Ah, yes -- white space. Determining the right amount is sorta like Goldilocks finding the right-sized bed! Too much white space, a page may appear scant. Too little, perhaps you've "overwritten". So what's right? We'd all like to believe that WHAT is written on the page is the important part. But if "HOW the page looks" throws a reader off, they may never get to the WHAT. And Lord knows, we want the reader to .. well, read! You hear various takes on things that have to do with "white space" all the time: -- make it easy to "read down the page." -- don't have big blocks of exposition -- cull 'em down! Bust 'em up! -- same goes with dialogue -- be careful .. and if you're purposefully going for a monologue, that monologue better have purpose .. and it better sing! -- don't put unnecessary action lines between each bit of dialogue. (A personal pet peeve! If I see this, like in "unproduced script" on some website, I stop reading. Like they say -- allow for the actors to .. well, act!) --no CUT TO:'s!! They're not needed. Other choices come in too -- to BOLD scene headings .. or not to bold? When is vertical writing appropriate? Work hard on where your page breaks land! Yep, it's hard enough work to WRITE WELL. But each page also has to LOOK GOOD. Bottom line is you don't want to give a reader any excuse to not move their eyes down your page .. and anxiously turn to the next. White space is your friend. Slip your arm lovingly around its shoulder...

Controlling white space, at first, seems like controlling the weather. But you have to be like Destro (from the '80s G.I. Joe cartoon) and master how to use white space as a means to guide the reader through the action; help a director "see" the film shot-by-shot and convey emotional beats. There's a lot of great examples of top screenwriters and novelists who use white space for maximum effect. This sort of related to the "Writer's Voice" post/question.

I like to use each page efficiently and that tends to mean there will be a lot of white space - first, I write dialogue, not long conversations, second I'm employing subtext methods - people naturally are skirting around what's on their mind, i.e. talking less, and I try to keep the narrative to the minimum, knowing the Director is going to fill in much of this and all she needs is a few details about the characters, scenes, setting to do this. Also, I want to produce a fast read - lots of white space allows for this and keeps the reader reading!