So-Called Screenwriting ‘Rule’: Action Paragraphs — 3 Lines Max
There are conventions. There are expectations. There are patterns. But the simple fact is… THERE ARE NO SCREENWRITING RULES!
Awhile back, I put together a 15-part series: So-Called Screenwriting ‘Rules.’ Here is one article.
Action Paragraphs — 3 Lines Max
To be sure, over the years there has been something of a trend with regard to the length of screenplay paragraphs. To give some historical perspective, here is a scene from the photoplay for the 1916 movie Hell’s Hinges, written by one of the great early writers in Hollywood — C. Gardner Sullivan, who wrote over 350 scenarios and screen plays:
SCENE L: Close-Up on the Bar in Western SaloonA group of Western types of the early period are drinking and talking idly - much good fellowship prevails and every man feels at ease with his neighbor - one of them glances off the picture and the smile fades from his face to be replaced by the strained look of worry - the others notice the change and follow his gaze -- their faces reflect his own emotions – be sure to get over a good contrast between the easy good nature that had prevailed and the unnatural, strained silence that follows – as they look, cut.Multiple camera shots aggregated within a paragraph. This was pretty much standard for decades. For example, here is an excerpt from the 1956 script for The Searchers:
54 EXT. RISING GROUND - MED. CLOSE SHOT - MARTIN - MOONLIGHT He stands beside his spent and fallen horse. Its breathing
is a rasping whistle. Martin tries to haul its head up.
Useless. Breathing hard himself, his face ashen in the
moonlight, Martin looks desperately off in the direction
of the ranch. Then he jerks the rifle from its saddle
scabbard -- struggling with it because it is under the
horse. He freezes then -- listening...And we hear the
steady beat of two horsemen approaching. Martin knows
who they are and his face is alive with hope. He gets
the rifle free at last and goes running toward the oncoming
riders.
An excerpt from the script for the 1963 movie Charade:
Then, to his amazement, DYLE is lifted into the air and,
unable to break the bear-hold, carried toward the edge of
the roof. Working his arms between their two bodies,
DYLE suddenly flails them out with all his strength and
the hold is broken, but at the price of his coat
and the flesh on his back as SCOBIE's metal claw
rips through both, a wound extending from the center of
DYLE's back to his shoulder.But then an excerpt from the script for the 1974 movie Chinatown:
Gittes notes it. A fan whiffs overhead. Gittes glances up at
it. He looks cool and brisk in a white linen suit despite
the heat. Never taking his eyes off Curly, he lights a
cigarette using a lighter with a "nail" on his desk.Generally writers began to break up paragraphs into shorter blocks. Indeed, when I entered the business in 1987, the conventional wisdom was scene description should have no more than 5 lines per paragraph. And so we would see writing like this from the 1992 Joe Eszterhas script Basic Instinct:
Her back arches back... back... her head tilts back... she
extends her arms... the right arm comes down suddenly... the
steel flashes... his throat is white...He bucks, writhes, bucks, convulses...It flashes up... it flashes down... and up... and down... and up... and...
That trend has continued so nowadays it is not uncommon to see writing like this excerpt from the 2012 movie Spring Breakers, written by Harmony Korine:
INT - FRAT HOUSE/KITCHEN - LATERThe kitchen is a complete wreck; overturned tables and beef
bottles everywhere.A bunch of frat boys are standing up holding cash.BRIT in on her knees shaking some dice in her hand.She has some cash in her mouth.She is taking bets with the frat boys and they all toss money onto the ground.She throws the dice against the sideways kitchen table and
rolls a seven.All the frat boys scream in amazement.She arches her back down like a cat and sticks her bottom in
the air.They cant believe it.She smiles.One of the frat boys is staring at her ass sticking up.She picks up the cash.The rap music is blaring from the other room.She stands up and counts her loot.
Scripts with paragraphs that never go over 3 or even 2 lines of scene description.
So is there a ‘rule’ that says we can’t use more than 3 lines in a scene description paragraph?
Of course not because — say it with me — There are no screenwriting rules.
For every example like Spring Breakers, you can find something that looks like 12 Years a Slave:
They all wait a moment, then Solomon enters the foyer.
He stands and looks admiringly at his family. ADMIRINGLY
stressed. It isn't that he doesn't have love for them,
he does as well. But in the moment, he truly admires his
greatest accomplishment: a family that is healthy and
well and provided for. He goes to his children, and
hands each a coin, then goes to Anne. Gives her a kiss
on the cheek. The children giggle at the sight.---- The streets are well populated this morning with many
people out strolling. Most are WHITE, but there are
BLACKS as well. They are FREED BLACKS who mingle fairly
easily - though not always completely - with the whites.
