What a Script Is: Layout and Elements

25 min

A script is a set of instructions for a performance. A novelist can tell you what a character is thinking; a scriptwriter can only give actors words to say and things to do, and trust the audience to understand. That is why scripts look so different from stories on the page. Read this short scene, written for this lesson, then look at how it is laid out.

THE LAST BUS
A play in one scene

CHARACTERS
MUKAMANA, a grandmother in her seventies
IRADUKUNDA, her grandson, seventeen
A CONDUCTOR (heard, not seen)

A roadside bus stage outside Musanze. Dusk. A wooden bench under a tin roof. MUKAMANA sits with a basket of beans on her lap, shelling them. IRADUKUNDA paces, a school bag on his shoulder, checking his phone.

MUKAMANA (not looking up) You will wear a hole in the road.

IRADUKUNDA The last bus is always late.

MUKAMANA So is the rain this year. Still the beans must be picked.

IRADUKUNDA (stopping) Grandmother, the audition is tomorrow at nine. If I miss this bus, I miss everything.

MUKAMANA Everything. (She shells a bean.) When your grandfather went to Kigali, he said "everything" too.

IRADUKUNDA And he came back.

MUKAMANA After twelve years. (A pause.) Who will carry the beans to market on Thursday?

IRADUKUNDA Kalisa said he would help you. I asked him.

MUKAMANA Kalisa talks to his goats more than to people.

IRADUKUNDA laughs in spite of himself. A horn sounds in the distance. Headlights sweep across the stage.

CONDUCTOR (off) Kigali! Kigali! Last one!

IRADUKUNDA picks up his bag. He looks at his grandmother. She takes a small cloth bundle from the basket and holds it out.

MUKAMANA Beans. Actors must eat too.

IRADUKUNDA (taking it) Grandmother …

MUKAMANA Go. Before I change my mind.

He runs off. She listens to the bus pull away, then goes back to shelling. The lights fade slowly until only she is lit. Blackout.

Written by Ganzaa

Definition

script: the written text of a play, film, radio or television programme, giving the dialogue and the directions for performance.
cast list (dramatis personae): the list of characters at the start of a script, often with a short description of each.
stage directions: instructions in italics, usually in the present tense, about setting, movement, sound, lighting and how lines are spoken.
parenthetical: a short direction in brackets inside a speech: (not looking up).
cue: the signal (a line, an action, a sound or a lighting change) for an actor or technician to act.
subtext: what a character means or feels but does not say.
off (offstage): heard but not seen by the audience.

The layout of a script page

The elements of a script

Element	What it does	In "The Last Bus"
Characters	A few people with clear, different wants	He wants to leave; she wants him to stay, but loves him enough to let him go
Conflict	The engine of every scene: between people, or within one	Dream against duty; a grandmother's fear against her love
Setting	Where and when; it should matter to the action	A bus stage at dusk: the last chance, the end of a day
Dialogue	Speech that reveals character and moves the action	Short, everyday lines; humour ("Kalisa talks to his goats")
Subtext	Meaning beneath the words	Her repeated "Everything" questions his dream without saying no
Action and props	What we see; objects that carry meaning	The basket of beans becomes her blessing
Structure	A beginning, a turning point, an end	Waiting; the horn (the turning point); the departure and blackout
Theme	The idea the scene leaves with us	Letting go of the people we love

Three kinds of script

	Stage play	Radio drama	Screenplay (film or television)
Audience	Live, in one space	Listeners only	Viewers of a screen
Scene headings	SCENE 1. A bus stage. Dusk.	SCENE 1. Sound of wind and a distant road.	EXT. BUS STAGE, MUSANZE – DUSK
Tells the story through	Dialogue, movement, set, light	Dialogue, sound effects, music, silence	Pictures first: camera shots, action, then dialogue
Special skill	Using the whole stage and the live audience	Making every place and action clear by sound	Showing, with very little dialogue

Worked example: reading the subtext

Question: How does the scene show Mukamana's feelings without her stating them?

Mukamana never says "I am afraid you will not come back" or "I am proud of you". Her fear appears in her echo of her grandson's word: "Everything." Repeated flatly, it questions his dream, and her memory of the grandfather who went to Kigali and returned "After twelve years" shows what she fears. Her practical question about the market on Thursday is really a question about whether he will abandon her. Her love appears in action rather than words: she gives him a bundle of beans, joking that "Actors must eat too", which is her blessing on his choice. The final stage direction, which leaves her alone in a fading light, shows the cost of that blessing. The writer trusts the actors and the audience to understand all of this without a speech.

Tip

Show, don't tell. If a character says "I am very angry", rewrite it so the anger shows in what she does or how she speaks: a slammed door, a short reply, a silence. Audiences believe what they see more than what they are told.

Warning

Stage directions are for actions an audience can see or hear. "She remembers her childhood" cannot be staged; "She picks up an old photograph" can.
Don't put quotation marks around dialogue in a script. The character's name already shows who speaks.
Avoid long speeches that explain the plot. Real people interrupt, avoid the subject and leave things unsaid.

"How to write a play: five golden rules" from Radius, the religious drama society. Check "The Last Bus" against each rule as you watch.

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Practice

Name five elements of a script and give an example of each from "The Last Bus".
What is the turning point of the scene, and how is it shown on stage?
Find one line of dialogue with subtext and explain what it really means.
Rewrite this as a stage direction an audience can see: "Keza feels nervous about the exam."
Rewrite the scene's opening (to Mukamana's second line) as a radio script, using sound to show the setting.
Write a one-page scene (two characters, one conflict, one prop that matters) set in a place you know in Rwanda. Lay it out correctly.

Show answersHide answers

For example: characters (Mukamana, Iradukunda); conflict (dream against duty); setting (a bus stage at dusk); dialogue ("The last bus is always late"); stage directions (A horn sounds in the distance); props (the basket of beans); theme (letting go).
The arrival of the bus: a horn, headlights sweeping across the stage, and the conductor's call. It forces the choice.
For example "Who will carry the beans to market on Thursday?": on the surface a practical question; underneath, "Are you abandoning me?"
For example: KEZA sits at her desk, tapping her pen. She opens her notes, closes them, opens them again.
For example: SCENE 1. Wind. Crickets. A distant road. Footsteps pacing on gravel. MUKAMANA: You will wear a hole in the road. … (check that sound carries the place and action).
Answers will vary. Check the layout, the conflict and the prop.

Sources and credits

"The Last Bus", script diagram, tables, worked example and practice: Written by Ganzaa.
Image: First page of Macbeth, First Folio (facsimile), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Video: How to write a play: five golden rules, Radius: the religious drama society, embedded from YouTube.

1The layout of a script page

2The elements of a script

3Three kinds of script

The layout of a script page

The elements of a script

Three kinds of script