Any successful photoplaywright will testify that the proper preparation of the photoplay script has much to do with its being accepted, especially if more than the mere synopsis is offered.

At first this may seem to be an extreme statement, but its truth will become more and more evident as we proceed. Furthermore, its importance should be accepted by writers early in the work because every stage of photoplay writing has its direct bearing upon, and looks toward, the preparation of the script. For this reason the present chapter is introduced at this point, though in actual time-sequence the preparation of the manuscript in its final form will usually come after all its several parts have been considered, blocked out, and arranged. It will be highly important, therefore, to review this chapter after finishing the sections of this volume which deal in particular with the several parts of the photoplay.

It is to be regretted, let us reiterate, that so much has been said, by manufacturers and others, to the effect that no literary training is necessary in order to write salable photoplays, for, as a result, countless absolutely "impossible" scripts are constantly pouring into the editors' offices—impossible, in a great many cases, not because of the lack of idea, for very often the illiterate writer has both a vivid imagination and the power to use it, but because frequently the good idea is expressed in such unintelligible language, and with such execrable spelling and hopelessly incorrect punctuation, that the thread of the plot, its meaning, and values, cannot be grasped by the editor. Even when the story itself is not utterly lost to the script reader, he is too busy a man to wade through it bit by bit, struggling to make something out of a jumble of confusing words. The demand for good scripts is greater than the supply—but the supply is increasing, and the standard is rising. This means that although there are dozens—to put it mildly—of men and women entering the field each week, easily three-fourths of these brand themselves as hopelessly unqualified when they drop their first script into the mail-box.

The repeated failures of the unprepared have given rise to the rumor that only the scripts of favored writers are read in editorial offices. The old trick of placing small pieces of paper between the sheets, in order to prove whether or not the script was read through, is as popular today as it was twenty years ago with story writers. The gentleman who has the first reading of all the scripts received by a certain company called the attention of one of the present authors to just such a script only recently. What was the result? Some of the minute pieces of paper fell out the moment the script was taken from the envelope for examination. That was enough. The script was almost immediately placed in another envelope and returned to the writer—with a rejection slip. Unfair treatment of the writer? Not at all! Following the discovery of the concealed particles of paper, a glance at the first page was sufficient to convince the editor that it was the work of another amateur who was foolish enough to add to a miserably prepared script the proof that he doubted the honesty of the editor to whom he had addressed his offering.

It is only reasonable to believe that every editor will read at least so much of every script as is necessary to convince him of its value or its lack of value to the firm by which he is employed. He draws a salary to discover stories which are worth while, and is always on the lookout for good, live, gripping stories which will make pictures calculated to add to the reputation of his employer. There is just one way he can find such stories, when the author's name is unknown to him, and that is by reading the script, either in whole or so far as to permit his trained judgment to pass fairly upon it. The editor who does not do this honestly either does not exist or will soon lose his position, for he will be sure to overlook valuable material by his negligence.

At the very outstart resolve to be professional in your methods, be businesslike, and play fair.

The advisability of constantly abiding by these three rules of the photoplay writing "game" must be apparent to any intelligent person. Though the field for the sale of photoplay scripts is likely to become much larger, and the prices paid promise to become better as time goes on, every day some new writer of proved ability (in the field of fiction writing, as a rule), enters this field. Against him, with his superior experience and knowledge of literary usages, you must compete. Therefore, in order to win, you must do as he does. He is fair to himself. From a mechanical point, his scripts are likely to be all that they ought to be; he sends them out knowing that they are in correct form to receive the proper consideration of the most exacting editor. And they do. In the same mail with his script comes one from a beginner. This unknown writer may have an idea—that most important requisite in picture-play writing—which is really fresher and even better than that embodied in the story of the experienced writer. But the merit of the idea is hopelessly concealed under a mass of misleading and unnecessary language; the script is poorly written—in longhand; it is badly spaced; spelling, punctuation, everything, betray ignorance or carelessness of what is expected in a properly prepared script. What chance, then, does it stand when placed beside that of the trained writer? And whose fault is it?

Give yourself a fair chance. From the day that you write your first photoplay, write it so carefully, prepare the script with so much regard for the accepted rules, that no editor will be able to point to it with a sigh and exclaim: "Oh, well, it has to be read. Here goes!" Make it a script that he will dive into with keen anticipation of finding something as good as its mechanical preparation would cause him to expect.

