How to Use Dashes and Ellipses in a Screenplay

Examples from movie scripts demonstrate these two tiny forms of punctuation can be a valuable asset for a screenwriter.

In my work as an assistant professor at the DePaul University School of Cinematic Arts, I get asked a lot of screenwriting questions by my students. The other day, this subject came up:

Are there any rules about using dashes and ellipses?

I led with my usual caveat: There are no screenwriting rules. If there were, there would be a rule book.

In my ensuing conversation with this student, it occurred to me I don’t think I’ve ever written a Go Into The Story article on the subject, perhaps because it’s such a seemingly innocuous aspect of writing a screenplay.

However, each day at 9:20AM (Central), I tweet the first page of a notable movie script along with the title of the movie, the year it was released, and the names of the screenwriters. Example:

In reviewing dozens of scripts these last few months I’ve been running the series, I noticed how many ways writers use dashes and ellipses in their writing. So here are examples of how to use these forms of punctuation.

ELLIPSIS

One of the most common uses of an ellipsis is to indicate a pause in dialogue as with this from the screenplay (500) Days of Summer, written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber:

The pause there to set off and indicate the importance of “the one.”

You can use ellipses to signal to the reader that a character’s dialogue drifts off or a character’s dialogue begins in mid-sentence. Here are examples from the screenplay for Back to the Future, written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale: