Hello Scott,

I have a question for DC, if you don't mind?

Do readers have a preference for non-capitalization over Capitalization in Action lines, or is it OK as long as one follows the Hollywood norm? ie,

'A MAN (20s) hears a loud THUD in the room above.'

thanks for this, and for bringing DC's insight to us in the first place.

Matt.

I'm hardly qualified to answer the question, but it strikes me as a grand old waste of time to worry about menial things like whether a word is capitalized or not. You could be spending that same time crafting a story...

Actually when writing a screenplay, a writer has to take everything into consideration, from macro to micro. So yes, story-crafting and character development are (obviously) critical. However so, too, is the minutiae including how our scene description looks.

Racicot, I'll be happy to forward that question to DC. And I'm sure she'll have an opinion on that. My own two cents. Caps have traditionally been used:

* Whenever a character is introduced, cap their name

* Sound effects (ala your THUD)

* To draw attention to key visuals (e.g., "His eyes lock on the PISTOL")

There was a mini-trend among some writers in the late 80s and into the 90s -- at least one I noticed -- to use caps more frequently, the idea being to highlight key 'moments' in a line / paragraph of SD to make it easier for a reader to 'get' what was going on. For instance:

Roger BASHES through the door, SPRAWLING onto the FLOOR. Looks up. Face to face with a GROWLING PIT BULL. Roger LEAPS up, takes off, the DOG snapping at his HEELS.

The concept was if a reader only read the capped words -- BASHES, SPRAWLING, FLOOR, GROWLING PIT BULL, LEAPS, DOG, HEELS -- they could pretty much follow the action.

My guess is that this evolved because scene description is the hardest part of a script to read. With dialogue, positioned in the center of the page and narrower margins, you don't even have to shift your eyes from left to right. However, you do have to do that with SD.

This may seem like a small point, but if a script reader covers 10-14 scripts per week, you can imagine how they feel about good scene description vs. bad scene description.

Back to caps, the mini-trend I thought I discerned seems to have faded. Most people will use caps as noted above with many only using them to introduce characters.

It's purely a stylistic choice.

But as I say, I'll ask DC her opinion.

Well I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong, which leads me to my own follow-up question for DC - how big of a concern is proper usage of capitalization to readers?

I realize that it's essential to properly format a screenplay, but I've seen so many different scripts written in so many different ways - some use underlines, some capitalize what seems like every other word, and some severely overuse dashes (like my own). Many elements just seem arbitrary nowadays.

I've always been in the camp of "as long as the words jump out at you visually, it's well-written." But yeah, I guess you have to look at it from the eyes of a script-reader who thinks that your epic masterpiece about behemoth turtles taking over the world is just another crappy script. So I suppose that anything you can do to make the reader's life easier is automatically a plus.

@Racicot - Sorry for instantly shooting down your question. :P

Jason, your main point -- devote primary effort on crafting the story -- is spot on. But it's surprising how much the little things in scripts can drive a script reader crazy. I read a lot of scripts and personally it bothers me no end when I see a writer misuse:

their / they're / there

its / it's

Takes me right out of the story. And honestly, it makes me wonder how much the writer really cares about their craft.

So again, macro stuff super-important... micro important, too.

And I'll forward your question to DC as well.

Oh man, I agree with you 100%. As a spelling/grammar OCD case, there's nothing that bothers me more than improper usage of contractions - the you're/your thing kills me most.

However, capitalization of words is an entirely different beast, no? The capitalization of sounds or important words strikes me more as a stylistic choice - as you mentioned earlier - so maybe that's the only possible answer to the original question.

Jason, re the caps thing: I'll try to post something soon taking a few examples of current notable scripts to see how they handle caps.