Screenwriting terms and abbreviations

The abbreviations at a glance

The short forms you will meet most often, and where each one goes. Most have a fuller entry below.

Scene headings

Scene heading also slugline, slug

The line in capitals that opens every scene and says where and when it happens: INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT. A new place or a new time needs a new heading.

INT. interior

The scene happens indoors, or inside anything with a roof: a car, a plane, a cave.

EXT. exterior

The scene happens outdoors.

INT./EXT. also I/E

A scene that moves between inside and outside, or is seen from both, such as a conversation through a car window or a walk out of a front door.

DAY, NIGHT

The time of day, last in the heading. Nearly every heading ends in one or the other. DAWN, DUSK, MORNING and EVENING are used when the light matters to the story.

CONTINUOUS

In place of the time: the action runs straight on from the scene before, usually as a character moves from one place to another, with no time skipped.

LATER, MOMENTS LATER

Used instead of DAY or NIGHT when we come back to the same place after a while. MOMENTS LATER means very little time has passed.

SAME

In place of the time: this scene happens at the same moment as the one before, somewhere else. Often used to set up an intercut.

ESTABLISHING

Added to a heading for a short exterior shot that shows where we are before the scene moves inside: EXT. HOSPITAL - NIGHT - ESTABLISHING.

Secondary heading also subheading

A short heading inside a scene that names a new part of the same place, such as THE HALLWAY, without repeating INT. and the time.

Master scene

The way screenplays are written: one heading for everything that happens in one place at one time, with no shots spelled out. The director decides the shots later.

Action and what we see

Action also description, scene description

Everything that is not a heading, dialogue or a transition: what we see and hear, in the present tense, across the full width of the text column.

Character introduction

A character's name is in capitals the first time they appear, usually with an age and a line of description: MAYA ELLIS (31). After that, it is written normally.

Beat

Two meanings. In dialogue, (beat) is a short pause. In story, a beat is one change in a scene or a story. The word stretches: it can mean a moment inside a scene, or one of the big turning points on a beat sheet.

SUPER superimpose

Words that appear over the picture, such as a time, a place or a date: SUPER: LONDON, 1974. Some writers use TITLE: or ON SCREEN: for the same thing.

TITLE CARD

Words on a screen of their own, usually on black, rather than over a picture.

CHYRON

A caption at the bottom of the frame, especially in television: a name and a job, a place, a news ticker.

INSERT

A heading that cuts to a close view of something we need to read or notice, such as a letter, a phone screen or a clock. It ends with BACK TO SCENE.

BACK TO SCENE

Returns to the scene after an insert, a point of view shot or an intercut.

MONTAGE

A run of short moments that compresses time into one change. Opens with MONTAGE - WHAT IT SHOWS and closes with END MONTAGE. See how to write a montage.

SERIES OF SHOTS

One stretch of related action told in quick pieces, often lettered A, B, C, over minutes rather than weeks.

INTERCUT

Moving back and forth between two scenes happening at once, most often the two ends of a phone call. Each place gets one heading, then INTERCUT lets the scene run without more headings.

FLASHBACK

A scene set earlier than the main story, labelled in its heading: INT. CLASSROOM - DAY (FLASHBACK). A dream works the same way, with (DREAM).

b.g., f.g.

Background and foreground, in lower case inside an action line: A bus pulls away in b.g.

MOS

A production term for a shot filmed without sound. It turns up in shooting scripts and almost never in a spec.

Dialogue and the character cue

Character cue also character name

The speaker's name in capitals above their dialogue, about 3.5 inches from the left edge of the paper.

Character extension

A short tag in brackets after the cue that says how we hear the voice: (V.O.), (O.S.), (CONT'D), sometimes (PRE-LAP).

V.O. voice-over

The speaker is not in the scene's location at all: a narrator, a memory, a recording, a voice through a phone or a radio.

O.S. off screen

The speaker is in the scene's location but out of the picture, such as someone calling from the next room.

O.C. off camera

The same as O.S. Television scripts use it more often than films.

CONT'D continued

The same character speaks again after a line of action, with no one else speaking in between. Also used after (MORE) when a speech carries over to a new page.

(MORE)

Printed under the dialogue at the foot of a page when a speech continues on the next one, where the name returns with (CONT'D). Screenwriting programs add both.

Parenthetical also wryly

A short note in brackets between the cue and the dialogue, in lower case, saying how a line is said or who it is said to: (quietly), (to Leo). Use them rarely.

PRE-LAP

Dialogue or sound from the next scene that starts before we cut to it. Written as an extension, (PRE-LAP), at the end of the earlier scene.

(filtered), (on phone)

Marks a voice heard through a device. Writers differ; some use (V.O.) for the far end of a call instead.

(subtitled)

In a parenthetical, says the line is spoken in another language and the audience reads it: (in Spanish, subtitled). The dialogue itself is written in the reader's language.

Dual dialogue

Two speeches printed side by side in narrow columns, because two people talk at once. Hard to read; keep it for when the overlap is the point.

(overlapping)

A parenthetical saying a line starts before the previous speaker has finished. Simpler than dual dialogue, and works in every program.

