The ABC's of Script Formatting: Character Cues

These are the participants in the dialogue of a script. It could be between the protagonist and the antagonist, or a love interest. Even, it could be with random characters in the scene. 

The character cues specifies the actors that are making the dialogues and so, it is essential that the cues are indicated at every turn. Unlike fiction writing where the character cues are not indicated in some dialogues, it is a must for the script, so you wouldn’t burden anyone into deciphering the person that has a particular dialogue. 

In this scene, there are three characters. Two which are named are obviously major characters in the assumed script, and the other is a random character and so it is not necessary to name him. 

The writing of the characters, random or not should be capitalised in all cases. So you should have, ‘TOLU,’ ‘UCHE,’ ‘IDEM’ not ‘Tolu,’ ‘Uche,’ or ‘Idem.’ They should be in the Upper Case Alphabet lettering

For cases like the random character, it is best if they are identified by their features or roles. This case, since they are in a restaurant, the term “WAITER” is used to identify the person easily. It could have easily been, POLICEMAN, NURSE, BARTENDER, CLEANER, MASON, just about anybody. Just endeavour that they are represented.

It could also be characters with no distinctive features, in which case should be addressed as GIRL #1, MAN #1, or BOY #2. The hashtag sign is used as the number sign and there is no space between the hashtag and the numbering. It is not acceptable to write, GIRL NO. 1 or any of that. Strictly, GIRL #1, GIRL #2 and so on.