I wrote my first play with Final Draft. It is an amazingly powerful package, but it is not a cheap date. When I took a graduate year in playwriting, my mentor asked me to use Book Format in MS Word for my Audio Drama. Over several years of writing since, I have created and tuned Word templates for both stage and book format. (Standard Play Script Formats). My next goal was to create a template for Google Docs. The challenge is Docs formatting is very limited. I was inspired by John Haller’s template.
Google Docs was never designed to write scripts. It is for basic documents. Recently I needed a new notebook. I am a Mac person. I had a Chromebook many years ago but found it very limiting. My how things have changed. I picked up a mid-range Chromebook for about 1/4 of what a new MacBook Air cost (Neo was not out yet.) WOW. Great battery life, nice screen and keyboard. Most of my non-email and surfing work is writing plays. MS Word app on the Chromebook forces use of OneDrive. I am a dropbox person. Thus came the goal to support Google Docs. My current play I am writing I am working exclusively in Docs. That is the only way to flush out issues with a template.
Benefit to script writing in Google Docs
One huge capability of Google Docs is the ability for multiple people to edit a script at the same time. I was working yesterday on a new script. My wife is a professional writer. We both were editing the script. I would be adding something and she could fix grammar and such. In Word she would wait until I closed the script then she could open.
Stage Play Formatting in MS Word
Sample Play in Google Docs Templates
For this tutorial I will use the first few scenes of my play “Ten Thousand Kilometres.”
I also set out to cover both stage and book formats. A book script puts the character name at the beginning of the line followed by a tab, then the dialogue. Its advantage is that it’s very compact which is useful for publishing. A stage performance script is spread out with the character name centred, then dialogue following on the next line. The Stage format is based on a movie screenplay format. It gives space for comments, blocking, … (FYI as of the Final Draft 12 it does not support Book format. Books format is popular for audio drama.)
One other feature I like in my scripts is an Act / Scenes Table of Contents. My play “Ten Thousand Kilometres” is about a couple driving to cancer treatments spread out over a year. While the play is only 15 minutes, it has 10 scenes. The whole play takes place in the front seat of a car with each scene lasting about 1.5 minutes.
Scenes:
- Scene – The News – March 11
- Scene – Drive 9 – The GPS – March 28
- Scene – Drive 16 – Hair – May 13
- Scene – Drive 19 – PICC Line – May 22
- Scene – Drive 24 – Weight Gain – June 12
- Scene – Drive 30 – Radiation Day – July 8
- Scene – Drive 40 – It’s About the Dogs – July 22
- Scene – Drive 68 – Ring the Bell – Oct 27
- Scene – Drive 78 – Epilogue – March 2
- Scene – Drive 84 – Coming Out – April 30
Google Docs Intro
Google Docs is a free, web-based word processor that allows you to create and edit documents in real-time. The free is the draw for many. It also has some unique features like multiple people can be working on a document at the same time.
The challenge is it is limited compared to MS Word and Apple Pages. For me another big advantage is it is the native word processor on my Chromebook. You can edit MS Word documents on a Chromebook, but it is clumsy and requires use of MS OneDrive. I mostly use DropBox.
In my Word play template, I add new styles and name them such as Character, Action, Dialogue… Google Docs allows some customization of the styles, but you cannot rename them. The ability to rename the styles makes it easier to use.
