Ok, we have a lot of "How to draw tutorials", but we don't have "How to make a script" tutorial, thats why I want to make this tutorial (Yeah I know I'm not the greastes English speaker in here, but I at least I can show people how to make a structure in their scripts).

There are million types of scripts, depending if you write for movies, theater or comics, and even so, something I mix stuffs to make it more easy to me. But in here we are going just to see how to make a script in Word (a program that most people have).

First, you open your word text, and you write. Pretty easy, isn't it? But to make it more easy, try to write the name of your story (if you have your name already in your head) and write the name of the characters (some times is awful when you are changing names when you are already writting the script, so chose the names before). Also write about what are you going to talk in this story and how is going to be the progression, this can make easy for you to remember important stuffs and to not be to creative.

After that, you start writting the script. Put the page number in the corner and always try to mark everything so is easly to find.

Page 1.

After that, you are going to use numerations (there is a application in word for this) for every vignette, and you are going to write what is happening in that vignette, the character that appear, how they look, etc. Be very specific about everything.

1. In a dark swamp covered by a fog. The hero was walking in it, with his armor trapped in the mug. Shot is looked from a wide look. etc.etc.

For the dialogues, you make a pountuation (another application of word) with the name of the character and what he/she said. Also you can change this for a though or monologue, only writting (Though) or (monologue).

·The Hero: Save the king and we will live!

·A guy in the crowd (Though): Yeah right. We are going to live under the king.

For sound effect, use a (SFX: sound). There is a list of Sound Effect on the forum, so you can pic from there.

Final Example:

Page 4.

1. The brave warrior walk down a large circular stair, where you can only see what the torch light up. The walls and stairs of stone are covered with spider nest, rats and other dirty creatures.

·Voice: Come down brave warrior.

·Voice: Come down.

2. The warrior stomp in a skull (SFX: Crack).

3. The warrior look down him with a disgusted face and the torch lighting up his feet.

·Warrior (Tought): This is disgusting.


Also, use colors to mark some important things, but don't over use colours, because it might create noise.


Well this is how you write a script. If you like, great, if you dislike, good for you, if you have another way, post it. As I said there are millions of ways, but this is quiet easy.

1.

Why? unless you are on a computer where you are not allowed to install programs you should just use Celtx (http://celtx.com/) it's software for writing scripts and essentially does the formatting for you. even has different project types ( i.e. movie, play, comic, etc...) and best of all it's free (actually surprised no one has already responded with that since i first heard of it here)


2.
A good book to look into as far as writign scripts is Screenplay : the foundations of screenwriting by Syd Field. it mostly deals with movie scripts but the formatting and organization it talks about are somewhat universal ( obviously some things are exclusive to certain mediums such as panels for comics)

3.
My personal way of writing a script


Note, most of what i know is stage and film kind of stuff. and so this example is more in line with that, but like i said before the general ideas are much the same

<1> = Scene Title
What the name of the scene is, probably not used in comics ( assuming most of you on here are writing for comics) in which case it would likely be replaced by a page number or something...)

<2> = Shot Header
What is the shot looking, basically the who, when, and what were looking. usually formatted as: <INT./EXT.> ( short for interior or exterior) <NAME Of PLACE> <SHOT TYPE> - <TIME>. As for shot types, if you can't think of an exact shot for the scene just think about what the scene focuses on and "FAVORING <Subject>" like i did in the example, if you want to use a certain shot though, you can find a good list here (as well as some links to good rules of thumb like the stage line/ 180 degree rule)

<3> = Description/action
Basically a more detailed description of the setting along side a description of what's happening in the scene. Basically describe everything thats in that camera shot, the more detail the better. Rember a script is a technical document, not a story so don't worry if the description is dry, worry about how thorough it is.

<4> = Speaking Character
Who is going to talk, pretty self explanatory.

<5> = Parenthetical
Details as to how the speaker is talking, if they are off camera, yelling, sad, flailing there arms about, punching someone else in the face, whatever is important in regards to the speaker while talking

<6> = Dialog
What is being said, again simple and self explanatory.

well anyways thats the jist of how i do it and what not, there are certain things on formatting not covered ( such as 4, 5, and 6 usually being centered while everything else is left justified) but formatting shouldn't be a big concern, even less so if you are using something like celtx