Screenwriting Keyboard Shortcuts: Write a Scene Without a Mouse
Screenwriting keyboard shortcuts that let you write a whole scene without the mouse: Enter, Tab and Shift+Tab. Watch scene one of The Night Ferry typed live, not a single click.
Chapters (8)
In this lesson you will learn
- How Enter moves you to the next logical screenplay element
- How Tab and Shift+Tab cycle through element types
- How to navigate suggestion lists with the arrow keys, Enter and Escape
- How to write a full scene of The Night Ferry without touching the mouse
- Two line shortcuts: insert a line above and merge a line into the one above
- A daily drill to make the keyboard flow automatic
Professional writers almost never touch the mouse, and this lesson shows the screenwriting keyboard shortcuts that make it possible in ScreenWeaver. Two keys do almost everything. Enter moves you to the next logical element, and Tab cycles through the element types of the current line, with Shift+Tab going the other way. Arrow keys, Enter and Escape handle the suggestion lists for names, places and times of day.
Then you watch scene one of The Night Ferry written keyboard only, from the scene heading to Elias's parenthetical, without a single click. You also learn two small line shortcuts and a simple drill: one short scene of half a page every day, five minutes a day, until your fingers know the flow.
Full transcript
0:04You know the elements, now let's get fast. Professional writers almost never touch the mouse while they write, and in Screenweaver you don't need to either. Two keys do almost everything, Enter and Tab.
0:18Enter moves you to the next logical element. After a scene heading, Enter gives you an action line. After a character, dialogue. After dialogue, the next character. After a parenthetical, back to dialogue. After a transition, a new scene heading. You type, you press Enter, and the page already knows what comes next.
0:39Tab cycles through the element types of the current line. Scene, Action, Character, Dialogue, Parenthetical, Transition, Shot, and back to Scene. Shift -Tab goes the other way. So if Enter guessed wrong, one or two tabs of Tab fix it.
0:57And when a suggestion list is open, for a name, a place, or a time of day, use the arrow keys to move, Enter to confirm, and Escape to close it and keep typing.
1:08Let's write Scene 1 of The Night Ferry, keyboard only. Exterior, the jetty, Night. Enter. An action line. Type the opening. Enter again gives another action line. So press Tab once, and we're on character. Maya. Enter, Dialogue. Wait, please. I need to cross tonight. Enter. Elias. Enter. No passengers after midnight.
1:35Maya again. Her line. Elias again. His line. Then an action line. She doesn't move. Rain runs down her face. After dialogue, Enter gives us a character. So one Shift -Tab takes us back to action. Type it. Then, Elias. Enter. And one Tab turns the dialogue line into a parenthetical. Sighing. Enter. Back to dialogue. Get in. Don't touch anything.
2:05One page, one minute film, and not a single click. Two more small things. Pressing Enter at the very start of a line inserts a new empty line above it. And Backspace at the start of a line merges it into the line above.
2:19All of these shortcuts are on the keyboard cheat sheet in the resources. Print it, and in two days you won't need it anymore.
2:25Here's a drill to make it automatic. Every day this week, write one short scene of half a page. Any subject, keyboard only. A heading, two action lines, four lines of dialogue, one parenthetical. Five minutes a day. And by the end of the week, your fingers will know the flow without thinking.
2:45Your exercise? Write your whole first scene again, without touching the mouse. Then take the quiz at the end of this section. In the next section, we step back from the page and build the structure of the story. The end of the page and build the structure of the story.