Industry Lingo Every Screenwriter Needs to Know to Succeed

Like any industry since the beginning of time, screenwriting has its own special language. There are things screenwriters say that would sound pretty freakin’ weird if a non-screenwriter were in the room. Things that only make sense in the context of talking shop about story. Acronyms and abbreviations and phrases, oh my! To help you stay in the know, I’ve compiled this handy-dandy guide to all the essential screenwriter lingo. It’s even alphabetical.

33 Terms Every Screenwriters Needs to Know

Act-Out

An Act-Out is the end of a narrative act. These moments are typically bigger in a story-sense than buttons, which are scene-enders. Act-Outs were more of a thing back in the days of network TV, when the end of an episode’s act would be followed by a three-minute commercial break. Because of the break, these Act-Out moments needed to be memorable—enough so that viewers wouldn’t lose interest and flip to another channel.

Beat

This one’s tricky because it can actually mean two different things depending on the context — a unit of story or a dialogue parenthetical. A story beat is the smallest unit of narrative, while a (beat) in a script refers to a slight pause between lines of dialogue or moments in a scene.

Bible

No, we’re not talking about the religious text. In the screenwriting world, a bible is a reference document. Also known as a show bible or pitch bible, it’s a document used by television writers to accumulate information for their story—everything from characters to locations to possible episode ideas.

During the writing process, a bible functions as a development tool to build out the world of a television show. After the pilot is written, the bible can then be used as a pitch document shared with execs and producers. And eventually, if you’re lucky enough to have a show greenlit and picked up to series, the bible can serve as a reference tool for the writing staff.

Button

Similar to an Act-Out, but on a smaller scale. A button is the final beat, or moment, of a scene — the punchline of a joke, an unanswered question that leads into the next scene, or an impactful line of dialogue.

Character Study

A type of story that focuses more on the character’s internal struggle or evolution than any external plot. Character studies are a favorite of indie filmmakers and most often take the form of drama features.

COMPS

Writers often throw around comp titles when pitching new story ideas. Otherwise known as “comparisons” or “comparables,” comp titles are movies or shows that are similar to your project in some way and can help others understand what the tone, genre, and theme of your story will be like before you’ve started writing.

Comps are also helpful for writers themselves, as they can be both motivational and educational in many ways.

Coverage

Script coverage is a review and analysis of a screenplay, usually complete with a grid of basic information and a recommend/consider/pass designation. Many companies offer coverage services that can provide screenwriters with helpful notes and feedback they may need before submitting their scripts to competitions or agencies.

Meanwhile, within the industry, coverage is often completed by readers, assistants, or interns for development executives and producers who may not have time to read every script that comes across their desk. Learn more about what you should and shouldn’t expect from script coverage in this ScreenCraft guide.

Exposition Dump

In any kind of writing, this is a story moment in which a lot of information is delivered directly to the audience. In screenwriting specifically, characters deliver exposition dumps through dialogue.

Though sometimes unavoidable, these moments are generally frowned upon because they’re viewed as lazy storytelling—if the character should know the information already, it’s usually obvious when they’re just repeating it for the audience’s sake.

The Five-Line Rule

Scripts, though they are written documents, are also visual. White space is important, mostly because Hollywood readers don’t like big chunks of text. Hence, the Five-Line Rule.

The Five-Line Rule is a guideline for your script—no line of dialogue or single action paragraph should be more than five lines on the page. If it’s more than five lines, break it up! Learn to love that white space.

Franchise/Formula

This particular piece of screenwriting lingo is most often heard in conversations about television. In terms of TV, a show’s franchise, or formula, refers to the repeatable elements of the series that give the show enough longevity to last multiple seasons.

For example, in a medical drama, each episode will feature a new patient with a different health issue for the doctor characters to solve. In a sit-com, it’s the weekly hijinks the characters find themselves dealing with.

