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Very helpful. Thanx Scott. Now I gotta read THE MATRIX again!

Scott wrote: "Most paragraphs are 2 lines or less. Why? One reason: Shorter blocks of scene description are more readable than longer ones." Scott, you care to elaborate on that? IMO, it's true sometimes. Maybe even often. But breaking action up into short paragraphs can sometimes actually make things harder to comprehend. It depends on how you want to pace things. And it depends on how thoughts are connected. Look at the opening scene of "Stranger Than Fiction". If the 3 and 4-line paragraphs (and there's even a 5-line one) were broken up into 1 and 2-line paragraphs, that would make them less readable. For me, anyway. Apart for that issue, your comparisons - showing the progressions - very interesting. Good stuff.

Franklin, you are right. In my haste in writing the blog post, I should have specified ACTION writing, that is where 1-2 line scene description CAN work best. But see how easy it is to slip into a mindset of THIS is how to do it right, just like I did right there. So thanks for catching that. Yes, there are times when 4-5 line paragraphs, perhaps even longer can work, as you suggest, THOSE can be more readable as opposed to chopping them up into smaller blocks. For example, dramas or more intimate character pieces where the focus is on the moment, the interactions, not jumping around or cross-cutting. So again, thanks for pointing that out, Franklin. Note: I hope everyone understands, I write almost all of my blog posts on the fly, and while I do my best to edit them, sometimes the ticking clock and all the other things I have going on lead to some slip-ups. Any time a reader catches something like Franklin did, please bring to my attention.

This is a very helpful discussion topic, thank you. Since my main interest is character-driven drama, I'm always on the lookout for guidance on how to write screen-direction for largely interior, emotional action that is as compelling as one finds in an actioner. Franklin's reply about how breaking up direction may inhibit comprehension in other genres made me look up the scene in THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT wherein Nic discovers Jule's hair in Paul's bathroom. Interesting to note that Cholodenko ALSO broke up her direction into one or two lines, describing each beat of Nic's slow,agonizing realization, and even giving a number of camera directions such as CUT TO, NIC'S POV, AND REVERSE ONTO NIC. And it works beautifully, for me at least: my heart was in my mouth reading it, and I was re-living Annette Bening's beautiful performance. Lesson here perhaps yet another confirmation of "there are no rules."

Wendy, scripts by writer-directors are a whole other thing. It varies from filmmaker to filmmaker, but some are highly camera shot oriented because they want to include those specific visual directions as they move toward production. That's why I make the distinction of a 'selling script,' which is pretty much what all of us are writing. If we hope to bring that spec to market, nowadays there is that longstanding move toward a more literary approach, devoid of camera shots and directing lingo.