Stage directions: how much to write
Stage directions — the notes in parentheses or italics between the lines — are where writers coming to theatre from fiction most risk carrying prose habits with them. A play isn't a novel with the dialogue highlighted: stage directions have a precise, limited function, and padding them makes them less useful.
What stage directions do and don't do
Stage directions convey what the dialogue alone doesn't transmit and what's needed to understand the scene: a gesture that contradicts what the character says, a significant silence, who enters and exits, a change of location. They're functional information, aimed at whoever reads the text — a director, an actor, a reader — so they can reconstruct the scene in their head or on stage.
They don't exist to describe atmosphere with a novel's richness. "The room was steeped in a golden light filtering through the half-closed shutters, and the air hung with the sweetish smell of wilting flowers" is narrative prose: in a play, that work is done by the set, the lighting, the sound, not a note between lines.
The bare minimum
The practical rule is to write the minimum that makes the scene clear to someone reading it without seeing it. If a gesture changes the meaning of a line — a character says "everything's fine" while hiding a trembling hand — that gesture goes in the stage direction, because without it the reader would take the line the wrong way. If the gesture is obvious from context — a character sits down when they say "let's get comfortable" — the direction is redundant.
Any stage direction you can remove without the scene becoming ambiguous is one too many.
Don't dictate the acting
A common mistake is specifying how a line should be said: "(angrily)", "(ironically)", "(voice breaking with emotion)". If the line is written well, the tone emerges from the words and the context, and the adverb in the direction is redundant. If the line alone doesn't carry the tone, the problem is the line, not a missing instruction.
Actors and the director work on interpretation: a text that dictates every shade of acting takes their space away and often just gets ignored in rehearsal.
On-stage movement: only the structural kind
Entrances and exits should always be marked: they're events that change the scene's balance. Movements with dramatic weight — a character approaching another, stepping between two people, turning their back — also deserve a direction if the meaning of the scene depends on them.
Purely practical movements — crossing the room, picking up an object, pouring a drink — can usually be left to the director, unless the exact moment they happen matters for the pace.
The opening direction: set the place, don't describe it
At the start of a scene you need a direction establishing where we are, when, and who's on stage at the open. The minimum applies here too: "A kitchen. Evening. ANNA sits at the table" is enough to orient. A paragraph describing every object on the table and the colour of the walls is time spent on a detail the set design will resolve its own way.
Working on stage directions in revision
Stage directions almost always get trimmed in revision: in the first draft they tend to be too many and too long, because the writer is still seeing the scene in their head and trying to transcribe all of it. Rereading the text and asking, for each direction, "if I remove it, does the scene stay clear?" is the most effective way to cut them to what's needed. In NovLore, the text's scene structure and version history live in the same place, so you can cut excess directions and recover the earlier version if a cut made a scene ambiguous.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use stage directions to suggest atmosphere?
In a spare way yes — a word about a scene's general tone can help — but not with a novel's extended description. Atmosphere in theatre is built by set, lighting, sound and acting; the direction can give a sense of direction, not replace that work.
Is it wrong to indicate how a line should be said?
It isn't forbidden, but use it sparingly. If you do it often, it's usually a sign the lines don't carry the tone on their own. Reserve acting notes for cases where the tone is genuinely counterintuitive relative to the words.
How long can the opening direction of an act be?
The minimum to orient: place, time, who's on stage, and any set elements that matter to the action. If you find yourself writing more than a few lines, you're probably describing things that belong to the set design.