HOW TO WRITE A SCREENPLAY (SCRIPT) PT. 19

PRINTING YOUR SCRIPT
Mentor John August has THIS great post about the last steps he takes to proofread and prepare a script before sending it off. For some unknown reason, human eyes can see typos on paper that they failed to see on the computer, so it will be essential to print out your screenplay for a "fresh set of eyes" view. Speaking of which, get a friend or family member, or anyone else who is willing to read your script for errors. They might see a typo or something that doesn't add up.

Our teacher also has some good TIPS on how to avoid wasting too much paper.

The NICHOLL AWARDS site displays a list of formatting problems that might give a bad first impression to a reader, in other words, as quoted from the site, avoid:

1.Typo/misspelling on the title page.
2.Typo/misspelling in the first scene header.
3.Typos/misspellings in the first sentence or paragraph or page.
4.Triple/double spacing of every/many line(s) on first page.
5.Lack of spacing between scene header and description and/or between description and dialogue and/or between dialogue and dialogue.
6.Use of font other than Courier 12-point, ten-pitch, non-proportional.
7.Extensive use of bold print.
8.Dialogue that stretches from the left margin to the right margin.
9.Extra space between character name and dialogue.
10.Description and/or dialogue typed ALL CAPS.
11.Extremely narrow or extremely wide outside margins.
12.Long, long, long descriptive passages.
13.Handwritten or hand-printed script.
14.Other glaring, non-standard format usage.

If you're using a script-editing program, most of that should be taken care of, if you proofread, that is.

If you're using the free Cinergy Script Editor that I suggested and linked, there's one slight problem to work out concerning the TITLE of your script. Cinergy insists on printing your title on the upper left hand of every page, not just on the cover.

To avoid this, prior to printing, go to
file>project setup>project title
and leave it blank.

Print your full script, then create a new blank page, filling in the title and pertinent info at the same tab, then print out your title page and attach it to your script.

By the way, title pages are never numbered, just your title, your name, contact info, and revision date, which the program will take care of itself.

Happy printing, and have a good read!