Short Lines

Definition

Short Lines, or Forced Line Breaks, are used in Action and Dialogue for certain types of emphasis.

Description

Short Lines look like this:

                    STEVEN
     And now, New York Haiku by Steven Sashen,
     Zen Poet.
          (reading a poem)
     The East River.
     A Frog Jumps in.
     OUCH!

The Short Lines are the Haiku (okay, it's not really a Haiku). Notice how the lines end before the normal right Dialogue margin. This is a common use of Short Lines, poetry, lyrics, etc.

In Action, Short Lines are usually used to separate different bits of Action without creating new Action elements. So, the normal version like this:

Simmons walks up to the safe, making sure he isn't 
followed by the other troopers.

He turns the dial.

Click.

He turns it the other way.

Click.

versus the Short Line way:

Simmons walks up to the safe, making sure he isn't 
followed by the other troopers.
He turns the dial.
Click.
He turns it the other way.
Click.

Short Lines are not that common and some people don't like them for anything other than things like lyrics.

Formatting

Short Lines are just Action or Dialogue that end before the normal margin and have no extra blank lines before them.

With Scriptware

To create Short Lines, when you're typing Action or Dialogue, just press <Ctrl-Shift-Enter> and keep typing. (This is similar to what you do to create Dialogue Paragraphs.)