We’ve talked about Characters and Dialogue, but what about that third component? The only text on the page that takes up the full width: the description or action. The beginning of the visuals of this visual medium that can make or break the read if not given the proper attention. Here are our tips for working the reader’s eyes down the page to make your script easy-to-read and so enjoyable that they have no choice but to circulate it around.
"Not a wasted word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life.” — Hunter S. Thompson
Economy
In a script, the description is information intended to be communicated visually so keep it to what is seen. You only need to give a sense of the location and what the characters are doing, then get out of your own way and keep it moving. Don’t clutter, keep it lean, and purge all the unnecessary stuff. If you stop reading after this sentence, just grab a Post-It and take down these three words: Less. Is. More.
Look at how economical Jordan Peele is in the Get Out script two-thirds of the way through when he calls back to the spoon and cup planted earlier as the family’s true motivation starts to come into focus and Chris returns to ‘The Sunken Place’:
Chris makes a run for the door. Missy CLINKS the cup with her SPOON.
TING TING. TING TING.
The world instantly blurs around Chris. He begins to fall. He sees a flash.
Present tense only
This advice is non-negotiable. And you won’t get a second chance if you don’t follow it. There’s no other way to write the description; if you use any other tense, you are admitting that you don’t understand the medium. And active voice, never passive voice.
No more than four lines at a time
Break up the chunks of description. If you find that the shot or whatever you are trying to say goes onto a fifth consecutive line, either edit it down to four or break it into two lines – either three and one, or two and two. This will help the read and help you achieve clarity in what you are trying to say/see. If your page starts to look like a novel instead of the blueprint that invites other creatives to collaborate (director, actors, production designer) then you are heading in the wrong direction.
“An actor entering through the door, you’ve got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you’ve got a situation." — Billy Wilder
Tone match genre please
You should set and match the mood to the subject and genre of your script. And you should also do the same with the narrative style. If you are writing a thriller, make the descriptions thrilling; if you’re writing a comedy, make the descriptions funny.
Remember the musicality and mind games that went on between the two leads of Whiplash, look how Damien Chazelle captures this in the description:
Fletcher raises his arm. Hand suspended in air, finger waiting to move... Andrew locks eyes on it. Heart pounding now…
And -- the finger moves. The band begins WHIPLASH OVERBROOK. A surging 7/4. Andrew seems caught off-guard at first. Struggles to keep up. Then reaches the right speed -- and stays there. Fletcher keeps his eye on him, waiting for him to fuck up...
No parentheticals
Between the CHARACTER NAME and the DIALOGUE, there is an option to add a parenthetical. A little note from you the writer to the actor on how you want the line delivered. Amateurs will fail to resist the urge to write “whispers,” “shouts” or any number of dumb options. Either rewrite the line to get the intention of what is said across without the aid of the parenthetical or trust the collective common sense of the actors and director to figure it out. Don’t direct the actors, that’s not your job.
No adverbs
Verb modifiers are lazy. Why say “run quickly” when you can say “sprint.” Not only is it weaker writing, but if you use slowly, cautiously, angrily, you will slow the read and risk your reader falling asleep.
“The challenge of screenwriting is to say much in little and then take half of that little out and still preserve an effect of leisure and natural movement.” — Raymond Chandler
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Note From Tongal: “Setting the Scene: 6 Ways to Improve Your Scene Descriptions" is part of a series of Tongal Community-written blog posts that were originally sourced in the Tongal Blog Open Call Project. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Tongal. Read more Tongal Community-written posts here and then Pitch us a topic you'd like to write about for the Tongal Blog!
