Stage Directions - Move those bodies

You’re going to want your characters to move. As well as making your script feel more realistic, it lets your reader, or performers, know how you see it. Watch the video below to get a few tips on how to write your stage directions.

When inserting stage directions you can do it in several different ways. You can put stage directions within a characters speech, or you can put stage directions between character lines. Earlier when you learnt about dialogue you learnt that how the line is said is written in brackets and in italics. The same thing goes for stage directions.

If you a writing stage directions within a line it is written in brackets and Italics. For example:

        MUM:         Amy it's time for school. (Picks up bag off of table) I have your bag.

As said above, try and avoid too many of these stage directions as they make your script hard to read. The most common form of stage directions is outside of the dialogue. So instead of writing the above example we could write.

                MUM picks up bag off of table.

        MUM:         Amy it's time for school. I have your bag.

Notice that even in stage directions mum's name is capitalised. This should be the case for every time you use a characters name in stage directions. Stage directions written like the above should be indented, but not as far as the character dialogue. Remember, stage directions are always in italics.