🎭BreakALeg

BreakALeg / help

How BreakALeg works

Plan, write, and stage plays and screenplays with your company. This page covers everything. For a hands-on tour, create the sample play from your company page: a tiny play that teaches the tool while you read it. There is a sample screenplay there too, which teaches Fountain the same way.

Getting started

Everything lives in a company. Create one, or join one with its invite code (your company page shows the code to share). Inside a company are plays and screenplays, and each one holds its scenes, characters, plot beats, rehearsals, and credits.

Writing a scene

Write plain text. There is no format to learn, just four marks:

Typed together, it renders like this:

LX: House to half, then out.
[Rain against the glass. Mara trims the wick.]
Mara
Hear that? Company.
SFX: Three heavy knocks from below.

The editor saves on its own every half minute, and the Save button saves without moving you off your spot. Type @ in a scene to get a menu of your characters. When a scene is finished, set its status to locked: it becomes read-only until unlocked, and prints as final.

Bringing in an existing script

Already have scripts written as Character: their line? Open a play, and under Scenes choose "Paste a whole play to import it". Paste the text or choose a file, including a PDF (its text is read off the pages, page numbers dropped). The importer turns speaker labels into cues, keeps your stage directions (even ones that run over several lines), splits acts and scenes, and creates your characters. For scene titles that never miss, put ## The title where a scene starts and # ACT 2 where an act starts; with markers present nothing is guessed. You get a full preview, with editable titles and text, before anything is saved.

Who can see what

A new play or screenplay is private to its writer. Not even the company owner can see it, because unfinished work belongs to its creator. When you are ready, open the play's People tab and either share it with the whole company or add specific people as readers, editors, or writers. Readers can read and leave notes; editors can change scenes; the writer controls who sees the play.

Notes on the script

Select any text in a scene and leave a note. Notes stay pinned to their words even as the script changes, and they print in the margin of the print view. Resolve them when they are done.

Rehearse, print, share

The Full script page compiles the whole play for a read-through. From there you can open the print view (real A4 pages, exactly what paper will look like), download the PDF (classic serif or modern monospace), or grab a clean performance copy without notes and statuses. Scripts work in any language, including हिन्दी. In Script settings you can change the wording used in print (for scripts in other languages), the PDF font, paragraph indentation, and whether each scene starts on a new page.

Line counts

Every character card shows how many lines that character has, counted from their cues. Open a character to see their scenes, per-scene line counts, and where else they are mentioned.

Screenplays and Fountain

A play can be a stage play (the default) or a screenplay, chosen when you create it and changeable any time in Script settings. A screenplay is written in Fountain, the plain-text screenplay format that Highland, Beat, Slugline, Final Draft and most other screenwriting apps read and write. You type plain text and the layout follows the rules below. Switching format only re-lays the script; it never changes a word you wrote.

Your BreakALeg scenes stay the containers: each holds a stretch of the screenplay (usually one slugline onwards), with its own status, synopsis and notes. On the page there are no act or scene headings; the sluglines are the headings. The title page lives in Script settings as Fountain Key: value lines. @mentions still work for tracking, and a character's line count comes from their cues, capitals or @. The cast list in the editor offers a character's name in capitals as soon as you start typing it at the start of a line.

Scripts with no capitals (Hindi and other Devanagari scripts, for example) cannot shout a cue in CAPITALS, so the page and the PDF set those cues in bold on their own, and lines get the taller spacing Devanagari needs. Write cues as @नाम or, once the character is in the cast, simply the name on its own line. Script settings can bold every cue in any script if you prefer that look.

Typing helpers in the editor: press Tab on an empty line after a blank line to start a cue (the cast is offered and what you type is capitalised), or Tab right under a speech to open a (parenthetical). Sluglines and transitions capitalise themselves as you type. A character who speaks again straight after their own speech gets (CONT'D) on the page automatically. Focus hides everything but the script and Typewriter keeps the line you are writing mid-screen; both are remembered on this browser and work for stage plays too.

