# Free Screenplay Pacing Map > See how a draft is distributed across its own clock: action share, scene density, and cast arrival, tenth by tenth, against a published screenplay corpus. Private in your browser. See how a draft is distributed across its own clock: action share, scene density, and cast arrival, tenth by tenth, against a published screenplay corpus. Private in your browser. Useful output, not a score ## What this tool gives you ### Your curve on the corpus band See action share and cast arrival across ten equal stretches of your own draft, drawn over the middle half of a published feature corpus. ### The rhythm in one line Every scene as a segment sized by its share of the draft, so a stalled stretch and a set piece are visible at a glance rather than inferred from page numbers. ### Position, not a grade Percentile placement for scene count, median scene length, longest-tenth concentration, silent scenes, cast size, and dialogue concentration — and a plain notice when your draft sits outside the population it is being measured against. ## How to use it 1. 1 ### Paste or open a draft Fountain or Final Draft. Parsing happens in this browser. 2. 2 ### Read the curves before the numbers Compare the shape of your action and cast-arrival lines against the corpus band, then look at where the scenes cluster. 3. 3 ### Take the memo into the rewrite Copy or download a plain-text readout to paste into notes or a save point before you start cutting. ## How to read the result This is a measurement of shape, not a verdict on the story. Nothing here detects an inciting incident, an act break, or a midpoint — those are readings a person makes. Sitting outside the corpus middle half on a measure is information about how your draft differs from published practice, and roughly half of published screenplays sit outside it on any single measure. ## Questions writers ask ### Does this tell me where my act breaks are? No. It measures where narrative words, scenes, and speaking characters actually fall across your draft. Naming a beat is a semantic reading; a word-position measurement cannot make it, and a tool that claims otherwise is guessing. ### What is it comparing my draft to? Aggregate distributions from the Screenplay Anatomy Atlas — published quantiles across a corpus of feature screenplays. No screenplay text is stored or shown, and your draft is never added to the corpus. ### Does my screenplay leave the browser? Only if you choose Continue in Plot. Parsing and measurement run in this page. Continue in Plot sends a copy of the script so it opens as a new Plot project, and Inkwell keeps that copy for 24 hours. ### My draft is a short. Is the comparison still meaningful? Partly, and the tool says which parts. Whole-draft measures still place the excerpt, but per-tenth scene counts come from feature-length work, so those verdicts are withheld and share-of-scenes is shown instead. The corpus inclusion thresholds your draft misses are listed with the readout. ## Defined in the glossary - [Pacing](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/pacing) [Pacing is how fast a story feels to the people reading or watching it. In a screenplay it comes from how long scenes run, how often they change, how much is action rather than dialogue and how much is asked of the reader at once, not from page count alone.](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/pacing) - [Three-Act Structure](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/three-act-structure) [A common story shape: setup (Act One), confrontation (Act Two), and resolution (Act Three), with major turns at the act breaks that re-aim the protagonist's goal and cost.](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/three-act-structure) - [Act Break](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/act-break) [The turn that ends an act — a cliffhanger or reversal in TV, a major structural shift in features — that re-aims the story’s pressure.](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/act-break) - [Inciting Incident](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/inciting-incident) [The event that breaks the protagonist’s ordinary world and forces the main story to start — early, concrete, and hard to ignore.](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/inciting-incident) - [Midpoint](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/midpoint) [The midpoint is the major turn halfway through a story. A false victory, a defeat or a revelation changes what the protagonist wants or how they pursue it, so the second half of the story cannot repeat the first.](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/midpoint) - [Set Piece](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/set-piece) [A set piece is a large, designed sequence built around one situation, such as a chase, a heist, a battle or a musical number. It is a showcase for the genre and works best when it also turns the story.](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/set-piece) - [Suspense](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/suspense) [The anxious uncertainty an audience feels about what will happen next to a character it cares about. It grows when the audience knows the danger and must wait, as with Hitchcock's bomb under the table.](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/suspense) - [Jump Scare](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/jump-scare) [A sudden shock in a horror film or game, usually an abrupt image and a loud sound, timed to make you flinch. It works best as the release of real dread.](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/jump-scare) ## Keep working with the draft ### [Free Screenplay Length Checker](https://www.inkwell.software/tools/screenplay-length) [Check a feature, pilot, or short against page-count practice, official contest windows, and a published feature corpus — then export a memo you can send with the draft.](https://www.inkwell.software/tools/screenplay-length) [Open tool](https://www.inkwell.software/tools/screenplay-length) ### [Free Script Breakdown Tool](https://www.inkwell.software/tools/script-breakdown) [Break down a Fountain or Final Draft screenplay privately in your browser: scene sheets, eighths, cast, locations, day/night, and exportable CSVs.](https://www.inkwell.software/tools/script-breakdown) [Open tool](https://www.inkwell.software/tools/script-breakdown) ### [Free Screenplay Analyzer](https://www.inkwell.software/tools/screenplay-analyzer) [Analyze scene pacing, dialogue/action balance, character share, and locations from a Fountain screenplay—privately in your browser, with free CSV reports.](https://www.inkwell.software/tools/screenplay-analyzer) [Open tool](https://www.inkwell.software/tools/screenplay-analyzer) Continue in Plot and keep writing, with the screenplay formatting done for you. [Start writing in Plot](https://app.inkwell.software/signup) [Read the related guide](https://www.inkwell.software/resources/screenplay-pacing) --- Canonical page: