Fountain Screenplay Formatter: Turn a Scene Treatment into Clean Fountain Markup with Dual Dialogue, Notes, and Title Page

Prompt

Act as a screenwriter and script coordinator who writes every draft in Fountain plain text markup and knows exactly how the parser reads each line. You keep the writer's story choices, tighten action lines to what the camera sees, and make the markup parse cleanly in any Fountain app.

Inputs:
- Treatment or rough scene text to convert: [Treatment]
- Title page details (title, credit line, author, draft date, contact): [TitlePage]
- Character list with the exact capitalization to use, including any names that start with a lowercase prefix or contain numbers: [Characters]
- Moments the writer wants as overlapping dialogue, montage, intercut, or song lyrics: [SpecialMoments]
- Notes or alternate lines the writer wants kept but hidden: [WriterNotes]
- Target app (Highland, Slugline, Fade In, Final Draft via FDX import, or a command line tool): [TargetApp]
- Output format: [Format]
- Language: [Lang]

Generate:
1. Title page block using Fountain keys (Title:, Credit:, Author:, Draft date:, Contact:), with indented continuation lines for multi line values, followed by a blank line.
2. The script in Fountain. Scene headings begin with INT., EXT., EST., INT./EXT., or I/E on their own line with a blank line before; force anything else with a leading period. Character cues are all capitals on their own line; force a cue with @ when the name has lowercase letters. Parentheticals sit in parentheses under the cue. Dual dialogue gets a caret after the second character cue. Transitions are all capitals ending in TO:, or forced with >. Centered text uses > text <. Lyrics start with a tilde. Use ! to force an action line that would otherwise parse as a cue. Use *italics*, **bold**, and _underline_ only where the writer asked for emphasis.
3. Structure markers: # sections for acts or sequences and = synopsis lines, which most apps hide from the printed page.
4. WriterNotes as [[double bracket notes]] inline and cut alternates inside /* boneyard */ blocks so nothing is lost.
5. Parser traps found in this draft: every line that would be misread (an all caps sound effect parsed as a character, a heading missing its blank line, a cue with a number) and the fix applied.
6. TargetApp notes: what to check after opening the file there, and how forced elements behave if the writer exports to FDX.

Constraints:
- Do not add scenes, lines, or beats that are not in Treatment; mark a gap with a [[note]] instead.
- Action lines in present tense, short paragraphs, no camera directions unless the writer wrote them.
- Output the script inside one plain text block so whitespace survives.
- No em dashes.

Instructions

Replace every [bracket] with your details before running. Works on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

Generated Output

This image was generated using the prompt above.

Fountain Screenplay Formatter: Turn a Scene Treatment into Clean Fountain Markup with Dual Dialogue, Notes, and Title Page - Result

Examples

Example Input

Treatment: Night, a laundromat. Dee folds towels while Marco (her ex) comes in soaked from the rain. They both start talking at once about the dog. A dryer alarm goes BZZZT. Marco admits he lost the dog. Dee says nothing and keeps folding. Cut to the parking lot, Dee sitting in her car, radio playing an old song: 'hold the line, hold the light'.
TitlePage: Title Spin Cycle, written by Ana Ruiz, draft 2 dated 10/02/2026, contact ana.ruiz@example.com
Characters: DEE, MARCO, mcKAY (the night attendant, only appears in a note)
SpecialMoments: overlapping lines when they both mention the dog; lyrics in the car
WriterNotes: maybe Marco brings the leash? keep as alternate
TargetApp: Highland 2, then FDX export for a producer
Format: title page plus script, then traps and app notes
Lang: English

Example Output

1 and 2. Fountain file
Title: Spin Cycle
Credit: Written by
Author: Ana Ruiz
Draft date: Draft 2, 10/02/2026
Contact:
ana.ruiz@example.com

# Act One

= Marco tells Dee the dog is gone.

INT. LAUNDROMAT - NIGHT

Fluorescent hum. DEE (30s) folds towels into perfect squares.

The door bangs open. MARCO (30s), soaked through, drips onto the tile.

DEE
Where's Biscuit?

MARCO ^
About Biscuit...

!BZZZT. A dryer alarm. Neither of them moves.

MARCO
(quiet)
I lost him. The gate was open.

Dee keeps folding.

[[Ana: maybe Marco brings the leash? Alternate kept in boneyard below.]]

/*
Marco sets a wet leash on the folding table. Dee stares at it.
*/

CUT TO:

EXT. LAUNDROMAT PARKING LOT - CONTINUOUS

Dee sits in her car, engine off. The radio plays low.

~Hold the line, hold the light

[[mcKAY the attendant is only in notes for now. If he gets a line, cue him as @mcKAY.]]

5. Parser traps fixed
- BZZZT was alone on a line in capitals and would parse as a character cue. Forced to action with ! and merged into a full sentence.
- Overlap: the treatment says they talk at once, so MARCO gets the caret to sit beside DEE as dual dialogue. The exact overlapping words were not in the treatment; Where's Biscuit? and About Biscuit... are placeholders to confirm.
- mcKAY has lowercase letters and would not parse as a cue, so any future cue needs the @ force.
- Cut to the parking lot is written as the transition CUT TO: with blank lines on both sides, and the new scene heading follows its own blank line.
- Contact uses an indented second line, which keeps the email on the title page instead of the first page of action.

6. Highland 2 and FDX
- In Highland 2, confirm the dual dialogue renders side by side and the # section and = synopsis are hidden in print preview.
- Notes and boneyard do not print; check the FDX export to see whether notes come across as script notes in your Final Draft version, and remove them first if the producer copy should be clean.
- Lyrics export as dialogue style text in some FDX conversions; check the car scene after import.