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4. Parenthetical

Parentheticals or Actor Directions can be used when the subtext of the dialogue may not be clear to the reader or for the purpose of indicating an unexpected behaviour, attitude, or sudden movement by the character during dialogue. They are used primarily to direct the actor but may also be used for production directions. See the list below for common uses.

Parentheticals may impinge on the domain of the actor and/or director who will interpret your dialogue so only use them if the tone or intent of the dialogue is unexpected or unclear.

Use parentheticals sparingly and when possible put the parenthetical information in the action.

Formatting

Parentheticals are placed immediately beneath the Character Name or used within the dialogue.

They should be preceded by and followed by a line break.

Parentheticals...

• are always placed in parentheses;

• should always be on their own line;

• are all lower case, including the first letter (except for proper nouns);

• do NOT end with a period or other punctuation;

Avoid having multiple directions within a single parenthetical. The correct way to format a parenthetical with multiple directions is to separate them by semi-colons. But if there's that much going on, just move it to the Action.

Common uses

Parentheticals can be used to direct the actor:

• Performance

• Action

• Pause

• Who the character is speaking to.

Put the parenthetical before the dialogue it qualifies.

Parentheticals can also be used to indicate production considerations:

• Language

Performance

Action

Character movement should normally be described in the scene directions but can be used for brief directions in the dialogue.

Alternatively, the same dialogue could be written this way, avoiding the parenthetical:

Pause

To indicate a break during the delivery of the dialogue, use pause or beat.

Be aware that the use of this direction, especially overuse, is not appreciated.

Speaking to

If there are several characters in the scene and it's necessary to indicate which character the dialogue is being directed to, you could do the following:

Language

Unlike the other parenthetical types which are intended to provide direction to the actor, the language type of parenthetical is used to indicate to the reader that the lines of dialogue would be spoken in another language.

This allows the script to be written and read in a single language while flagging where other languages would be spoken.

See the "Bilingual or Multilingual Dialogue" section of the Dialogue page for more details.

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Revised: September 30, 2023
© 2007-2025 Ken Briscoe