The terms you'll meet in a screenplay and across Inkwell — industry craft vocabulary alongside the writer-friendly names Inkwell gives version-control concepts.
Four terms that explain how Inkwell differs from a word processor — with simplified UI snapshots, not definitions alone.
INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT MAYA We start here.
Fountain — plain text, structured as you type
Portable markup Inkwell parses into a scene tree
Named snapshot — not autosave
Table read, notes, before the rewrite
Parallel versions — explore without losing the trunk
Writer-friendly name for a branch
What if the ending was the setup?
Reviewable edits in the draft
Not a chat sidebar — accept or reject each line
The building blocks of a screenplay page — scene headings, action, dialogue, and the markup that gives them structure.
An open, plain-text markup language for screenplays. Because it is just text with light conventions, a Fountain screenplay is portable, version-controllable, and readable in any editor. Inkwell parses Fountain in real time so your script is structured data as you type. Full definition · Fountain spec
Scene heading
INT. KITCHEN — NIGHT
The line that opens a scene, declaring whether it is interior or exterior, the location, and the time of day — for example, INT. KITCHEN — NIGHT. It is one of the core screenplay element types. Full definition
Action
She crosses to the window and waits.
The descriptive text of a screenplay — what the audience sees and hears on screen, written in the present tense. Also called description or stage direction. Full definition
Character cue
MAYA
The character's name, set above a block of dialogue, indicating who is speaking. Conventionally written in uppercase. Full definition
Dialogue
We start here. Right where it ends.
Spoken lines in a screenplay, indented beneath the character cue. Dialogue is one of the sixteen Fountain element types Inkwell tracks as structured data. Full definition
Parenthetical
(quietly, not looking up)
A brief direction in parentheses within a dialogue block, indicating how a line is delivered or a small action during it — for example, (whispering). Used sparingly in professional scripts. Full definition
Transition
CUT TO:
An editing instruction between scenes, such as CUT TO: or DISSOLVE TO:. Modern scripts use them sparingly, since most cuts are assumed. Full definition
Two characters speaking at the same time, formatted side by side in two columns so the simultaneity is clear on the page. Full definition
A sequence of short scenes or shots presented in rapid succession, often with a heading like MONTAGE: followed by brief action lines. Used to compress time or show parallel action. Full definition
A teaser scene before the main title sequence — common in television pilots and series episodes. It hooks the audience before the formal act structure begins. Full definition
The production side — revision colours, locked pages, script types, and the paperwork of a shooting draft.
The native XML file format of Final Draft, the long-standing industry-standard screenwriting application. Inkwell imports and exports FDX so scripts can move in and out of a Final Draft workflow. Full definition · Inkwell vs Final Draft
A script whose pages and scene numbers are frozen so that, once production begins, everyone refers to the same numbering. After a lock, changes are tracked as marked revisions rather than reflowing the whole document. Full definition · See production workflows
The standard sequence of paper colours (white, blue, pink, yellow, and so on) used to mark successive rounds of revisions to a locked shooting script, so the production knows which pages are current. Inkwell ships the full WGA revision colour sequence. Full definition · See production workflows
Inserted pages added to a locked script without renumbering everything after them — a new page between 27 and 28 becomes 27A. They keep a locked script's page numbering stable as revisions land. Full definition
Pages in a locked script that have not yet been revised — they remain on white paper (or unmarked in digital workflows) until a coloured revision round replaces or amends them. Full definition
Industry-standard screenplay layout conventions aligned with Writers Guild practice — margins, element spacing, and revision marking that production offices expect on submission-ready PDFs. Full definition
A script prepared for production with scene numbers, revision marks, and locked pages — distinct from a spec script used for selling or development. Shooting scripts track what is actually being filmed. Full definition
A screenplay written on speculation — without a production deal — intended to sell the story or showcase the writer's craft. Spec scripts omit production numbering until a project moves toward filming. Full definition
The first episode of a television series, written to establish characters, tone, and ongoing story engine. Pilots are often the script writers polish longest before a room or network sees it. Full definition
How a story is shaped — beats, treatments, loglines, and the structural vocabulary writers work in.