Getting scripts in and out: Import accepts a pasted or chosen .fountain file, splitting it into scenes at every slugline (sections set acts and scene titles). The Full script page exports a .fountain file that other apps open, and a PDF in standard layout: Courier 12, A4, dialogue in the centre column, (MORE) and (CONT'D) when a speech crosses a page, page numbers top right.

Where the character template comes from

Each character page offers a fill-in template for fleshing a character out. It blends four well-known frameworks: Lajos Egri's three dimensions of character (body, world, mind) from The Art of Dramatic Writing; the want and need arc from modern story craft; the Proust Questionnaire for finding a character's voice; and Uta Hagen's nine questions from Respect for Acting, listed on the character page as scene preparation for the actor.

Craft notes

Two more small helpers, both optional scaffolding: the Plot tab can seed its beats from any of the story frameworks below (Freytag's pyramid for a stage play and Save the Cat for a screenplay unless you pick another), and the scene editor carries a three-line reminder of what makes a scene turn (Robert McKee's Story). Delete anything, keep what helps.

Story frameworks

Eight ways of shaping a story that writers, script editors and studios actually use. Each is a lens, not a law: use one to check a draft or to find what a sagging middle is missing, then put it down. The Plot tab can seed any of them as beats. Where a framework gives page numbers, they assume a typical feature length and a page a minute.

Freytag's pyramid Five-part dramatic arc

Where it comes from. Gustav Freytag, Die Technik des Dramas (1863), describing the five-act shape of Greek and Shakespearean tragedy, built on Aristotle's Poetics.

Who uses it. Theatre, and the default way story is taught in school. Screenwriters know it but rarely plan with it.

What it is good for. Best for a play with one rising line of conflict and a decisive turn. Weak for ensemble pieces and for stories whose climax comes late (most films), because it puts the climax in the middle.

  1. The world before. Exposition. Who these people are, what they want, and the pressure already building under the surface. The audience needs enough to care and no more.
  2. The spark. The inciting moment, sometimes folded into the exposition. Something arrives, is discovered or is lost, and the old balance cannot be restored.
  3. Rising trouble. Rising action. Every attempt to fix things makes them worse or costs something. This is the longest stretch and where most of the plot lives.
  4. The turning point. The climax, in Freytag's sense: the peak of the protagonist's fortunes and the moment the outcome is decided, often by a fatal choice. In tragedy this is the point of no return, not the final fight.
  5. The unravelling. Falling action. Consequences arrive; the protagonist may struggle against them but the direction is set. Suspense comes from how, not whether.
  6. The new world. Dénouement, or catastrophe in tragedy. The threads are tied, the cost is counted, and the audience is shown what the story was about.

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Save the Cat Fifteen beats with page numbers

Where it comes from. Blake Snyder, Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need (2005). Snyder was a working spec-script writer; the book turns studio reader instincts into a checklist.

Who uses it. Hollywood features, especially comedies and genre films, and the beat sheet most executives recognise by name. Page guides assume a 110-page script.

What it is good for. Best for a single-protagonist film with a clear want. Its critics say it makes every film feel the same; its fans say it only describes what audiences already expect. Both are right. Use it to check a draft, not to write one.

