# A Simple Way to Write Screenplays ## What is Fountain Syntax? Fountain syntax is a simple and straightforward way to write screenplays using just plain text. It's designed to be easy to use, even if you're not a tech expert. Instead of using complicated software, you can write your screenplay using any basic text editor like Notepad or TextEdit. It lets you focus on your creative storytelling without getting bogged down by technical details. It allows filmmakers to easily understand your vision and bring it to life on the screen. ## Key Features of Fountain Syntax: - **Scene Headings:** To start a new scene, you simply type a scene heading in ALL CAPS. This tells the reader where and when the scene takes place. - **Action Lines:** These describe what's happening in the scene. You write them like regular sentences, and they help set the mood and atmosphere. - **Character Names and Dialogue:** When a character speaks, you write their name in uppercase, followed by their dialogue. This helps actors know what to say and how to say it. - **Parentheticals:** Sometimes, you want to add a note about how a line should be delivered. You can do this in parentheses after the character's name. - **Transitions:** If you want to show a change of time or place, you can use a transition like "CUT TO:" or "DISSOLVE TO:". This helps the filmmaker understand how scenes connect. - **Bold and Italics:** You can use asterisks (\*) to make a word bold and underscores (\_) to make it italic. This can add emphasis to certain words or elements in your script. - **Page Breaks:** When you want to start a new page, just leave a blank line. This helps keep your script organized and easy to read. # Scene Headings A Scene Heading is any line that has a blank line following it, and either begins with **INT** or **EXT** or similar (full list below). A Scene Heading always has at least one blank line preceding it. Power user: You can “force” a Scene Heading by starting the line with a single period. Here’s a regular Scene Heading followed by a forced Scene Heading: ```text Steel, in the middle of a heated phone call: STEEL They’re coming out of the woodwork! (pause) No, everybody we’ve put away! (pause) Point Blank Sniper? .SNIPER SCOPE POV From what seems like only INCHES AWAY. _Steel’s face FILLS the *Leupold Mark 4* scope_. ``` **EXT. BRICK’S POOL - DAY** becomes a Scene Heading because of the **EXT**, but **SNIPER SCOPE POV** requires the period before it to force a Scene Heading element. The period is removed from the formatted output. Note that only a single leading period followed by an alphanumeric character will force a Scene Heading. This allows the writer to begin Action and Dialogue elements with ellipses without worry that they’ll be interpreted as Scene Headings. ```text EXT. OLYMPIA CIRCUS - NIGHT ...where the second-rate carnival is parked for the moment in an Alabama field. ``` Although uppercase is recommended for Scene Headings to increase readability, it is not required. This will still be recognized as a Scene Heading: ```text ext. brick’s pool - day ``` A line beginning with any of the following, followed by either a dot or a space, is considered a Scene Heading (unless the line is preceded by an exclamation point **!**). Case insensitive. - `INT` - `EXT` - `EST` - `INT./EXT` - `INT/EXT` - `I/E` **Power user:** Scene Headings can optionally be appended with Scene Numbers. Scene numbers are any alphanumerics (plus dashes and periods), wrapped in **#**. All of the following are valid scene numbers: - `INT. HOUSE - DAY #1#` - `INT. HOUSE - DAY #1A#` - `INT. HOUSE - DAY #1a#` - `INT. HOUSE - DAY #A1#` - `INT. HOUSE - DAY #I-1-A#` - `INT. HOUSE - DAY #1.#` - `INT. HOUSE - DAY - FLASHBACK (1944) #110A#` # Action Action, or scene description, is any paragraph that doesn’t meet criteria for another element (e.g. Scene Heading, Character, Dialogue, etc.). Fountain respects your line-by-line decision to single or double-space, taking every carriage return as intentional. ```text They drink long and well from the beers. And then there’s a long beat. Longer than is funny. Long enough to be depressing. The men look at each other. ``` **Power User:** You can force an Action element can by preceding it with an exclamation point **!