How to Write a Micro Drama Script (Vertical Format,…

Write 60 to 100 tiny episodes, not one TV pilot cut into pieces. Each episode has one job: make a stranger tap "next" with their thumb. The first block of episodes has to be good enough that they pay to keep going.

If you're making the footage with AI, your script is also your production plan. So only describe things a video model can actually show.

The format in numbers

There's no official industry standard, and platforms differ. These are the ranges that keep coming up from people who write and buy these shows.

Element	Typical range	Where it comes from
Episode length	60–90 seconds, up to about 2 minutes	Writer Gigi M. Green; Final Draft says 1–3 minutes
Season length	60–100 episodes	Filmustage; Final Draft lists 40, 50, 60 or 100
Free episodes	First 8–13 on most ReelShort series	ReelShort's own coin guide
Paywall	Around episode 10	Filmustage; UK producer Bethany Thompson says many platforms give 10 free
Hook	First 3 seconds	Gigi M. Green; InkTip says the first five seconds matter most
Cliffhangers	One per episode	Spirit Studios told Deadline a 60-episode show means "60 cliffhangers"

The takeaway: plan short episodes, a long season, and a paywall around episode 10.

The paywall is the point where free episodes stop and viewers have to pay. Plan for it somewhere between episodes 8 and 12, then adjust once you know the platform.

One writer quoted on John August's site said the first 10 chapters of a show got rewritten over and over. The rest got little oversight. That tells you where the money is.

Start with an engine, not a plot

An engine is a setup that keeps making new conflict on its own. InkTip's advice is to find "one clear engine that can fuel 20–100 short episodes." That means a simple want, new obstacles every episode, a ticking clock and an open question.

Filmustage says the conflict has to be built into the premise. Think enemies to lovers, forced proximity, a power gap like CEO and assistant, or an arranged marriage. Then you don't have to invent a new obstacle from scratch every 90 seconds.

Test your premise like this. Put two characters in a room. If there's no tension before anyone speaks, the premise needs work.

Map the whole season first

Write the whole season on one page before you write a single scene. This simple map works for most genres.

Block	Episodes	Job
Hook	1–3	Inciting incident on page one. Who wants what, and who's in the way
Free run	4–9	Escalate fast, two or three emotional peaks, set up the paywall question
Paywall beat	8–12	The biggest turn in the first block. Answer it one or two episodes later
Long middle	13–70	Complications, a midpoint reversal, a dark stretch
Payoff	last 10–15	Resolve subplots first, the main relationship last

The takeaway: the biggest twist of the first block lands right before the paywall.

The inciting incident is the event that kicks off the story. Novelist Claire Epstein writes for DramaBox. She points out that in a feature film it usually lands around page 12, but in verticals it's on page one.

So don't spend episode one showing normal life. Every one of our script templates has a season map like this, with the paywall beat marked.

Build each episode on a timer

Sketch each episode as timestamps before you write any dialogue. Filmustage calls its version hook, friction, spike and button. Here's a 90-second version:

0:00–0:03, the stop. An image or line that needs no context. A slap, a ring on the table, a phone screen with one word on it.
0:03–0:30, the friction. Two people in one space, and one of them is hiding something.
0:30–1:10, the spike. The jolt that changes what the episode was about.
Last 5 seconds, the button. Cut on the question, not the answer.

A cliffhanger is the open question at the end that makes people tap next. Gigi M. Green suggests writing the cliffhanger first, then working backward.

Mix up the kind of cliffhanger, too. InkTip lists four: a reveal, a reversal, a deadline and an interruption.

Bethany Thompson of Sea Star Productions says it doesn't have to be huge every time. It can be stopping mid-sentence, or just before someone turns around. Switch between big and small ones so viewers don't go numb.

Screenplay format for verticals

The format is almost the same as a normal screenplay, according to Final Draft's blog. You still write scene headings, action, character names, dialogue and parentheticals (short acting notes in brackets).

What changes is how you organize it. Final Draft's Micro Drama template adds an Episode element, and you write every episode in one document. A scene can also run across several episodes without a new heading.

Here's what that looks like, using the paywall beat from our CEO romance template:

EPISODE 10 - "ON CAMERA"

[0:00–0:03 HOOK]

INT. VALE HOLDINGS - BOARDROOM - DAY

A wall screen shows SECURITY FOOTAGE: ELENA BROOKS photographing
a sealed file. Twelve INVESTORS on a video call watch it freeze.

INVESTOR (V.O.)
(through the speaker)
Is that your new assistant?

[1:20–1:30 BUTTON]

ADRIAN VALE sets a small velvet box on the glass table and
slides it toward her. He doesn't look away from the camera.

ADRIAN
She was photographing our engagement contract.
(low, only to her)
Smile, fiancée. You're on camera.

CLOSE ON ELENA. She doesn't smile.

CUT TO BLACK.

Notice two things. First, timestamps sit in brackets, so the editor and whoever makes the shots both know the pacing target.

Second, the reaction gets its own line. Filmustage's point is that in vertical drama, the moment after a reveal needs to be written out: what the hands do, where the eyes go.

Dialogue: fewer lines than you think

Gigi M. Green's rule of thumb is no more than 10 lines an episode. Write 20, then cut 10.

Every line should push the conflict or show a character under pressure. Short lines also make better captions, since a lot of people watch muted (see editing and captions).

Short lines are easier to dub and lip-sync with AI, too. Lip sync means mouth movements that match the words. ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 guide says to keep one clip's dialogue in one language, so don't switch languages mid-line unless it's a name.

Write for the model too

If you'll make the footage with AI, write what a model can see.

One action per shot. "She slides the box across the table" works. "She realizes he's been lying all along" doesn't, so turn thoughts into actions.
Name the shot size in your shot list, even if the script doesn't. Vertical lives in close-ups and medium shots (shot language guide).
Keep two or three characters per scene. Filmustage warns against big ensembles, and more people in a frame means more faces that can change.
Reuse locations. The explainer video from Hillary Marek's channel suggests about five recurring locations. That also means fewer location images to build.
Keep fights and chases short. They're hard to stage in a narrow frame, and models struggle to keep them coherent.
Fit each beat to one clip. Veo 3.1 clips run 4, 6 or 8 seconds. Seedance 2.0, Kling 3.0 and Hailuo's H3 go up to 15, and Seedance 2.5 and Wan 3.0 go up to 30.
Skip on-screen text the model has to spell. Add text messages and documents as overlays in the edit instead.

Then break each episode into a numbered shot list. Our storyboarding guide shows how.

Common mistakes

Squeezing a horizontal script into vertical instead of writing vertical from page one.
Spending episode one on setup or backstory.
Solving the conflict inside one episode. Even the finale should leave something open.
Using the same kind of cliffhanger until viewers stop feeling it.
Ignoring the paywall. Know which episode it's on before you outline.

Pick a template

Each template has a season map, a beat sheet, a full original episode 1 and an AI shot list:

Adapting a book? Start with from novel to drama.

For help drafting with an AI agent, browse script tools in our project directory and agent skills.

How to Write a Micro Drama Script (Vertical Format, AI-Ready)