  1. Opening image. One image that sets tone, mood and the hero's starting point. Snyder pairs it with the final image so the audience can measure the change.
  2. Theme stated. Usually a minor character, usually a throwaway line. The hero will have to learn its meaning the hard way.
  3. Set-up. Introduce every main character, plant what needs fixing in the hero's life, and show the "six things that need fixing". Somewhere here the hero should do one likeable thing, which is where the book's title comes from.
  4. Catalyst. A telegram, a diagnosis, a stranger at the door. Bad news that turns out to be the beginning of the story.
  5. Debate. The hero doubts, prepares or resists. The debate section must pose a question the rest of the film answers.
  6. Break into two. The hero must choose to go; it cannot happen to them. The world of Act 2 should be the opposite of Act 1 in some visible way.
  7. B story. A breather from the A story and the place the theme is discussed out loud. Its characters are usually new, belonging to the Act 2 world.
  8. Fun and games. The trailer moments. Stakes are lighter here; the hero explores the new world and the audience gets what they paid for.
  9. Midpoint. Either the hero seems to have won (and will lose) or seems to have lost (and will win). Fun and games end; the stakes become public and personal.
  10. Bad guys close in. External enemies regroup and internal ones (jealousy, doubt, the team falling out) do their work. Everything the hero built in fun and games is undone.
  11. All is lost. The opposite of the midpoint. Snyder's "whiff of death": a mentor dies, a plant is thrown away, the old way of being ends.
  12. Dark night of the soul. The pause before the answer. The hero must be seen to give up before they can be seen to change.
  13. Break into three. A and B stories meet: something learned in the relationship story unlocks the plot. Act 3 begins with a plan.
  14. Finale. The old world is dismantled and a new one built. Snyder later split this into five steps: gather the team, execute the plan, high tower surprise, dig deep down, execute the new plan.
  15. Final image. The bookend. If the final image does not differ from the opening one, the film has not told a story.

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Syd Field's paradigm Three acts with plot points

Where it comes from. Syd Field, Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting (1979) and The Screenwriter's Workbook (1984), which added the midpoint and the pinches.

Who uses it. The vocabulary of Hollywood development: "plot point one", "the midpoint", "act two problems". Every later framework is a refinement of this one. Page guides assume a 120-page script.

What it is good for. Best as a map for the whole film. Its weakness is Act 2, which is 60 pages long and gets two signposts; the sequence approach exists to fix exactly that.

  1. Act one: set-up. The first ten pages must establish the main character, the dramatic premise (what the story is about) and the dramatic situation (the circumstances). Field said readers decide by page ten.
  2. Inciting incident. Field separated this from Plot Point 1 later in his career: the incident starts things, the plot point commits the hero to them.
  3. Plot point one. Anything that hooks into the action and turns it. It ends Act 1 and poses the question Act 2 will fight over.
  4. Act two: confrontation. Field's rule: the hero must have a clear dramatic need, and Act 2 is the series of obstacles to it. Conflict is the engine; without a need there is no conflict.
  5. Pinch one. A signpost midway between plot point one and the midpoint. Often a small confrontation with the antagonist or a reminder of the stakes.
  6. Midpoint. Field added this after teaching writers who lost their way in Act 2. The first half is often the hero reacting; after the midpoint they act.
  7. Pinch two. Mirrors pinch one and raises the pressure. Between the pinches the subplot usually does its work.
  8. Plot point two. Usually the hero's lowest point or a discovery that changes everything. After it the question of Act 2 is answered and a new one, the resolution, is posed.
  9. Act three: resolution. Field insisted that resolution means "solution", not "ending". Know how the story resolves before you write page one; the ending (the last scene) can be found later.

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The Hero's Journey Twelve stages (Vogler)

Where it comes from. Christopher Vogler, The Writer's Journey (1992), from a memo he wrote as a Disney story analyst distilling Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949).

Who uses it. Hollywood studio films, animation and fantasy above all. Disney used the memo directly; George Lucas credited Campbell for Star Wars before the memo existed.

What it is good for. Best for adventure, fantasy, coming-of-age and any story where the hero leaves home and comes back changed. Poorly suited to stories that stay in one world or have no single hero. Its critics note that it describes myths, not necessarily good films.