We now add a number of items of practical advice.

Essanay Producing Yard

Essanay Producing Yard; Two Interior Sets Being Arranged for a Historical Drama

Players Waiting for Their Cues

Players Waiting for Their Cues in the Glass-Enclosed Selig Studio

The Paper. This is an important matter, and you should not follow your own preference or convenience. The paper should be of regulation Ms. ("letter") size, 8-1/2 by 11 inches, not transparent, and should be pure white.

The editor prefers not to examine odd sizes when he is used to the uniformity of the proper manuscript paper. Never use foolscap, or 8-1/2 by 13 paper. The writer knows one studio in which the different directors, all of whom write photoplays of their own, use the 8-1/2 by 13 size; but remember, it is the director's privilege to write his scripts on shop-keeper's wrapping paper if he so desires. So make it 8-1/2 by 11.

It must be opaque, because no editor wants to be annoyed by having the writing on the second sheet show through between the lines of the first, when he is reading that. That is the chief, and a sufficient, reason. A second, is that thin paper is flimsy and hard to handle.

It should be white, because that, too, is the common practice. Besides, dull white paper displays the typewriting most clearly. We have heard of one photoplay writer who uses a buff-colored paper, and who maintains that since adopting it his scripts have received better treatment than formerly; his theory being that, on account of the difference in color, his scripts attracted attention and were more carefully handled. This may be true; but a good grade of yellow paper will cost you more than white, and if white, opaque paper is good enough for the leading photoplay writers, why not make it your paper? The cheapest grade of paper that is sufficiently opaque costs about $1.50 a box, containing one ream, 500 sheets. The next heavier costs about $2.00 a box; a still better quality, a few cents more. Certainly here is a case where, up to a reasonable limit, the best is the cheapest. If you take pride in your work, send it out well dressed; but, no matter how Æsthetic your taste may be, never use the shades of cherry, opaline, canary, or Nile green, in which certain grades of paper are made.

Rules for Writing the Script. Instead of simply saying that the manuscript should be typewritten, let us ask once more: If you are in earnest, and intend to succeed, why not give yourself every chance to gain the editor's attention and interest by proclaiming that you are a business man as well as a writer? Many film manufacturers plainly announce that only typed scripts will be examined. Therefore write the script with a typewriter. Today, when many companies rent good machines at from $4.00 for three months to $3.00 a month, and when you can buy a typewriter outright for from $15.00 to $100.00, the writer who is able to use one and who does not do so is simply being unfair to himself. Any good machine may now be had by paying down a small sum and the same amount monthly for a term of months. Serious writers should promptly decide to step out of the amateur class and equip themselves properly for the work. If you wish to experiment with your talents before deciding to rent or buy a typewriting machine, there are plenty of responsible typists who will typewrite your script for from 35 cents to 50 cents per thousand words, including one carbon copy.

If you have a typewriter you will, of course, make at least one carbon copy. Should the script you send out be lost or badly marred in any way, you have the carbon from which you can make another, but never be so unwise as to send out the carbon copy itself should the original be lost. Make a new copy. In the first place, should the carbon copy also be lost, you will have nothing left as a record of your story—unless you happen to have kept your notes and rough draft. Besides, carbon copies rarely look as well as an original script, and the editor who receives a carbon might not look upon it with any great favor—though this is the least valid reason.

Another important point is, if your photoplay is accepted, your copy will serve you as a valuable basis for criticism of your own work, inasmuch as you can compare the play as written with the play as produced, observing what changes the editor and director may have deemed necessary. This practice is followed pretty generally by earnest writers of fiction, but is applicable also to photoplay writing, and should help the writer, after seeing his play produced, to do even better work next time.

For carbon copies, almost any weight and quality of paper will serve. A plain yellow or a manilla paper, costing about 50 cents a box of 500 sheets, is very satisfactory.

Most authors who are users of typewriters know that a black "record" ribbon is far superior to a "copying" ribbon. The latter is likely to smudge or blur and spoil a clean manuscript. Again, it pays to get a pretty good grade of carbon paper; the best, in fact, is none too good for literary work of any kind. Cheap carbons smear the copy and stain the writer's fingers; besides, they have a tendency to make the copy look as if it were covered with a fine layer of soot or black dust. Avoid them.

