Parenthetical

A parenthetical is a short direction inside a speech, in brackets: how a line is said (quietly), who it is said to, or a pause (beat). It goes on a line of its own, under the character’s name or between two lines of their dialogue.

NORA
(quietly)
Somebody has been here.

Writing one in Calmly Script

Under the name, type the direction in brackets on the line where the speech would start, and press Enter↩. The line becomes a parenthetical, and the next line is the speech it belongs to. Calmly Script decides this when you press Enter, not while you type, so a line that only begins with a bracket is left alone while you are writing it.

Between two lines of a speech, press Enter↩ at the end of the first line, as if the next character were about to speak, and then TabTab. The empty name becomes a parenthetical with its brackets already written and the caret between them. Type the direction and press Enter↩ for the rest of the speech: the closing bracket stays on the parenthetical. On an empty (), Enter takes the line back to action.

The demo shows both: a parenthetical typed under Nora’s name, and one added with Tab in the middle of Bram’s speech.

You can also choose it for the line you are on with Format › Parenthetical or Ctrl+4⌘4. On an empty line that writes the two brackets with the caret between them; on a line with words, it puts the brackets around them. Changing a parenthetical into anything else takes away the brackets around the line.

In the Fountain file

A parenthetical has no special character of its own: the brackets are the syntax, and they are printed. A line in brackets under a character’s name, or between lines of their speech with no blank line around it, is a parenthetical:

BRAM
Nobody comes here in winter.
(beat)
Nobody but us.

How it prints

A parenthetical prints in brackets, in a column set further in than the dialogue and narrower, with no blank line above or below it, so it reads as part of the speech.