A short outline of a story's key moments — its beats — used to plan structure before or during drafting. It captures the shape of the narrative without committing to scene-by-scene pages. Full definition
A prose summary of a screenplay's story, usually a few to several pages, written in the present tense. Treatments are used to pitch and develop a story before a full script exists. Full definition
A one- or two-sentence pitch that captures the protagonist, core conflict, and stakes. Loglines appear on title pages, in pitch decks, and in coverage — they are the shortest form of story summary. Full definition
The turning point at the end of an act — often a cliffhanger or reversal in television, or a major structural shift in features. Act breaks shape pacing and commercial placement in broadcast formats. Full definition
The event that disrupts the protagonist's ordinary world and sets the main story in motion. It typically lands early — often by the end of the first act or first ten pages in a feature. Full definition
A secondary plotline that runs parallel to the A-story, often exploring theme, character, or tonal contrast. In television, B-stories frequently carry a different character or relationship thread. Full definition
A staged reading of a script by actors around a table — no cameras, minimal blocking. Table reads surface dialogue problems and rhythm before production commits to a locked draft. Full definition
The collaborative team that breaks story, writes episodes, and revises scripts for a series. Rooms depend on shared drafts, clear revision history, and parallel takes on the same scenes. Full definition · Inkwell for writers' rooms
Inkwell's own vocabulary — writer-friendly names for version control, AI skills, and collaboration.
Inkwell's name for an immutable, content-addressed snapshot of your work at a moment you chose to mark — the writing equivalent of a commit. Unlike autosave, a save point is named and never changes, so you can always return to exactly that version. Full definition · See version control
A parallel version of a document — Inkwell's name for a branch. Draft lines let you explore an alternate ending or rewrite an act without losing the original, then incorporate the best parts back. Full definition · See draft lines
A system for recording the history of a document as a series of distinct versions you can compare and return to. Borrowed from software development, where it is foundational; Inkwell brings it to writing through save points and draft lines. Full definition
Differences between two versions expressed at the level of the document's structure — this line of dialogue rewritten, that scene moved — rather than as character-by-character text noise. Inkwell can diff screenplays semantically because it stores them as structured data. Full definition · See change tracking
Inkwell's name for bringing changes from one draft line into another — the writing equivalent of a merge. You review semantic changes scene by scene before they land in the target draft. Full definition
An agentic AI pass that understands document structure and proposes edits in place as a reviewable diff — for example a dialogue pass or a continuity check. Unlike a chat sidebar, a skill edits the draft itself, and you accept or reject its changes. Full definition · See AI skills
An Inkwell skill that proposes line-level dialogue improvements as reviewable markup — tightening, rhythm, and voice consistency without rewriting the scene for you. Full definition · Run a dialogue pass
Bring Your Own Key — Inkwell lets you connect your own AI provider API key so skill passes run against your account, with transparent usage and no opaque bundled model routing. Full definition · Set up BYOK
Real-time co-writing in Inkwell with presence indicators, comments, and shared save points — so a writers' room can work on the same structured draft without losing who changed what. Full definition · Collaboration guide
Inkwell's in-editor dictionary and thesaurus. Press ⌘' or open the command palette and it looks up the word under your cursor in a panel beside your draft — definitions, synonyms, antonyms, words that mean something similar, rhymes, and a frequency cue for how common each option is. Choose a replacement and it drops in with your formatting intact. The same lookup works in Plot and Canvas, and any online enrichment is clearly labelled and can be switched off in Settings. Full definition · See the dictionary in the features tour
Canvas concepts — structured blocks, markdown round-trip, and the tooling for long-form documents.
A document interface where content is divided into typed blocks — paragraphs, headings, lists, embeds — rather than a single flowing page. Canvas uses blocks so structure, history, and AI skills can target specific sections. Full definition · Canvas overview
Lossless export and import between Canvas documents and Markdown files — headings, lists, and code blocks survive the round trip without flattening structure. Canvas is in development; round-trip fidelity is a launch requirement. Full definition · Canvas early access
A navigable sidebar of headings and sections in a long Canvas document — the long-form equivalent of a screenplay's scene list. Outlines make research docs and manuscripts scannable without leaving the editor. Full definition · Canvas overview
A Canvas block that embeds a Plot screenplay scene inside a broader document — useful for show bibles, pitch decks, and production notes that reference actual script pages. Full definition · Canvas + Plot
Save points, draft lines, and AI skills aren't just definitions — they're how Inkwell works. Start writing free.
