Fountain for first-timers: the five marks you need to write a branching story

You write a Nightwriter story as plain text, in a format called Fountain. You need five marks: a scene heading to say where you are, plain lines for narration, a name in capitals before someone speaks, a line in brackets for how they say it, and double square brackets for a choice. Everything else is ordinary typing.

Fountain was created in 2012 by the screenwriters John August and Stu Maschwitz, as a way to write screenplays in any text editor. Nightwriter uses it because it stays readable as a story: open the file anywhere and you see prose and dialogue, not code.

1. Scene headings: where we are

A scene heading starts with INT. (inside) or EXT. (outside), then the place, then a dash and the time of day.

INT. CALLOWAY'S OFFICE - NIGHT

Each heading starts a new moment the reader can arrive at. Nightwriter adds a short tag to the end of it, like #knock-glass#, which is how choices find their way there. You never type the tag yourself.

2. Narration: just write

Any line that isn’t one of the other marks is narration: what the reader sees and feels, with nobody speaking.

Rain runs down the glass in ropes. The desk lamp makes a small
yellow island, and you are the only thing on it.

If a line of narration happens to be written in capitals and Nightwriter mistakes it for a name, put an exclamation mark in front of it: !BANG.

3. Who is speaking: a name in capitals

Put the speaker’s name on its own line, in capitals, and their words on the lines below.

EZRA
Mr. Calloway? I play piano at the Blue Lantern.

Use the same spelling every time. Nightwriter matches the name to a character, so the right picture appears on stage when they talk.

4. How they say it: a line in brackets

A line in round brackets, between the name and the words, says how the line is delivered. It’s optional.

EZRA
(quiet)
Not in the middle of the bridge. Not Lila.

5. Choices: double square brackets

This is the one mark that isn’t in ordinary screenplays. A choice goes in double square brackets: what the reader sees, an arrow, and where it leads.

[[Take the case -> #matchbook]]
[[Send him away -> #hat-stays]]

Two or more choices in a row are the options the reader gets at that point. Don’t know yet where a choice should go? Leave the arrow out, [[Say nothing]], and connect it later by dragging it to a scene on the Corkboard.

Putting it together

Here is one whole moment of a story, with all five marks:

INT. CALLOWAY'S OFFICE - NIGHT

Somebody knocks. Not a cop's knock. A careful one, like they're counting.

EZRA
(quiet)
Mr. Calloway? I play piano at the Blue Lantern. Lila March stopped
singing in the middle of "Blue Moon" tonight.

CALLOWAY
Singers walk out. It's a whole tradition.

[[Take the case -> #matchbook]]
[[Send him away -> #hat-stays]]

That is the whole format. Who stands where, what music plays, and which choices only appear after the reader has found a clue are all set up beside the story, so none of it clutters the page. See how that works.

Two extras when the story grows

A line starting with # names a larger part of the story, like # Act One, and ### names a scene inside it. They help you find your way around a long story.

If you already know Fountain: standard Fountain uses [[double brackets]] for private notes. Nightwriter uses them for choices instead, so keep your notes elsewhere. A Fountain file you wrote in another program still opens; its notes just turn into choices to tidy up.

Nightwriter is in development and opening to writers gradually. Ask for early access if you have a story you want to try it on.