The script

The whole file, exactly as it was typed.

What you type

Title: The Eel Trap
Credit: written by
Author: Nor Sanavongsay
Draft date: 2026-08-03
Contact: hello@example.com

EXT. RIVER ROAD - DAWN

Mist on the water. A bus older than anyone riding it comes down a road that runs level with the river.

JANIDA, 15, waits at the roadside with a cloth bundle held against her chest. She does not flag the bus down. She is deciding.

The bus stops anyway. The DRIVER leans out, unhurried.

DRIVER
You getting on, or growing roots?

Janida's hand tightens on the bundle.

JANIDA
(not moving yet)
How far does it go?

DRIVER
Far as you've got money for.

She counts nothing. She gets on.

INT. BUS - CONTINUOUS

Crates of chickens. Sacks of rice. A MONK asleep against the window.

Janida moves down the aisle and stops at a seat where JANMANI, 12, has claimed both halves of it with her knees.

JANMANI
Taken.

JANIDA
By what?

JANMANI
My legs. They're long.

JANIDA
They're twelve.

Janmani moves her legs. Slightly. Janida sits.

They ride without speaking. The river slides past behind them.

INT. BUS - LATER

Sun up. The bus has climbed away from the water and the road is dust now.

Janmani has been staring at the bundle for a while before she says anything.

JANMANI
What's in it?

JANIDA
Nothing.

JANMANI
It moved.

The bundle moves.

JANIDA
(not looking at her)
Don't tell anyone.

JANMANI
Tell them what? You said it's nothing.

Janida looks at her properly for the first time.

JANIDA
It is.

JANMANI ^
It isn't.

The bus goes over something. Everyone lifts an inch and comes back down.

EXT. RIVER ROAD - CONTINUOUS

The bus gets smaller, the dust closing behind it, the river gone from view.

> CUT TO:

INT. GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE - NIGHT (FLASHBACK)

Lamplight. GRANDMOTHER, 70s, holds the same cloth bundle out to Janida, who does not take it.

GRANDMOTHER
Two brothers. One eel trap. You know this one.

JANIDA
Everyone knows that one.

GRANDMOTHER
Then you know neither of them opened it.

She puts the bundle in Janida's hands anyway.

GRANDMOTHER (CONT'D)
That's the story. Not the eel.

> THE END <

The same script, read back

This is the file above, formatted as a screenplay from how each line is typed.

This is the reading view, which fits three pages on a screen or two. When printed, it’s set in Courier on standard-length pages.

What each part of it is doing

The block at the top

Everything before the first scene becomes the title page. Title, Credit, Author, Draft date and Contact are recognised on sight. Any you leave out stay off the page.

EXT. RIVER ROAD - DAWN

A line beginning INT., EXT., EST. or I/E. is a scene heading. It needs no other symbol.

Ordinary paragraphs

Action. Type it as ordinary paragraphs, with a blank line between them. Most of a screenplay is action, so it needs no symbol at all.

DRIVER

A character cue. Type the name in caps on its own line. The text under it is their dialogue, until the next blank line.

(not moving yet)

A parenthetical, indented under the name. I use one when the line would be read the wrong way without it. If a line needs one to make sense, it’s usually the line that needs rewriting.

JANMANI ^

A caret after the second speaker sets both blocks side by side, for two people talking over each other. The first name stays plain.

> CUT TO: and > THE END <

A transition, and centred text. An all-caps line ending in TO: becomes a transition on its own too.

The rest of the syntax, including the sections and synopses that stay in your file and never print, is in the Fountain format guide.

Using it as a template

Open it in the editor and type over it. Put your title block at the top, keep the scenes you want, and the page breaks update as you go.

Three pages is a short run of scenes. A feature runs somewhere near a hundred and ten, on the rough rule of a page a minute, which people still plan by.