All About Mini Slugs
No, this is not a post about killing off ‘actual’ slugs (mini or not), but rather sluglines, which some of you may also know as scene headings or scene headers.
In recent years (and undoubtedly because of the internet), it’s become popular here in the UK to follow the American practice of NOT writing a ‘full’ scene heading IF characters are going, say into another room, within the same timeframe (whatever that means, literal or metaphorical):
I think so-called mini slugs are great. Sluglines aka scene headings should always be as plain as possible so as to not ‘draw’ the reader’s eye anyway, plus they give more of a sense of ‘movement’ or ‘pace’ to a scene.
So it’s a definite thumbs up from me for mini slugs! However do note, there are no rules or guidelines on this and you CAN use traditional sluglines too.
More on Format on B2W:
Top 5 Screenplay Format Mistakes
All About Scene Headings/Headers
This is good to know, thank you. To continue the above example though, if the two characters are talking from different rooms, should you put in the mini slugs every single time? That seems like it would waste a lot of space. Is it alright to just continue the dialogue as normal as long as the reader knows they are in different rooms?
Glad it’s useful. TBH depends. Being a visual medium, it’s less about wasting space with mini-slugs and more about the fact you probably don’t want to have chains of dialogue either, ie. too much dialogue between two characters in two different rooms. But ultimately yes, you’re fine to do as you suggest to save space.