There have been a few plays posted lately that haven't been in correct format.

For those people who want to write plays, it'll be good to learn standard format so you're actually read instead of being tossed aside.

http://www.playwriting101.com/ is a great site for the beginning playwright.

There are some books out there too which taught me a lot.

The Playwright's Guidebook, by Stuart Spencer, is very informative and includes exercises in the fundamentals of playwrighting. I don't remember if there's anything on format, but it covers everything else, including characterization, beats and how to write dialogue well. You can check it out at Amazon here

Another book I own is Naked Playwriting, by William Missouri Downs and Robin U. Russin. It's not as serious as The Guidebook, but just as fun to read. It does cover format. You can look at here, at Amazon:

I really hope I don't come across as a bitch, because I'm doing this to inform and not to criticize.

AB,

This is a much needed thread and since I do accept plays to the site I suppose it would behove me to know the difference between a properly and improperly formatted play.  Also, moved this to the Screen writing thread out of General Chat.  I think this is more appropriate.

Don

Well, it'd be more appropriate if we had a playwrighting thread, but since we don't have one...

But that's okay.

I just hope people read this.

Playwriting is a completely different animal from screenwriting (George says coming out of the shadows to resurrect an old thread). Besides the basic format being different, There's also a huge difference in presentation and what drives the story and drama forward.

Movies are a visual medium, so the images are what drives the story. With plays, the drama is driven by the dialogue. This is why old movies that used play scripts were always so talky. If you check out the main format difference between play scripts and movie scripts, you'll note that in movies scripts, the action is margin to margin, but in plays, the dialogue is usually margin to margin. In screenplays, the dialogue is indented, and in plays, the action is indented.

The most important piece is given the most space for each medium.

Before I did screenplays, I wrote a few plays, and even had one produced, so I have a clue on this topic as much as I do screenwriting.