  1. Ordinary world. Show the life about to be left, with something missing. The contrast with the special world later is the point.
  2. Call to adventure. A messenger, a message, a disaster. The call names the stakes and the goal.
  3. Refusal of the call. Refusal makes the journey a choice rather than an accident. Sometimes another character refuses on the hero's behalf.
  4. Meeting the mentor. The mentor prepares the hero and then steps back; if the mentor could solve the problem, there would be no story.
  5. Crossing the threshold. The point of no return, often marked by a threshold guardian who must be got past. The rules change on the other side.
  6. Tests, allies, enemies. A run of smaller challenges that teach the rules and assemble the team. Often set in a bar, a market, a school.
  7. Approach to the inmost cave. The team nears the dangerous place. Pace slows; relationships are tested; a romance may bloom.
  8. Ordeal. The central crisis, not the climax. Everything before was preparation. The audience must believe the hero could be lost.
  9. Reward. A celebration or a moment of love, and the seizing of the sword. Also the moment the hero may become arrogant.
  10. The road back. Act 3 begins. A chase, a deadline or a fresh disaster forces the hero to head home, the goal now redefined.
  11. Resurrection. The climax. A second death-and-rebirth, larger than the ordeal, where the hero uses what was learned and is transformed.
  12. Return with the elixir. The elixir may be treasure, love, freedom, wisdom or simply the story itself. Without it, the hero is doomed to repeat the journey.

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The Sequence Approach Eight sequences of 12 to 15 pages

Where it comes from. Frank Daniel, who taught it at Columbia, USC and AFI; written up by his student Paul Joseph Gulino in Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach (2004). It descends from the silent era, when a film was shipped on reels of about ten minutes and each reel had to hold on its own.

Who uses it. American film schools (USC, Columbia), and writers who find beat sheets too prescriptive. Common in independent film.

What it is good for. Best for solving Act 2: each sequence has its own question, so sixty pages become four twelve-page problems. Works for almost any genre. Weak as a first-draft generator; it describes rhythm more than content.

  1. Sequence 1: status quo and disturbance. Establish the protagonist and the world, then the point of attack. Each sequence works like a short film with its own tension that resolves into the next.
  2. Sequence 2: predicament and lock-in. The main tension of the film is set: "will she...?" The lock-in is the moment there is no easy way out.
  3. Sequence 3: first obstacle. Often the fun of the premise. The hero's plan meets the world, and the world pushes back.
  4. Sequence 4: first culmination. The hero seems close to success or to failure; the midpoint changes the nature of the problem, not just its difficulty.
  5. Sequence 5: subplots and rising action. The place subplots earn their keep. New information or relationships raise the cost of the main line.
  6. Sequence 6: main culmination. The lowest point or the hollow victory. Whatever the hero wanted at the lock-in is now won or lost, and it is not the end.
  7. Sequence 7: new tension and twist. Act 3 begins with a new, sharper question. Gulino stresses the twist: something the audience did not expect that follows from what they knew.
  8. Sequence 8: resolution. Resolves the new tension and, through it, the original one. A short coda shows the changed world.

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Dan Harmon's Story Circle Eight steps for an episode

Where it comes from. Dan Harmon, in essays for Channel 101 (from about 2009), compressing Campbell and Vogler into eight words on a circle. Used on Community and Rick and Morty.

Who uses it. American television writers' rooms, comedy especially, where a 22-minute episode needs a complete story. Also used for short films and single chapters.

What it is good for. Best for episodes and short pieces with one character who goes somewhere and comes back. The circle is the same shape as the Hero's Journey; the difference is scale and the insistence that the change be small and true.

  1. You. The top of the circle: the familiar. Harmon's rule is to make the audience identify quickly; "you" means the viewer as much as the character.
  2. Need. A desire, a lack, a question. It can be trivial (a better parking space) as long as it is felt.
  3. Go. The threshold. Harmon draws it as crossing from the ordered top half into the chaotic bottom half.
  4. Search. The road of trials, compressed. The character becomes a little different in order to get what they want.
  5. Find. The goal is reached, or something like it. Often the moment things look best and are about to look worst.
  6. Take. The cost. Getting the thing has consequences; something is lost, and the character learns what the want really was.
  7. Return. Back across the line, up into the ordered world, carrying what happened.
  8. Change. Harmon insists the change be modest: a lesson learned, a relationship adjusted. Next week the circle turns again.

