Orchid is a straightforward, no frills, and hyper-explicit screenwriting syntax. It uses syntactic identifiers, beginning at the start of each line, to determine what type of screenwriting element each line belongs to.
@ INT. WAREHOUSE -- NIGHT
Two men in full combat gear, assault rifles at the ready. *STARING* in the dim light at a doorway, expectantly.
& JOHN JAMESON
( (nervous)
$ Any contact from the others yet? What's going on?
Orchid comes with a Sublime Text package, complete with a beautiful color theme and text-editing commands for an enjoyable screenwriting experience.
Additionally, Orchid can be converted into Fountain or HTML formats easily with the included Python utilities. Go to the Orchid Github to download.
For most script elements, a starting syntactic identifier is required on each line. Type the identifier, any amount of whitespace, and then your text.
The heading element of a screenplay, generally a "slugline", in the form of (INT./EXT. LOCATION -- TIME OF DAY).
The action element of a screenplay contains scene descriptions and character actions. NOTE: Any element without a starting syntactic identifier that contains text will be interpreted as ACTION.
The character element of a screenplay contains the character name of a character that is going to speak dialogue.
The dialogue element of a screenplay contains character dialogue -- what the actors are meant to speak.
The parenthetical element of a screenplay describes character states and character actions during dialogue.
The transition element of a screenplay describes transitions from one scene to the next. For example, CUT TO: or FADE IN:.
Comments are for the screenwriter to make notes as they work, and aren't intended to end up in the final screenplay.
Title Pages contain information about the screenplay and screenwriter, such as the title, author name, date of completion, draft number, and so on.
The LINE BREAK is any line that either contains no text or contains only whitespace characters. Use it to add whitespace to the screenplay.
Bold text by surrounding it with asterisks, *like this.* Italicize text by surrounding it with forward slashes, /like this./ Underline text by surrounding it with underscores, _like this._
If you'd like to see an example of the syntax being used in a script, here's a short example.