Docs Keyboard Shortcuts
Google Docs has one list of paragraph formatting with no ability to add more. One nice feature in Docs is there are key shortcuts for Normal Text and Heading 1 to 6. The keys differ by OS you are using; Chromebook vs PC and Mac.
| Chrome OS / PC | MacOS | Meaning | Specs | |
| Normal text | Ctrl + Alt + 0 | ⌘ + Option + 0 | 0 – Dialogue (Stage) | |
| Heading 1 | Ctrl + Alt + 1 | ⌘ + Option + 1 | 1 – ACT | Space before |
| Heading 2 | Ctrl + Alt + 2 | ⌘ + Option + 2 | 2 – SCENE | |
| Heading 3 | Ctrl + Alt + 3 | ⌘ + Option + 3 | 3 – Character | Space before, 3” Indent |
| Heading 4 | Ctrl + Alt + 4 | ⌘ + Option + 4 | 4 – Action | Space before, 2.5” Indent, Italic |
| Heading 5 | Ctrl + Alt + 5 | ⌘ + Option + 5 | 5 – Dialogue (Book) | Space before, 0” Indent, Hanging 2” |
| Heading 6 | Ctrl + Alt + 6 | ⌘ + Option + 6 | 6 – Sound | Bold, Underline |
| Title | Play Title | |||
| Subtitle | Front page text | |||
| Left align | Ctrl + Shift + l | ⌘ + Shift + l | ||
| Center align | Ctrl + Shift + e | ⌘ + Shift + e | ||
| Right align | Ctrl + Shift + r | ⌘ + Shift + r | ||
| Justify | Ctrl + Shift + j | ⌘ + Shift + j | ||
| Numbered list | Ctrl + Shift + 7 | ⌘ + Shift + 7 | ||
| Bulleted list | Ctrl + Shift + 8 | ⌘ + Shift + 8 | ||
| Increase indentation | Ctrl + ] | ⌘ + ] | ||
| Decrease indentation | Ctrl + [ | ⌘ + [ | ||
| Keyboard shortcuts | https://support.google.com/docs/answer/179738 | |||
Lessons Learned
Funny Result Formatting
Converting 10,000 Kilometres to Google Docs was an eye opener. I ran into unexpected things.
- Sometimes I would apply a format and got unexpected results. Docs styles only store certain characteristics. As an example Format/Capitalization/UPPERCASE is not stored in a style.
To fix an unexpected format, set to 0-Normal first, it clears all formatting, then apply what you want. - When converting to Stage format, block convert all of the character names and dialogue to 0-Normal, then go in and change the character names.
- One nice thing is on my Mac, ⌘ + Option + 3 works both with the 3 above the character part as well as the 3 in the numeric pad. Also the ⌘ + Option to the right of the space bar works too. This is not true of all programs.
- When doing a BOOK format, put in the NAME: then the dialogue as one line with a TAB between the : the dialogue. The tab will go to the hanging place. 6-Dialogue (Book) resets the tab placement for that line.
- Format works on a paragraph, not what is selected. By this I mean when applying a style to a line/paragraph, just putting the cursor on the line works. No need to select the line.
Hanging Scene/Act line
Sometimes you can have after an Act or Scene line it leaves the balance of the page blank. Put the cursor on the line and set Format/ Line & paragraph spacing/ Keep with next.
Sometimes I select all (CTRL + A), Turn ON Keep with Next, then Turn OFF Keep with Next. Keep lines together can be turned off the same.
I find one approach is to select some lines above and below the unusual break, then do 0-Normal, then Heading 5 – Book Dialogue. The Normal clears everything then applying 5 usually clears it up.
Converting Docs Script to MS Word
Recently I wanted to convert a play written in Google Docs with my template to MS Word. With the script loaded, select File/Download/Microsoft Word (.docx). You can also download in many other formats including PDF.
When the Word file is opened I had several observations:
- The book dialogue was not formatted correctly. All lines except the first were indented. I modified Heading 5/Paragraph from Left 1.5″ to Left 0″ and Special Hanging 1.5″
- Also Scenes were indented. I modified Heading 1/Paragraph from Left 1.5″ to Left 0″ (also do for Heading 2 if used)
- The other thing I had thought of was to modify the script font from Courier to Times New Roman. The font is set in Normal Text (Same as in Docs). Modify Normal to select the font.
- Last was to update the Table of Contents (Scenes list on page 1)
Now you have a MS Word version formatted and in a new font if you wish.