**. This is helpful when Action is in uppercase and directly followed by another line of Action, preventing the two from being interpreted as Character and Dialogue elements. More on the line break logic can be found here(breaks link). Tabs and spaces are retained in Action elements, allowing writers to indent a line. Tabs are converted to four spaces. ```text He opens the card. A simple little number inside of which is hand written: Scott -- Jacob Billups Palace Hotel, RM 412 1:00 pm tomorrow Scott exasperatedly throws down the card on the table and picks up the phone, hitting speed dial #1… ``` Here the ten spaces before the text on the card are passed through to the formatted output. All lines in this example are Action. (Note that when an Action element is centered (link to centered), leading spaces are not preserved.) Action also respects vertical whitespace. Any number of empty lines in the Fountain file will be passed faithfully through to the formatted output as empty Action lines. # Character A Character element is any line entirely in uppercase, with one empty line before it and without an empty line after it. ```text STEEL The man’s a myth! ``` If you want to indent a Character element with tabs or spaces, you can, but it is not necessary. See [Indenting](#indenting). “Character Extensions” – the parenthetical notations that follow a character name on the same line – may be in uppercase or lowercase: ```text MOM (O. S.) Luke! Come down for supper! HANS (on the radio) What was it you said? ``` Character names must include at least one alphabetical character. “R2D2” works, but “23” does not. **Power User:** You can force a Character element by preceding it with the “at” symbol `@`. The ability to force a Character element is helpful for names that require lower-case letters, and for non-Roman languages. ```text @McCLANE Yippie ki-yay! I got my lower-case C back! ``` Fountain will remove the `@` and interpret `McCLANE` as Character, preserving its mixed case. # Dialogue Dialogue is any text following a Character or Parenthetical element. ```text SANBORN A good ‘ole boy. You know, loves the Army, blood runs green. Country boy. Seems solid. ``` Manual line breaks are allowed in Dialogue, as are intentionally “empty” lines–see the [Line Breaks](#line-breaks) section. ```text DAN Then let’s retire them. _Permanently_. ``` # Parenthetical Parentheticals follow a Character or Dialogue element, and are wrapped in parentheses `()`. ```text STEEL (starting the engine) So much for retirement! ``` # Dual Dialogue Dual, or simultaneous, dialogue is expressed by adding a caret `^` after the second Character element. ```text BRICK Screw retirement. STEEL ^ Screw retirement. Any number of spaces between the Character name and the caret are acceptable, and will be ignored. All that matters is that the caret is the last character on the line. ``` # Lyrics You create a Lyric by starting with a line with a tilde `~`. ```text ~Willy Wonka! Willy Wonka! The amazing chocolatier! ~Willy Wonka! Willy Wonka! Everybody give a cheer! ``` Fountain will remove the `~` and leave it up to the app to style the Lyric appropriately. Lyrics are always forced. There is no “automatic” way to get them. # Transition The requirements for Transition elements are: - Uppercase - Preceded by and followed by an empty line - Ending in `TO:` Example: ```text Jack begins to argue vociferously in Vietnamese (?), But mercifully we… CUT TO: EXT. BRICK’S POOL - DAY ``` **Power user:** You can force any line to be a transition by beginning it with a greater-than symbol `>`. ```text Brick and Steel regard one another. A job well done. > Burn to White. ``` **Power user:** If a line matches the rules for Transition, but you want in interpreted as something else, you have two options: - Precede it with a period to force a Scene Heading, or - Add one or more spaces after the colon to cause the line to be interpreted as Action (since the line no longer ends with a colon). # Centered Text Centered text constitutes an Action element, and is bracketed with greater/less-than: ```text >THE END< ``` Leading spaces are usually preserved in Action, but not for centered text, so you can add spaces between the text and the `><` if you like. ```text > THE END < ``` # Emphasis Fountain follows Markdown’s rules for emphasis, except that it reserves the use of underscores for underlining, which is not interchangeable with italics in a screenplay. - `_italics_` - `**bold**` - `**_bold italics_**` - `_underline_` In this way the writer can mix and match and combine bold, italics and underlining, as screenwriters often do. ```text From what seems like only INCHES AWAY. _Steel’s face FILLS the *Leupold Mark 4* scope_. ``` If you need to use any of the emphasis syntaxes verbatim, you escape the characters using the Markdown convention of a backslash (`\`): ```text Steel enters the code on the keypad: **\*9765\*** ``` Believe it or not, that turns into: > Steel enters the code on the keypad: **9765** As with Markdown, the spaces around the emphasis characters are meaningful. In this example, the asterisks would not trigger italics between them, because both have a space to the left: ```text He dialed *69 and then *23, and then hung up. ``` But in this case, the text between the asterisks would be italicized: > He dialed _69 and then 23_, and then hung up. The writer would need to escape one or both of the asterisks to avoid the accidental italics: ```text He dialed \*69 and then 23\*, and then hung up. ``` Also as with Markdown, emphasis is not carried across line breaks. So there are no italics in the formatted output of this example–just asterisks: ```text As he rattles off the long list, Brick and Steel \*share a look. This is going to be BAD.