Transitions and the camera

Transition

An instruction about how one scene gives way to the next, in capitals against the right margin, ending in a colon. A new scene heading already implies a cut, so most scripts need very few.

FADE IN:

The traditional first line of a screenplay, at the left margin.

FADE OUT.

The traditional last line, against the right margin, with a full stop. FADE TO BLACK. is also used, at the end or for a pause mid-script.

CUT TO:

A straight cut to the next scene, written only when the cut itself matters.

SMASH CUT TO:

A sudden, jarring cut, usually from quiet to loud or calm to chaos.

MATCH CUT TO:

A cut between two shots that share a shape, a movement or a sound, linking the scenes by it.

JUMP CUT TO:

A cut that jumps forward in time within the same shot or scene, so the jump is felt.

DISSOLVE TO:

One picture fades into the next, often to show time passing or to move into a memory.

CLOSE ON, CLOSE-UP

Draws attention to a detail. Shot directions like this are best kept out of a spec; describing the detail in the action usually does the job.

ANGLE ON

Points the camera at a person or thing within the scene. Mostly seen in older scripts and shooting scripts.

POV point of view

We see what a character sees: MAYA'S POV. Followed by BACK TO SCENE when we return.

WIDE

A broad view of the whole space. Like the other shot names, rare in a spec.

Drafts and the script as a document

Spec script

A script written without being commissioned, to be read by people deciding whether to buy it, make it or represent the writer. The clean, unnumbered format described across this library.

Shooting script

The script once a production is going ahead, with scene numbers, revision marks and locked pages.

Draft

A complete pass through the script. A rewrite changes structure or scenes; a polish changes lines.

Title page

The unnumbered first page: title, credit, contact details. See how to format a title page.

Scene numbers

Numbers printed on both sides of every heading in a shooting script, so everyone on a shoot can point at the same scene. Left out of a spec.

Revisions, revision colours

Changed pages in a production are printed on coloured paper, a new colour for each round, in a fixed order that usually starts white, blue, pink, yellow, green. Changed lines carry an asterisk in the right margin.

Locked pages, A pages

Once page numbers are fixed, new material is numbered 12A, 12B rather than renumbering everything after it. Scenes are locked the same way: 47A.

Eighths

Productions measure scenes in eighths of a page, each about an inch, to schedule the shoot.

CONTINUED

Printed at the top and bottom of a page in older production scripts when a scene runs over the page break. Specs leave it off.

Brads

Brass fasteners for a printed US script: three-hole paper, two brads, the middle hole left empty. Still a habit, though most scripts are read as PDFs now.

Development and selling

Logline

The story in one or two sentences: who, what they want, what stands in the way. See how to write a logline.

Tagline

A short line for a poster that sells the mood, not the plot. Not the same as a logline.

Synopsis

A summary of the whole story, ending included, from a paragraph to a page or two.

Treatment

The story told in present tense prose, in the order it unfolds on screen, usually ten to twenty pages for a feature. See how to write a treatment.

Outline

The story's structure broken into its turning points, sequences or scenes. Longer than a synopsis, shorter and less polished than a treatment.

Step outline

An outline with one numbered step for each scene, a line or two each.

Beat sheet

A list of the story's main turning points, often against a structure such as three acts or fifteen beats. See the beat sheet.

Scriptment

Part script, part treatment: prose summary with the key scenes written out in screenplay format.

Series bible also show bible, pitch bible

The document that sells or runs a television series: the premise, the world, the characters, the tone, and the stories of the first season.

Pitch deck, lookbook

A short visual presentation of a project. A lookbook leans on images to show the look and tone.

Query letter

A short email to an agent, manager or producer asking whether they would like to read your script.

Coverage

A reader's report on a script: a logline, a synopsis, comments, and a verdict, usually pass, consider or recommend.

Notes

Feedback on a draft from a producer, an executive, a reader or another writer.

Writing sample

A script used to show what a writer can do, rather than to be made.

Table read

A reading of the script aloud, with actors or friends taking the parts, to hear how it plays.

Television

Pilot

The first episode of a series, written to sell it. Spec pilots are also the most common writing sample in television.

Teaser, cold open

A scene or two before the opening titles, written on its own page with TEASER or COLD OPEN at the top.

Act break

The end of an act, often at an advertising break, marked END OF ACT ONE. Each act starts on a new page. Many streaming shows have dropped them.

Tag

A short scene after the last act, often a final joke or a hook for next week.

A story, B story

The main storyline of an episode and the secondary ones, which run alongside it and often echo its theme.

Single-camera, multi-camera

Single-camera shows are shot like films and formatted like them. Multi-camera sitcoms, shot before a studio audience, use double-spaced dialogue and action in capitals.

Showrunner

The writer-producer in charge of a series day to day, from the writers' room to the edit.

Writers' room

The group of writers who work out a season's stories together, which is called breaking story, and then write the episodes.

Series, season

In the US a season is one year's run of episodes and the series is the whole show. In the UK, a "series" usually means what Americans call a season.

Download the one-page sheet

The abbreviations and the terms you will need most, on a single page you can print.