General Directions. Other hard and fast rules for the practice of photoplay writing are:

Do not write on both sides of the paper.

Do not fasten the sheets of your script with clips or pins which perforate the paper; there are at least half-a-dozen kinds of paper clips which hold the sheets firmly without permanently fastening them together. The editor likes to have the sheets loose when reading the script.

Above all, do not roll your script. If it is 8-1/2 by 11 paper, as it ought to be, fold it no more than twice. That is what all writers do who follow the rules.

Directions for Typing the Script. While it is well to remember that the suggestions here offered are intended for those who type their own photoplays, the same suggestions can be made by authors to the professional typists to whom they send their stories to be prepared for the editor.

The editor of one company suggests that it is best always to put your name and address on each sheet of the manuscript. This is simply "making assurance doubly sure" that the script will not go astray or become mixed in the editorial office, for winds and dropped manuscripts sometimes play annoying tricks upon editors, it need hardly be said. But at least write your name and address plainly in the upper left-hand corner of the first sheet of the synopsis; then write it in the same place on the first sheet of the scenario; and, provided you have room—if the last scene of your scenario does not run clear to the bottom of the page—also at the bottom of the last page of your scenario. Then, further, write on every other page the title of your photoplay. If it is a short title, write it in full. If it should be a long title, such as "Where Love is, There God is Also," a Selig release taken from Tolstoy's story of the same name, simply write "Where Love is, etc." That will be ample to identify your work should one of the sheets become separated from the rest of the script. Thus the editor has your name and address in three different places, and with all or part of your title on the other sheets of the script, there is little danger of any part going astray after it reaches his hands.

The following plan for the actual mechanical preparation of the three or four parts of the script has been approved by editors in general; nevertheless, it is here offered as a suggestion, not laid down as a rule. To follow it, however, insures your having a neat, readable script, one which will catch the editor's attention as soon as he opens it.

The scale-bar on most standard typewriters is numbered from 0 (the next figure, of course, being 1) to 75. Each figure indicates one space. When writing your name and address on the first page of both synopsis and scenario, set your left marginal stop at 5. When the paper is pushed as far to the left of the paper-shield as it will go, this will give you a left-hand margin of about 1-3/16 inches—which is quite wide enough for the margin on a photoplay script. Write your name and address so that the top line will come about three-quarters of an inch from the top of the sheet, and, keeping it even with the left-hand margin, write the two or three lines of the name and address directly beneath each other, and the other material below, in the manner illustrated on the succeeding type-page.

script

The first sheet of the script being the one on which you commence to write your synopsis, first of all get your title neatly spaced.

Always write your title entirely in capitals, leaving one space between each letter of each word in the title, and three spaces between each word. Say that your title contains three words, as the foregoing. After you have written the first word—with a space between every letter—the machine will automatically space one. Do not count that as one, in leaving the three spaces suggested, but touch your space-bar three times. This will move the carriage back so that the first letter of the next word will be printed four spaces away from the last letter of your first word, leaving three spaces between. Take one sheet of your typewriter paper and keep it as a test sheet, trying out your title-spacing thus: Write the complete title, with spacing as suggested above, once, getting it as nearly right (with even spaces on either side) as you can at a good guess. If it is not right, space one line down on your trial sheet and try it again, this time a little farther to the right or left as the case demands. One or two trials and you will have it as nearly even in margins as it can be made on a typewriter. Thus, in a title like

THE HEROINE OF THE PLAINS

you will find that to start the first word at 11 on the scale-bar, managing the spacing as suggested, will get your title in the centre of the page with practically no variation in the two margins.

Then, about an inch below the title, write the descriptive lines:

descriptive lines

as described in the chapter on "The Synopsis." About an inch below this, write the word

SYNOPSIS

starting to write at 28 on the scale-bar. The O in the word OF, the middle word of your title, is the exact centre of the title. Starting the word

SYNOPSIS

on 28 causes the centre of this word (which is the space between the O and the P) to fall exactly beneath the centre of the title. Then, about 1-1/2 inches below that, start to write your story in synopsis form. Commence your paragraph at 15, indenting ten spaces from the left margin. Thus the neatness and businesslike appearance of your pages will impress the editor favorably at the very first glance. Follow the same rule when typing the scenario, or continuity, and also the scene-plot, if one is made.