\* ``` # Title Page The optional Title Page is always the first thing in a Fountain document. Information is encoding in the format key: value. Keys can have spaces (e. g. Draft date), but must end with a colon. ```text Title: _**BRICK & STEEL**_ _**FULL RETIRED**_ Credit: Written by Author: Stu Maschwitz Source: Story by KTM Draft date: 1/20/2012 Contact: Next Level Productions 1588 Mission Dr. Solvang, CA 93463 ``` The recommendation is that Title, Credit, Author (or Authors, either is a valid key syntax), and Source will be centered on the page in formatted output. Contact and Draft date would be placed at the lower left. Values can be inline with the key or they can be indented on a newline below the key (as shown with Contact above). Indenting is 3 or more spaces, or a tab. The indenting pattern allows multiple values for the same key (multiple authors, multiple address lines). The key values may change, but those listed above comprise a minimal useful set. If you add unsupported key values to your document, they will be ignored, but you may find them useful as metadata. All Title Page parts are optional: ```text Draft date: 6/23/2012 ``` This is a valid Title Page. A page break is implicit after the Title Page. Just drop down two lines and start writing your screenplay. # Page Breaks Page Breaks are indicated by a line containing three or more consecutive equals signs, and nothing more. Page breaks are useful for television scripts, where act breaks are explicitly labeled, and for creating “vanity” first-pages featuring a quotation or prologue text. ```text The General Lee flies through the air. FREEZE FRAME. NARRATOR Shoot, to the Dukes that’s about like taking Grandma for a Sunday drive. > **End of Act One**< === > **Act Two**< The General Lee hangs in the air, right where we left it. The NARRATOR’S voice kicks in. ``` # Punctuation Some Markdown interpreters convert plain text shorthands for common punctuation to their typographical equivalencies. For example, three consecutive dashes become an em-dash, three consecutive periods becomes an ellipsis, and straight quotes become curly quotes. Fountain doesn’t do any of that, because the screenplay typographical convention is to emulate a typewriter. However you type your apostrophes, quotes, dashes, and dots, that’s how they’ll wind up in the screenplay. # Line Breaks Unlike some markup languages, Fountain takes every carriage return as intent. This allows the writer to control the spacing between paragraphs in Action elements, as seen in this classic example: ```text Murtaugh, springing hell bent for leather -- and folks, grab your hats … because just then, a BELL COBRA HELICOPTER crests the edge of the bluff. An explosion of sound… As it rises like an avenging angel … Hovers, shattering the air with turbo-throb, sandblasting the hillside with a roto-wash of loose dirt, tables, chairs, everything that’s not nailed down … Screaming, chaos, frenzy. Three words that apply to this scene. ``` All of these lines are interpreted as Action, and the writer’s single and double-space decisions would be preserved. There are some unusual cases where this will fail. If you wrote something like this: ```text INT. CASINO - NIGHT THE DEALER eyes the new player warily. SCANNING THE AISLES… Where is that pit boss? No luck. He has no choice to deal the cards. ``` Fountain would interpret `SCANNING THE AISLES` as a Character name–due to the entire line being in uppercase–and therefore subsequently interpret `Where is that pit boss?` as Dialogue. To correct this, use a preceding `!` to force the uppercase line to be Action: ```text INT. CASINO - NIGHT THE DEALER eyes the new player warily. !SCANNING THE AISLES… Where is that pit boss? No luck. He has no choice to deal the cards. ``` In this case, `INT. CASINO - NIGHT` is a Scene Heading, and all the other lines are interpreted as Action elements. Dialogue is a bit easier. If you typed: ```text DEALER Ten. Four. Dealer gets a seven. Hit or stand sir? MONKEY Dude, I’m a monkey. ``` Fountain will know that `DEALER`’s dialogue should be one continuous formatted block with forced line breaks. However, if you want to do the unconventional thing of leaving white space in dialogue: ```text DEALER Ten. Four. Dealer gets a seven. Hit or stand sir? MONKEY Dude, I’m a monkey. ``` You would need to type two spaces on your “blank” line so that Fountain knows that `Hit or stand sir?