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Kishōtenketsu Four parts, no villain required

Where it comes from. The four-line structure of classical Chinese poetry (qǐ chéng zhuǎn hé), carried into Japanese as ki-shō-ten-ketsu and used for essays, manga, film and even video game levels.

Who uses it. Japanese, Chinese and Korean storytelling: Ozu, Studio Ghibli, much manga and anime, and Nintendo level design (Koichi Hayashida has described building Super Mario levels this way).

What it is good for. Best for stories driven by curiosity and recognition rather than conflict: family dramas, slice of life, mysteries of feeling. It explains why Ghibli films can have no antagonist and still hold. Hard to use for a thriller.

  1. Ki: introduction. Establish the elements the story will play with. No inciting incident is required; the audience is invited in, not pushed.
  2. Shō: development. Elaboration rather than complication. Relationships deepen, the world is explored, patterns are set up that the twist will use.
  3. Ten: twist. The distinctive move. Not a reversal of fortune but a change of angle: a new element, a jump in time, an unexpected connection. It recontextualises the first two parts.
  4. Ketsu: conclusion. The parts are brought together; the audience sees how the new element and the old belong to one whole. Often quiet.

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The Indian interval structure Two halves and an interval point

Where it comes from. The commercial cinemas of India, shaped by the interval break in every screening since the studio era. Its ancestor is the Natyashastra of Bharata (about 200 BCE to 200 CE), which describes five junctures, the sandhis: opening, progression, development, pause and conclusion. Taught today by writers such as Anjum Rajabali at FTII and Whistling Woods.

Who uses it. Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada cinema. The trade talks in its terms: "interval bang", "pre-climax", "hero introduction".

What it is good for. Best for a film that will be shown with a break and needs the audience to come back. The first half may hold songs and a slower build; the interval point must land; the second half often changes shape entirely. Streaming has loosened it, but the interval point survives as a habit.

  1. Hero introduction. Bharata's mukha, the opening: the seed of the story is planted and the hero is seen at full size. In masala cinema this is the "entry", sometimes a song; in quieter films it is still a defining first scene.
  2. The world and the want. The first half builds breadth rather than pressure: family, romance, friends, the comic subplot. The rasas are varied on purpose so the audience feels a full range before the break.
  3. The turn. Pratimukha, the progression: the seed sprouts. The antagonist or the conflict declares itself and the songs make way for stakes.
  4. Interval point. The defining beat. A revelation, a betrayal, a death, a face in a crowd. It should recast what the first half meant, not just raise the stakes.
  5. The second half opens. Garbha, the development: the seed is now a plant with obstacles around it. Many Indian films are almost two films joined at the interval; the second half re-answers the first.
  6. Pre-climax. Vimarsha, the pause or crisis: doubt, loss, reflection. The trade calls the big emotional scene before the finale the pre-climax; it is where the audience cries.
  7. Climax. Nirvahana, the conclusion in Bharata's terms: all threads converge. In commercial cinema, the fight; in drama, the confrontation that was avoided all film.
  8. Resolution. Short, and often celebratory. Where the story has been tragic, a coda that lets the audience leave with the rasa the film chose.

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Also cited, not seeded here: John Truby's twenty-two steps (The Anatomy of Story, 2007), Michael Hauge's six stages (Writing Screenplays That Sell, 1988), and Robert McKee's Story (1997), which is a theory of scenes, acts and turning points rather than a template.

A screenplay's play page swaps Rehearsals and Credits (the Fountain title page carries the credits) for two tabs read straight off the script: Locations, every place from your sluglines with how often it is used, and Outline, the scenes with their pages, synopses, sluglines and any # section or = synopsis lines. The title page sits at the top of the Scenes tab.

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