Hang A Lantern

Lantern, lampshade, either way, this phrase means to call attention to an inconsistent plot element or character detail that might otherwise pull audiences out of the story. By calling attention to the inconsistency within the narrative itself, accepting it, and moving on, it allows the audience to do the same while still trusting that you, the writer, aren’t trying to pull a fast one.

Hook

This one’s pretty simple. You, the writer, are a fisherman. The audience is the fish. The hook is whatever element of the story will capture someone’s attention. It’s the thing that, for lack of a better word, hooks a reader’s attention and convinces them to keep turning the pages.

“I Bumped On…”

This is a phrase common to workshops and writers rooms. It can be followed by any number of things—a plot detail, character description, line of dialogue, or something else entirely. All it means is that the person giving you feedback is trying to point out something in your story that doesn’t feel right. It’s like saying they hit a speed bump while reading.

But don’t take offense! “I bumped on…” is almost always a prelude to critical narrative feedback, not a personal dislike of your story content.

“In Late, Out Early”

When writing your scenes, you want to come in late and get out early. This screenwriting adage refers to cutting the pleasantries that often happen in real life—starting with the meat of a scene and jumping to the next scene before the first has actually ended.

Imagine if every scene started with the typical back-and-forth of normal conversation—“Hello.” “Hey.” “How are you?” “I’m good, how are you?” “I’m fine, thanks for asking.”—and ended with formal goodbyes. No one would sit through that infinitely long movie. Hence, “in late, out early.” Start your scenes at the last possible moment before the good stuff happens and end them while they’re still exciting.

Inside Baseball

This industry lingo, unsurprisingly, does originate from the sport it references. Thankfully, you don’t need to know anything about batting averages to understand what it means in writing.

Inside baseball refers to details and minutiae in a story that will only be appreciated by experts and insiders and will go unnoticed by average audience members. It’s a piece of screenwriting lingo that is often used in writers workshops when a screenwriter has gotten bogged down in including information (either in the form of dialogue or action in their script) that they feel is essential to the story, but just isn’t necessary for overall audience comprehension.

Intellectual Property/IP

Ah, IP. The hottest acronym of Hollywood. IP stands for “intellectual property,” which is any artistic work of the mind. Basically, anything you create as a writer is your IP: your characters, worlds, scripts, etc. But this isn’t really how the lingo is used within the industry.

Hollywood higher-ups are obsessed with existing IP, characters, franchises, objects, or stories that already exist in another market and come with a built-in fanbase and market awareness. A book that becomes an acclaimed mini-series. The classic children’s toy that gets turned into a blockbuster movie franchise. The feature film adaptation of a video game. That pre-existing stuff, for lack of a better word, is typically what people in Hollywood are talking about when they’re searching for IP.

Read More: ScreenCraft’s Dos and Don’ts of Intellectual Property

“Kill Your Darlings”

It may seem murderous, but this useful phrase is often heard in screenwriting circles. Committing homicide isn’t necessary, but being cutthroat with your writing is.

“Kill your darlings” means cutting any details—scenes, characters, lines of dialogue—that aren’t helping your story, no matter how much you may love them.

One-Pager

An essential document for any screenwriter, used for both development and pitching. A one-pager is a shortened summary or synopsis of your story written in paragraph form. No dialogue, no screenplay formatting, just the basics of the story. Ideally this would fit on a single page, though despite its name, it’s not life-or-death if you must use a second.

Open Writing Assignment (OWA)

This one’s important for those screenwriters hoping to actually make money from writing. OWA stands for Open Writing Assignment. These are projects already set up at studios or production companies that need a screenwriter.

For example: Disney owns Marvel and one day, for Phase 100 of the MCU, Kevin Feige decides he wants to make a movie about Thor’s forgotten brother, Balder. Now Disney needs to hire someone to write a screenplay about the Asgardian God of Light. That’s an open writing assignment.

Plot Device

Writers have all sorts of narrative tricks and techniques they can use to tell a story, and those tricks and techniques are known as plot devices. Common plot devices include flashbacks, framing devices, love triangles, montages, voiceover and narration, Chekhov’s Gun, red herrings, and many more.

