type the period after INT (INT. AT BOB'S PLACE) for it to recognise it as a scene heading.
Don't suppose there's a way to process it as a scene heading without the double-spacing? I don't really like the extra line it puts in after the description - at least, not for this kind of thing.
eta - I think you have to type the period after INT (INT. AT BOB'S PLACE) for it to recognise it as a scene heading.
Don't suppose there's a way to process it as a scene heading without the double-spacing? I don't really like the extra line it puts in after the description - at least, not for this kind of thing.
Last edited:
There is. I do it all the time.
Hit the drop-down box for "Format" and then "Space Before."
I just hit Enter again, which brings up the drop-down box, and press S.
I think that's even faster.
I think that's even faster.
Cool. But won't that remove the space before scene headings as well? Guess you can't have it both ways.
none of this matters if you use FD. when you print it points to ALL your errors (formatting, spacing, spelling, etc...) and explains why it's an error and you must choose at each instance whether to fix it or leave it as is. you can turn this feature off but i wouldn't recommend it.
Can i break this thread off into another page-ending question please?
i'm jusr re-re-re-re-editing a script, and in doing so, i've split a SEQUENCE OF SHOTS. there's about 10 shots in the sequence and it all used to be on one page ~ now it's split over two, what is the protocol : should i leave it as is, or should i put CONTINUEDs at the bottom/top of the relevant pages?
cheers
i'm jusr re-re-re-re-editing a script, and in doing so, i've split a SEQUENCE OF SHOTS. there's about 10 shots in the sequence and it all used to be on one page ~ now it's split over two, what is the protocol : should i leave it as is, or should i put CONTINUEDs at the bottom/top of the relevant pages?
cheers
Joe270
Banned
I'm not big on CONT. I figure the reader is smart enough to know the action continues.
As far as slug lines ending pages, etc., just read it. If it flows well, with a mini-slug becoming a hook, leave it. If it just looks odd, it ain't workin'. If a reader turns the page and is instantly lost, it ain't workin'.
If it doesn't keep the reading flowing forward, drop it to the next page. If the next page needs the line to keep the scene set, drop it to that page.
Above all, the readability of the script is what is most important.
As far as slug lines ending pages, etc., just read it. If it flows well, with a mini-slug becoming a hook, leave it. If it just looks odd, it ain't workin'. If a reader turns the page and is instantly lost, it ain't workin'.
If it doesn't keep the reading flowing forward, drop it to the next page. If the next page needs the line to keep the scene set, drop it to that page.
Above all, the readability of the script is what is most important.
(quote) I know that people do it, and that they even use this weird construction that goes something like - I was writing this
SCREENPLAY
when suddenly the urge came across me to write this
SLUG LINE
that really didn't have anything in particular to do with a change in location but was really sort of designed to be a kind of stand in for a
CLOSE-UP
or maybe something like that, so it's really much more a matter of my trying to
DIRECT ON THE PAGE (end quote)
sorry this is off-topic, but i've seen this, too, and isn't this style more or less usually just a huge waste of space where you could be showing the actual story and 'direct' in other ways?
SCREENPLAY
when suddenly the urge came across me to write this
SLUG LINE
that really didn't have anything in particular to do with a change in location but was really sort of designed to be a kind of stand in for a
CLOSE-UP
or maybe something like that, so it's really much more a matter of my trying to
DIRECT ON THE PAGE (end quote)
sorry this is off-topic, but i've seen this, too, and isn't this style more or less usually just a huge waste of space where you could be showing the actual story and 'direct' in other ways?
writerchick4
Registered
As a contest reader, these mini slugs drive me nuts. Maybe I'm just behind the times, but it seems to me they're a sign of a lazy writer. Not to mention inefficient. If the script is greenlit, you'll have to go back and change them all anyway for production or you risk screwing up the shoot.
Just my two cents....