In-Dialogue Scene Action (UK Stage Play Template)

Scrivener Newcomer Central
1

Really sorry if this is explained somewhere or I’ve just misunderstood, but maybe someone can explain it to me? I’m using the UK Stage Play template and trying to follow the formatting standards in the example script. It says:

CHARACTER #1:
(Pause) Parenthetical instructions can be entered in italics enclosed in
brackets in the dialogue. (Scene action related to the character who is
talking should be entered in brackets in italics inside the character
dialogue rather than in a separate paragraph.)

But it doesn’t actually italicise the scene action being referred to. If I’m trying to write something like:

NAME: (Angrily) Yes!

I tab across from the name, press Ctrl-I to switch to italics and then, as soon as I press shift in order to type the open bracket, italics turns off. I have to work around it by typing what I want in lower case and then going back to edit the beginning, which is a bit of a pain.

Is it me? Is it something I’m missing? This is leaving me very puzzled, so any help would be appreciated.

2

I don’t use any screenplay templates, but I read that as meaning the text enclosed in the brackets should be in italics, but not the brackets themselves.

Have you tried entering the open bracket, tap Cmd-I, enter your text, Hit Cmd-1 to remove italics, close bracket, then continue with the dialog?

Do correct me, someone, if I’m wrong. :smile:

Mark

3

I just played with it a bit, and I get the same result. (Shift toggles off the italics.)
But if you don’t italicize the brackets, as said @xiamenese , it works fine. (And I don’t think they should be italics anyways.)

4

Thank you both!

Double-checking my copy of Peter Pan (which is actually what I’m working from), it seems that the in-dialogue action brackets are not italicized but the text is, just as @xiamenese suggested. So I’ll go with that!

Thanks again.