The Shadowkeeper **Feature Screenplay**

Technical note on reading this screenplay (skip if you like!)

Hello,

It is a little odd to be putting up a screenplay on Wattpad, there are only a few on the site, and the site isn't exactly screenplay-formatting-friendly, so (in response to some comments and messages requesting guidelines reading screenplays) I thought I'd add this note to explain the way I've handled that. Of course, if you're familiar with reading screenplays (or just want to get to the story) you can always ignore this at first, start reading and only return to this if you find my formatting confusing - I'm hoping that it's not!

Obviously, a screenplay is quite different to a novel and it can take a little getting used to reading, so here's a quick primer of some of the differences which you might encounter (most of which I learned about in screenwriting school, but some of which I really didn't understand until this screenplay was edited by a professional, lol!) Chances are you won't need it, but if you start reading and things look a little strange, you can always come back :)

First, a standard screenplay is a blueprint for a movie, "timed" to be approximately one standard page per minute of screen time, so there is no room for long, descriptive passages - just enough to get the story, the most important parts of the setting and a general idea of characters for casting directors. (You don't want to be so specific with characters that an actor who a producer wants to play it can't "see" themselves in the role, when they read it!)

Similarly, too many 'directions' in the dialogue, or of characters motions or movement, or even costume can be considered the writer trying to do the work of a director, or costume designer, so it's all very efficient and sparse.

The other issue with sharing it on Wattpad is the limitations of formatting on this site - I cannot present it in standard screenplay format, and so I've had to make some adjustments, which shouldn't make reading it too hard, but it won't hurt to point them out.

Dialogue:

Instead of the usual format, in which the Dialogue would all be centred under the capitalized name of the character, I've moved the name of the character speaking to the left, and put the dialogue afterwards (much like in a play, but I've left the character's name capitalized to make it clearer.) I could have put quotation marks around it, but I did want it to look like an attempt at a novelization.

Dialogue directions:

Similarly, any directions re: dialogue are usually in brackets under the name of the character about to speak, I've put them in line, directly after.

Marking Scenes:

The first thing you'll notice is that beginning of each scene is marked by capital letters describing whether the scene is internal (INT) or external (EXT), the location of the scene (THE FARMHOUSE KITCHEN) sometimes a second, wider location is also there (SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS), and last will be an indication of the time of day (AFTERNOON.) You'll note that the first scene's "time" is "POST-ICE-AGE TO PRESENT" because the scene begins with a time-lapse montage which covers that time period (that's a weird one, and another writer might handle it differently, but that's how my editor thought I should do it.)

Grouping Scenes:

A screenplay isn't usually divided into sections, but read as a single, contiguous document, but that would be way too long for Wattpad, and there would be no way for readers to mark where they were up to between sittings, so I've divided it up. I've gone with single scenes, where possible, but where scenes are short (say, when Brigid is running from the house, through the yard, into the forest - each of which has a different location and so is a different scene) I've grouped them and put the scenes in the sections, in the heading.

Numbering Scenes:

Scenes would usually only be numbered in a shooting script, not in a spec-script like this, but because I have grouped some scenes, I wanted to make sure to make it clear which scenes were supposed to be in each section.

I'm sure that's way more information than you needed, and probably makes it look more complicated than it is, but I figure it can't hurt to try to pre-empt any questions people might have.

I hope you enjoy the screenplay,

Darcy.