` is not an Action element: ```text DEALER Ten. Four. Dealer gets a seven. {two spaces} Hit or stand sir? MONKEY Dude, I’m a monkey. ``` # Indenting Leading tabs or spaces in elements other than Action will be ignored. If you choose to use them though, your Fountain text file could look quite a bit more like a screenplay. In this example, Transitions are preceded by four tabs, Character names by three, Parentheticals by two, and Dialogue by one. ```text CUT TO: INT. GARAGE - DAY BRICK and STEEL get into Mom’s PORSCHE, Steel at the wheel. They pause for a beat, the gravity of the situation catching up with them. BRICK This is everybody we’ve ever put away. STEEL (starting the engine) So much for retirement! They speed off. To destiny! ``` Tabs do not “hint” formatting to Fountain. They are ignored and the lines are interpreted as if they weren’t there. The exception is in Action, where leading tabs and spaces are respected. This allows the writer to indent lines manually. See [Action](#action) for more on this. # Notes A Note is created by enclosing some text with double brackets (`[[` and `]]`). Notes can be inserted between lines, or in the middle of a line. ```text INT. TRAILER HOME - DAY This is the home of THE BOY BAND, AKA DAN and JACK[[Or did we think of actual names for these guys?]]. They too are drinking beer, and counting the take from their last smash-and-grab. Money, drugs, and ridiculous props are strewn about the table. [[It was supposed to be Vietnamese, right?]] JACK (in Vietnamese, subtitled) _Did you know Brick and Steel are retired?_ ``` The empty lines around the Note on its own line would be removed in parsing. Notes can contain carriage returns, but if you wish a note to contain an empty line, you must place two spaces there to “connect” the element into one. ```text His hand is an inch from the receiver when the phone RINGS. Scott pauses for a moment, suspicious for some reason.[[This section needs work. Either that, or I need coffee. {two spaces} Definitely coffee.]] He looks around. Phone ringing. ``` Notes are designed to be compatible with the types of inserted annotation common in screenwriting software, e.g. Final Draft’s Scriptnotes. To hide, or “comment out” sections of text, use the [Boneyard](#boneyard) syntax. # Boneyard If you want Fountain to ignore some text, wrap it with `/* some text */`. In this example, an entire scene is put in the boneyard. It will be ignored completely on formatted output. ```text COGNITO Everyone’s coming after you mate! Scorpio, The Boy Band, Sparrow, Point Blank Sniper… As he rattles off the long list, Brick and Steel share a look. This is going to be BAD. CUT TO: /\* INT. GARAGE - DAY BRICK and STEEL get into Mom’s PORSCHE, Steel at the wheel. They pause for a beat, the gravity of the situation catching up with them. BRICK This is everybody we’ve ever put away. STEEL (starting the engine) So much for retirement! They speed off. To destiny! CUT TO: \*/ EXT. PALATIAL MANSION - DAY An EXTREMELY HANDSOME MAN drinks a beer. Shirtless, unfortunately. ``` The boneyard is the exception to the rule of syntax not carrying across line breaks. Your `/* */` pairs can span as much of your screenplay as you like. # Sections and Synopses Sections are optional markers for managing the structure of a story. Some screenplay applications use these like nested folders in a navigation view. Fountain’s Sections resemble Markdown’s ATX-style headers, but differ in that they do not appear in formatted output. Create a Section by preceding a line with one or more pound-sign `#` characters: ```text CUT TO: # This is a Section INT. PALACE HALLWAY - NIGHT You can nest Sections by adding more # characters. # Act ## Sequence ### Scene ## Another Sequence # Another Act ``` Fountain’s Sections are purely tools for the writer–they are ignored completely in formatted output. In this way they are much like the structural tools offered in Movie Magic Screenwriter. Synopses are optional blocks of text to describe a Section or scene. Synopses are single lines prefixed by an equals sign `=`. They can be located anywhere within the screenplay. ```text # ACT I = Set up the characters and the story. EXT. BRICK’S PATIO - DAY = This scene sets up Brick & Steel’s new life as retirees. Warm sun, cold beer, and absolutely nothing to do. A gorgeous day. The sun is shining. But BRICK BRADDOCK, retired police detective, is sitting quietly, contemplating -- something. ``` Like Sections, Synopses are purely optional tools for the writer’s outlining and organizational process. They are ignored in formatted output. # Error Handling Fountain does its best to sensibly interpret the text file into screenplay formatting. When in doubt, Fountain returns text as Action. Better to show the writer what they wrote–in the wrong format–than skip over malformed text. Fountain’s best defense against errors in formatting is that it won’t look past a double line break for a closing syntactical element, preventing you from turning half your screenplay into a comment, or italics. The exception to this rule is the `/_ boneyard _/` wrapper, which is allowed to span multiple lines. # Getting Started Remember, the goal of fountain syntax is to make screenwriting accessible and enjoyable. So, focus on telling your story, and the format will help guide you in the right direction.

Formatting