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How Sequence Thread formats a screenplay, what it does for you as you write, and why. Written for somebody writing their first script — every article says what the professional convention is before it says what the app does about it.

Writing the script

• What the app formats for youThe things a screenplay program does without asking — and why you will see the app do them too.
• (CONT'D) and (MORE): why you never type themBoth marks are worked out from where a speech sits on the page, so they are added for you — and a typed one is removed.
• Who is speaking: how a cue becomes a characterA character's name above a line of dialogue is more than a label — the app links it to a real person in your cast, and asks when it cannot.
• Why a page is a minuteThe page count of a screenplay is a length in time, which is why the format is fixed and the count is worth watching.
• What prints and what doesn'tSome of what you see on screen is for you, not for the page. Here is which is which.
• One speech written as twoThe same name printed twice in a row is not a continuation — it is one speech split in half, and the app points it out.
• Locking a script: scene numbers and coloured pagesBefore a script goes to a crew, changing it is writing. After, it is publishing — and the rules change.
• Spelling, and teaching the app a wordWhat the Pages view checks, what it deliberately leaves alone, and how to teach it a word for the whole project.