How do I outline a screenplay?
- Most screenwriters outline on index cards or a beat sheet before drafting.
- A feature typically runs 40 to 60 scenes across three acts.
- Page targets per act: roughly 25, 55, and 30 in a 110-page feature.
- The midpoint, around page 55, is where the protagonist's approach fundamentally changes.
- Screen structure is tighter than novel structure because runtime is fixed.
Outline a screenplay in two passes: a beat sheet of 12 to 15 story turns, then a scene list of 40 to 60 scenes with page targets. Screen time is fixed, so structure has to be visible before drafting. Index cards, a beat sheet, or a scene board all work; what matters is seeing the whole shape at once.
Chapter i·Why it matters
A novel can absorb a saggy middle over 400 pages. A screenplay cannot: 20 slack pages is 20 minutes of an audience checking their phones. Outlining with page targets catches the sag while it is still a card you can move, rather than a scene you spent a week writing and now cannot cut.
Chapter ii·What to include
- A one-line logline that the outline has to serve.
- Twelve to fifteen beats: opening image, inciting incident, act breaks, midpoint, climax.
- A scene list with a page target beside each scene.
- The want and the need for the protagonist, written explicitly.
- Act page totals checked against a 110-page target.
- A pass that asks of every scene: what changes here?
Chapter iii·Example
A writer's outline showed 34 pages between the act one break and the midpoint, against a 30-page target, and eight scenes in that stretch with no change of state. Three cards came out before she wrote a word of dialogue.
Chapter iv·Related questions
In WriteLoom
Keep the plan alive while you draft
WriteLoom's scene cards and beat tracking let you see act lengths and dead scenes before you commit to a draft.
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