Check out ScreenCraft’s Screenwriter’s Guide to Plot Devices for more information on how to effectively use plot devices in your story.

Promise of the Premise

Every feature or TV script must deliver on the Promise of the Premise, which is the core idea of your story. It’s the grand gesture to win the girl in a romantic comedy, the epic chase scene in a big action flick, or the detective’s denouement in a murder mystery.

Whatever you have implicitly promised your audience given traditional genre standards and standard story elements, you must deliver by the time credits roll.

Point of View (POV)

When screenwriters talk about POV, they’re most often discussing the perspective from which the story is told. The POV of screenwriting is typically omniscient (the camera can see everything and be with any character), but not always…

Rashomon-Style

This story structure takes its name from the famous Akira Kurosawa film and now describes a story in which the same event is shown from multiple perspectives.

Rule of Threes

Three is a magic number in screenwriting. The Rule of Threes is a writing principle wherein an element is presented three times so it has a greater effect in the narrative and on the audience.

Set Pieces

These scenes often deliver the Promise of the Premise (and are often the moments featured in the trailer). They’re the big spectacle scenes of any story, the ones audiences will talk about after they leave the theater.

Show, Don’t Tell

This is one of the most oft-repeated adages of screenwriting. “Show, don’t tell” just means that, as a screenwriter, you should rely on visuals to convey information.

Instead of having a character comment on how cold it is outside, show the temperature through the setting, your characters’ actions, and other visual details. Show your audience something, don’t tell them about it.

Slugs

An abbreviation for “slugline,” which is the line of text that serves as the scene heading in the script and establishes the setting.

Spec Script

Ack! Another piece of screenwriting lingo with two meanings. This term can either refer to a speculative episode of an existing television show or a script the writer has written “on speculation.”

Still confused? Read this post about Spec Scripts for more info!

Stage Business

Despite how it may sound, stage business is just as applicable to screenwriting as it is to the theatre. This refers to what the characters are doing in any given scene. It’s another way of asking what the audience is watching, most often used to discuss scenes that are dialogue-heavy. While the characters are talking, what’s the stage business?

Stakes

If someone asks you what the stakes of a story are, what they’re really asking is why it matters. What happens IF your protagonist doesn’t achieve their goal? What will the consequence be if they fail? In screenwriting, the higher the stakes, the better. Basically, if you can make it life-or-death, do it.

Ticking Clock

This narrative plot device is used to add tension, suspense, or urgency to a story by giving the characters some kind of deadline by which they must complete their goal. It’s a time constraint that increases the stakes for the protagonist by introducing a consequence that will happen if they don’t succeed.

Voiceover (V.O.)

These two little letters stand for voiceover, which is fairly self-explanatory. In screenwriting, voiceover is when someone’s voice plays over a scene, but the audience does not see anyone speaking those words onscreen. It’s a plot device often used to express a character’s inner, unspoken thoughts, but can also be an omniscient third-person narrator commenting on the story.

Read More: Everything You Need to Know About Narration and Voiceover

Want/Need

Knowing this dynamic for your protagonist is essential for any script. The Want is your character’s external goal—that thing they’re working toward, the object they’re trying to attain, or the measure of success they must achieve. Want is all about plot.

A character’s Need is about internal growth. Needs are the stuff of character development, the evolution that must occur over the course of a story for the character’s arc to be complete.

“Write What You Know”

This sage piece of writing advice has been passed down from generation to generation. But it doesn’t mean you have to be a real-life CIA agent to write a spy thriller. “Write what you know” applies to storytelling on all levels.

So… you may not have rappelled down the side of a building, but you do know what it’s like to keep a secret. You may not have played with Barbie dolls as a kid, but you have felt disappointed by the real world from time-to-time. “Write what you know” is just about inserting some kind of truth into your writing, no matter the story’s content.

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