Go to the library or online and READ a bunch of scripts. After you have read 30 or so, you'll begin to get the idea of how to do that. Write a few, read some more and compare what you've written to how actual scripts that have been used work. Get some scriptwriting software, there are some cheap, even free ones that do a fair job of making formatting a script easy.

I write and have written comic book scripts. These are similar to movies or plays but have their own quirks. But a script for anything, stage, radio, screen or page is essentially similar. The information is presented not to a reader but to someone who will interpret and translate your words to another medium.

No script survives the interpretation and translation process intact. Just as no work of prose survives being translated into a script. Each medium has its own requirements, quirks and possibilities. In my case, I've found that artists have nearly always improved my scripts when they do their part of the job.

Quillian is an example. I write five or ten pages of script at a time for Daniel to read and begin the process of thinking how to interpret and translate words into images that are melded with words to communicate a story in a way that just words cannot do. In this process, he rearranges, redacts and amplifies my words in ways I never thought of. When he's done the art, I take it and my original script and do my own job of translation and interpretation to fit the script to the art. It always ends up being a better story than the one I originally wrote.

Sometimes Daniel and I sit down and do sketches of possible panels or page layouts in order to think through the difficulties of translation and interpretation that my script presents to the artist. I've actually had a lot more experience in doing this part than Daniel has but it amazes me how intuitive he is on the best way to do things. Mostly, I stand back and let him work with just a suggestion from me now and then.

Sometimes, I have to leave out some good lines when it gets right down to producing the page to put on the screen. But for every time I've had to leave out part of my script because the art does not support it, I've five or ten opportunities to do with the final script things I would not have thought of without the art in front of me.

I've written and produced some short films (I took film production in college back in the seventies). The process is similar. The script is a recipe but the interpretive and translative skills of artists, actors, cameramen and directors always create something more than a script can ever be.

Professional comic books involve about a dozen people in producing a 22 page comic, plus cover and other pages. Stageplays, movies and television shows sometimes involve hundreds of people contributing their art, science and craft to a celluloid or digital production. One or more of those wrote the script. It's where it all starts and it may be the most important part but it ain't done until it's done. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.