Description??

there are no laws. there are no rules. only guidelines. and newbies trying to break in should stick to the best guidelines they can find.

also, when you read produced scripts there are so many factors that need to be factored in when it comes to using their formatting as a guide. ie - is the writer the director? was the writer hired to write the script? therefore, it's not a "spec" script. is it a seasoned writer who has the clout to write the scripts any way they want to? etc... imo - most produced scripts have "storytelling" and "character arc" value. formatting really is secondary to writing a great script b/c formatting can always be fixed but a crappy story requires hard work to fix.

a better "script" guide for us to use is one that has recently been sold by a new writer or one that has won a screenwriting competition. but these are much more difficult to find online.

another book you might want invest in is: How Not to Write a Screenplay it has specific examples of common mistakes that most of us make with specific examples of how to fix them and make them better.

I have the How Not To Write A Screenplay and can highly reccomend it as a very useful book with tons of examples of produced screenplays.
A very valuable book

I generally never exceed four lines of action paragraph. But I have exceeded it just a few times, and each instance that I did so happened toward the very end of the script when the climax was happening. I usualy have a visual there at the end that is so strong that the action paragraph becomes very weighty.

If they wanna ding me for doing one or maybe two such longer-than-four-lines parapgraphs that will only be found way the heck out on Page 105, then so be it.

My rationalle is that if they are reading as far as Page 105, I probably have them hooked anyway. And it's only one paragraph out of hundreds (possibly thousands) that it happens with.