Having written your synopsis, if you find that you have plenty of room on the last sheet to write your cast of characters, do so; but do not crowd it in. If you cannot get it in so as to look well, double spaced, and appearing to be, as it should, a separate division (though not necessarily a separate sheet) of the manuscript, by all means give it a separate sheet.

On the other hand, there is a rule regarding separation of divisions of the script which must be observed in every case. You must ALWAYS start to write the scenario on a fresh sheet, no matter how much room you have left after writing your cast. The reason for this is simply that, should your scenario be in proper shape for the director to work from just as it is, he wants the scenario separate. Having read the synopsis once or twice, he is through with it; whereas, when working on a picture, the director "sleeps with the scenario."

And now a word as to the typing of the continuity, or scenario, for you should do everything in your power so to prepare it as to make its every word quickly and easily understood.

In the first place, we strongly recommend the following method for the mechanical preparation of the scenario:

When writing the number of your first scene (1), place the indicator at 0 on the scale-bar. Write all scene-numbers up to 9 at the same point. When you start to write scene-numbers containing two figures (from 10 to as high as you will go) do so at 0 and 1, respectively. Now space one, then print the hyphen mark (which will make a short dash), after which space one or two, as the case may be, which will bring you to 5 on the scale-bar. At 5 start to write the descriptive phrase for your scene. You should also make 5 your left marginal point for the writing of the body of your action. In writing the subject matter of each scene, or division, of the action, commence each new paragraph at 15. In writing "Leader," "On screen, Letter," or any other direction intended especially for the director, always start to write at 0 on the scale-bar, in a direct downward line with your scene-numbers.

The result of following these suggestions will be a neat and attractive type-page, upon which the producer will be able to locate the scene-numbers and other directions at a glance, as may be seen from the following example:

script example

The fact that every studio has writers on its staff to make over scenarios which are good but not in quite the correct form for the director, into what are known as "working scripts," should make no difference to you when writing your script. Let what you offer to the editor be as perfect as you can make it, regardless of what becomes of it after you have sold it. Make it, in every sense, a desirable script.

With regard to the proper spacing for a photoplay manuscript, some editors prefer single and others double spacing. Again, sometimes an editor may have a fondness for double spacing, while the director leans to scripts that are single-spaced. Our experience has shown, however, that the majority of editors and directors like single spacing for the actual subject-matter of the scene—the paragraphs of action—but double spacing between all other matter. Therefore use double space between a leader and the description of the scene which follows, and between the description of the scene and the action proper. This method of spacing, when combined with the rule of placing all directions in the extreme left-hand margin, results in a script that is almost sure to be satisfactory, and is certainly attractive, mechanically.

In conclusion, do not forget that a good typewriter is a tool of the writer's trade, and perhaps the most important tool of all. As for the question of which is the best typewriter, it is entirely a matter of opinion. If you live in a small town, where there is no typewriter agent or agency, see if, among your business acquaintances, there are not represented all the standard makes. Ask permission to examine as many different makes as you can find; try what each will do; make up your mind whether you prefer the single or the double keyboard. If you choose a machine with the single keyboard, you must get used to the shift-key system of printing capitals, yet many writers prefer the single keyboard. If you are buying a machine the makers will gladly substitute for one of the needless characters already on the keyboard—such as @—an odd character for which a writer of photoplays or of fiction would have particular use, such as the exclamation mark.

Having a typewriter, take care of it. Clean the type regularly with a stiff brush; keep it cleaned and oiled; protect the platen from spots of oil or grease of any kind; and give the machine the general attention which it deserves.

From all this, it may seem that undue stress is laid upon the neat appearance of the script, and the way it is planned from a mechanical viewpoint. But we re-affirm what has been said at the opening of the present chapter, and, in addition, we assert that not only are neatness and correctness in the preparation of the script of importance now, but, in the good times to come, to which all photoplay writers are looking forward, the names that will be featured on the posters and in the advertising matter of the companies will be the names of the writers to whom the big checks are paid, and for whose work there will be a steady demand, and they will be the names of the writers who consider it worth while to TAKE PAINS.