Why is the formatting to write a stage play less rigid than a screenplay? I read that recently and wondered what would cause that.
Format question
- Thread starter Coco82
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I can't say with any certainty why, but it's certainly true.
A best-guess is that unlike a screenplay, which routinely undergoes a bazilliion rewrites done by multiple people, a play tends to be the work of a single playwright who can select one of the acceptable formats which works for him or her and make revisions and such adhering to it.
You get nine writers diddling or ripping apart and reassembling a screenplay, and you need rigid rules on what goes where.
Maryn, usually a decent guesser
A best-guess is that unlike a screenplay, which routinely undergoes a bazilliion rewrites done by multiple people, a play tends to be the work of a single playwright who can select one of the acceptable formats which works for him or her and make revisions and such adhering to it.
You get nine writers diddling or ripping apart and reassembling a screenplay, and you need rigid rules on what goes where.
Maryn, usually a decent guesser
I read a book recently on screenplay writing and the author couldn't say enough about Final Draft & how it was the industry standard. It;s kinda hard if you can't afford it. I know there's free software like Celtx, but had issues downloading Celtx this week.
Format, Final Draft, etc.
I assume you are really interested in stage plays, since your question seemed to address script format for stage.
For stage plays, you definitely do not need Final Draft or any other dedicated scriptwriting program.
All you need is a good word processing program. Most people have Word anyway. It works just fine. You do, however, have to create a template or download a free one from somewhere. Don't let "template" be a scary word for you. It just refers to a set of paragraph styles that you will be using. I have created all kinds of templates in Word, and in the free programs Open Office.org (OOo) and LibreOffice (LO).
Anyway, use Word, if you have it, or download the free LibreOffice.
(LO is the replacement for Open Office.org. The developers of OOo got tired of dealing with Oracle and have now forked the program over to LibreOffice, which is almost identical to OOo. I just downloaded LO this week after I read something about it here on AW. I recommend LO. Avoid shelling out more money to Microsoft.)
I have always found Celtx just cumbersome to use. I probably have not used it enough to get used to it. I will say, too, that I prefer a completely independent, standalone program like a word processor.
Most of the theaters and contests that I have read about in Writers Market specify that they want a Word .doc file if they ask for an electronic submission. You can save to .doc from LibreOffice. (I recommend the format described as Word 97, Word 2000, and XP; I have used this choice and know it works.)
As for the variety of formats for stage plays, the "production" format in the U.S. is fairly standard with regard to placement of Character Name, Dialogue, and Parentheticals. It is the Action paragraphs that vary. Forget about the appearance of published plays, since they are set up to save paper in printing.
I assume you are really interested in stage plays, since your question seemed to address script format for stage.
For stage plays, you definitely do not need Final Draft or any other dedicated scriptwriting program.
All you need is a good word processing program. Most people have Word anyway. It works just fine. You do, however, have to create a template or download a free one from somewhere. Don't let "template" be a scary word for you. It just refers to a set of paragraph styles that you will be using. I have created all kinds of templates in Word, and in the free programs Open Office.org (OOo) and LibreOffice (LO).
Anyway, use Word, if you have it, or download the free LibreOffice.
(LO is the replacement for Open Office.org. The developers of OOo got tired of dealing with Oracle and have now forked the program over to LibreOffice, which is almost identical to OOo. I just downloaded LO this week after I read something about it here on AW. I recommend LO. Avoid shelling out more money to Microsoft.)
I have always found Celtx just cumbersome to use. I probably have not used it enough to get used to it. I will say, too, that I prefer a completely independent, standalone program like a word processor.
Most of the theaters and contests that I have read about in Writers Market specify that they want a Word .doc file if they ask for an electronic submission. You can save to .doc from LibreOffice. (I recommend the format described as Word 97, Word 2000, and XP; I have used this choice and know it works.)
As for the variety of formats for stage plays, the "production" format in the U.S. is fairly standard with regard to placement of Character Name, Dialogue, and Parentheticals. It is the Action paragraphs that vary. Forget about the appearance of published plays, since they are set up to save paper in printing.
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I don't write stageplays, but I will say that Final Draft is a breath of fresh air from Celtx. Especially with regards to industry standards. It gives you a lot more control regarding headers.
So I'll second what Maryn said though I wish it wasn't true. Sometimes, screenplays are re-written so much that they barely resemble the original. And that's why they need a standard formatting that most people don't deviate from. Most meaning spec writers trying to break in. For those like Diablo Cody, they can get away with a lot in their specs.
Money and crew size.
Even a low budget film costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and requires a small army of people for production and post.
The fairly rigid standardization comes from the need to always have the same kind of information in the same place, so that the everyone can use the script for budgeting, scheduling, and overall planning purposes.
Even a low budget film costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and requires a small army of people for production and post.
The fairly rigid standardization comes from the need to always have the same kind of information in the same place, so that the everyone can use the script for budgeting, scheduling, and overall planning purposes.