Today, here are some tips on how to do the above – write action lines like the ones you see in Hollywood screenplays. Style can make or break a script, or turn a great story into a terrible script.
The main aim of all stylistic devices in a screenplay is… to get the reader to read yor script.
That’s it.
So how do you do that?
Create suspense.
Use short sentences.
Make it a vertical reading experience.
See?
Here are some examples:
The “vertical” style was perhaps most famously used in “Alien”. Here is a sample taken from the revised script by Walther Hill and David Giler, based on the original script by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett:
“SOMETIME IN THE FUTURE:
INT. ENGINE ROOM
Empty, cavernous.
INT. ENGINE CUBICLE
Circular, jammed with instruments.
All of them idle.
Console chairs for two.
Empty.
INT. OILY CORRIDOR – “C” LEVEL
Long, dark.
Empty.
Turbos throbbing.
No other movement.
INT. CORRIDOR – “A” LEVEL
Long, empty.
INT. INFIRMARY – “A” LEVEL
Distressed ivory walls.
All instrumentation at rest.”
Pretty obvious why it’s called the “vertical” style, right? The aim is to make the reader’s eye naturally flow down the page thus causing him or her to TURN OVER and start reading the next page. Do that enough times and the reader will actually finish your screenplay.
But you don’t need to be so drastic. Back in 1978 that was fresh writing. Nowadays it’s more a throwback. Also, this tends to use up a lot of pages.
Here’s a slightly more modern example, from a draft of “Scream” written by Kevin Williamson:
“FADE IN
ON A RINGING TELEPHONE.
A hand reaches for it, bringing the receiver up to the face of
CASEY BECKER, a young girl, no more than sixteen. A friendly face
with innocent eyes.
CASEY
Hello.
MAN’S VOICE
(from phone)
Hello.
Silence.
CASEY
Yes.
MAN
Who is this?
CASEY
Who are you trying to reach?
MAN
What number is this?
CASEY
What number are you trying to reach?
MAN
I don’t know.
CASEY
I think you have the wrong number.
MAN
Do I?
CASEY
It happens. Take it easy.
CLICK! She hangs up the phone. The CAMERA PULLS BACK to reveal
Casey in a living room, alone. She moves from the living room to
the kitchen. It’s a nice house. Affluent.
The phone RINGS again.
INT. KITCHEN
Casey grabs the portable.
CASEY
Hello.
MAN
I’m sorry. I guess I dialed the wrong number.
CASEY
So why did you dial it again?
MAN
To apologize.
CASEY
You’re forgiven. Bye now.
MAN
Wait, wait, don’t hang up.
Casey stands in front of a sliding glass door. It’s pitch black
outside.
CASEY
What?
MAN
I want to talk to you for a second.
CASEY
They’ve got 900 numbers for that. Seeya.
CLICK! Casey hangs up. A grin on her face.
EXT. CASEY’S HOUSE – NIGHT – ESTABLISHING
A big country home with a huge sprawling lawn full of big oak
trees. It sits alone with no neighbors in sight.
The phone RINGS again.”
This is a nice, flowing style that leads your eye down the page. Notice how the sentences are short. Clipped. And, in some cases, incomplete.
There is also far less detail than you think in these lines. The writers were adept at using minimal words to convey a setting. The reader’s mind fils in the blanks. In fact “Alien” uses only two words to describe a spaceship’s engine room.
So the next time you think about adding a ten-line paragraph to explain that this is a comfortable, well-furnished craftsman-style house that nestles on the edge of town surrounded by sycamore trees with a luxury car parked on the drive outside… think again.
Which brings me to my second tip .
Don’t overdo it.
Some sentences belong together. When you try to force them into a vertical pattern, you actually break the flow and make it more difficult to read down the page. For example, here’s a passage from the script of “The Bourne Identity” by Tony Gilroy, based on the novel by Robert Ludlum:
“INT. FISHING BOAT BUNK ROOM — DAWN — TIME CUTS
Transformed into a makeshift operating room. A light swings
overhead. THE MAN layed out across the table. Sounds —
groans — words — snatches of them — all in different
languages.
GIANCARLO playing doctor in a greasy kitchen apron. Cutting
away the clothes. Turning THE MAN on his side. Two bullet
wounds in the back. Probing them, judging them.
Now — GIANCARLO with a flashlight in his teeth — TINK —
TINK — TINK — bullet fragments falling into a washed-out
olive jar.
Now — something catching GIANCARLO’S EYE — A SCAR ON THE
MAN’S HIP — another fragment — exacto knife cutting in —
tweezers extracting A SMALL PLASTIC TUBE, not a bullet at
all, and as it comes free —
THE MAN’S HAND SLAMS down onto GIANCARLO’S”…
This is still a pretty vertical read. However it would have been even more vertical to separate each sentence out onto separate lines, like so:
“Transformed into a makeshift operating room.
A light swings overhead.
THE MAN layed out across the table.
Sounds — groans — words — snatches of them — all in different languages.
GIANCARLO playing doctor in a greasy kitchen apron.
Cutting away the clothes…”
And so on. But does this make it any better? No. Sometimes it’s worse to force the reader to look at a new line. The most important thing is to preserve the flow. I’ve read lots of amateaur screenplays where the writer thought they were doing the reader a favour by splitting lines up in this way. But it actualy makes it harder to read them.
It’s a judgment call. And the best way to decide is to look at other scripts. There are plenty of them on the Internet these days. Break them down the way you would an Enlgiash Literature exercise.
And that’s exactly what we’ll be doing in Part 2.
See you then!
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