More output quality problems trace back to script formatting than to any other single factor — a missed character, two speakers merged into one, dialogue attributed to the wrong person. Almost all of these are preventable with a few formatting habits, regardless of whether you're working with a screenplay, a play, a novel excerpt, or a training scenario.
The core rule: name on its own line, dialogue beneath it
The single most reliable format across every use case is:
MARIA I don't think we should be doing this. DAVID It's a little late to change your mind now.
Character name alone on a line, in capital letters, followed by their dialogue on the next line, with a blank line separating each speaker. This format works whether you're converting a screenplay, a play, a novel excerpt reformatted for this purpose, or a training scenario written from scratch.
Common formatting mistakes that cause problems
- Inconsistent capitalization of the same character's name across a script (MARIA in one place, Maria in another) can cause the system to treat them as two different speakers.
- Dialogue tags woven into prose ("I don't think we should," Maria said quietly) work fine for reading but don't parse cleanly — pull dialogue out into the name-then-line format instead.
- Missing blank lines between speakers can cause two characters' lines to blur into one block.
- Stage directions or action lines placed between a name and their dialogue can break the association between the two — keep the character name and their spoken line directly adjacent.
Converting non-script formats
For content that doesn't start out script-formatted — a novel chapter, an internal memo you're turning into a dialogue — the reformatting step takes a few minutes but pays off directly in cleaner results. Read through once, and any time a character speaks, pull it out into the name-then-line structure above, even if that means temporarily stripping out the surrounding narrative description.
A quick pre-conversion checklist
- Does every character name appear exactly the same way, every time?
- Is there a blank line between each speaker's turn?
- Is each character's dialogue directly beneath their name, with nothing in between?
Running through this checklist before converting a scene takes under a minute and prevents the majority of character-detection issues before they happen.