We see, too, a few BLACK SLAVES who travel with their
WHITE MASTERS. These pairings are largely from the south
and - despite the fact the blacks are slaves - they are
not physically downtrodden, not field hands. They are
well dressed and "leading apparently an easy life" -
comparatively speaking - as they trail their masters.
I can hear you saying, “Oh, sure, Myers, 12 Years a Slave is a drama. Action movies, no way can you do more than three lines per paragraph.” Here is an excerpt from Lone Survivor:
EXT. VILLAGETARAQ attacks with his men.Brutal fight. Hand to hand, gun on gun. Gulab shot, Marcus
shot again. The Taliban is about to kill Marcus when the
little boy calls out to Marcus.The Taliban is on top of Luttrell, choking him, killing him.
Luttrell’s hands clawing at the man, digging into earth,
grasping for wood, a stone, anything...when...a KNIFE, is
slapped into Luttrell’s hand. Luttrell looks up, the little
boy. Staring at Luttrell.Marcus buries the knife into the neck of the fighter.Rolling out as the building in front of them detonates. Heavy
machine gunfire tearing it up. Luttrell and Shah fall back. A
woman charges out grabbing the little boy. Eye contact with
Luttrell as he is carried away.
The point is professional screenwriters do whatever the STORY requires to be told in the best way possible.
In this regard, once again I encourage you to think this: Tools, not rules.
When you are working with scene description, don’t go to a negative place — NO MORE THAN THREE LINES PER PARAGRAPH! That can restrict your creativity.
Rather think of the tools at your disposal that allow you to give full voice to your creativity:
- Narrative Voice: This is the invisible character who ‘tells’ your story. It is Genre + Style. The attitude your narrator takes toward the story universe, the characters and action within it. Ask yourself: How can you use this tool to enhance the telling of your story and generate as much entertainment as possible?
- Imagematic writing: Active verbs. Vivid descriptors. Think of scene description more like poetry, less like prose. Bursts of imagery. You don’t need to write complete sentences in a screenplay. Indeed, depending upon your Narrative Voice, you may choose to do something like Walter Hill did in the script Hard Times:
THE FIGHTERSSpeed's man tries a kick.Gets knocked backward for his trouble.Grapple.Hair pull.Powerful men but without grace.Brawlers.Punch.Kick.Punch.Gouge.Speed's man takes several shots.Goes down on his back.It's not going to be his night.
Granted that is not for everybody and certainly not every Narrative Voice, but drives home the point about the power of words as imagematic tools.
- Imply camera shots: As noted previously in this series, writers have tended to move away from camera language and directing jargon in favor of a more literary approach to our scripts. That doesn’t mean we can’t ‘direct’ the action, rather we can use individual sentences or paragraphs to indicate specific shots as with Spring Breakers above.
There are so many things we can do to express our creativity in writing, so many tools at our disposal, to get hung up on some restrictive ‘rule’ — which isn’t even an actual rule — is, frankly, wrongheaded.
Tools. Not rules.
Now as usual, time for some caveats:
- Script readers know about the trend to write shorter paragraphs of scene description so they will likely bring that expectation to a reading assignment. If they see long blocks of scene description, that will probably suggest to them the writer is an amateur.
- Moreover I think it’s safe to say that most professional readers find it more difficult, even tiring to read scripts with lots of long blocks of scene description. Plus, key visuals can get buried when stuck in a paragraph five lines or longer.
- And there is the whole white space thing, that is the look of a script page is important as well. A script with pages filled with black print compared to a script with lots of white space is likely to be perceived by a reader — at least on a surface level — to make for a less good read.
So again, a nuanced bottom line: You are free to write your scene description however you want, there is no official rule legislating how long your paragraphs must be. Yes, script readers will likely carry an assumption with them — five lines or less… three or lines or less — so your safe bet is to pay attention to those conventions.
However, the final arbiter on this is your Story and your choice of Narrative Voice. Every paragraph, every line, every word of scene description ought to be fundamentally a creative choice, not bowing down in servitude to some stupid rule that isn’t a rule.
Finally this: I included a shit-ton of script excerpts in this post for two reasons. First, I wanted to put the conversation into a context of actual movie screenplays. But second, this is my way of hounding you yet again: READ SCRIPTS!
Don’t get hung up with teachers or ‘gurus’ and their so-called rules. Rather read actual professional screenwriters, the men and women who are actively plying their trade and getting paid for it. After all, if they are crafting scripts that are being produced into hit movies, shouldn’t their screenplays be one of your primary sources of information and inspiration?
For the rest of the So-Called Screenwriting ‘Rules’ series, go here.
