Guides
How to write a comic script and how to write a screenplay, in the plain-text formats this editor reads. Reference pages, not lessons: look up the mark you need and get back to writing.
- How to write a comic script
- The whole format: pages, panels, balloons, sound effects, captions, panel keywords, spreads, notes and the credits block. Start here if you have not written one before.
- A complete comic script
- Three finished pages to read, download and write over. The script and the formatted pages, side by side.
- Comic lettering: balloon order and reading order
- How balloons get their numbers, what decides the order they are read in, and the directions a letterer needs you to put in the script.
- How many panels fit on a comic page
- Panels per page, pages per issue, and how much dialogue a panel can carry. The numbers writers work to, and why you never count them yourself.
- Fountain screenplay format
- Scene headings, characters, dialogue, parentheticals, transitions, dual dialogue and the title page. The full syntax, with what each mark produces.
- A complete screenplay
- Three finished pages to read, download and write over. The Fountain source and the formatted script, side by side.
- Comic script and screenplay, side by side
- The same beat written both ways, and what changes between them: the unit of time, who reads it, how much description belongs to you.
- Writing a script in plain text
- What Markdown and Fountain are, what the file extensions mean, and why a script you can open in anything outlives the program you wrote it in.