This is my last beat-down on the dead horse...
In my second link above, the author of that post referenced a book called: The Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Script Format and Style written by Christopher Riley. This is arguably the de facto standard when it comes to screenplay format. The Screenwriter's Bible by David Trottier comes in second and The Complete Guide to Standard Script Formats: The Screenplay by Judith H. Haag comes in third.
There are a couple of other books out there on formatting screenplays but these three above are what most writers use... Professional writers seem to be more drawn to The Hollywood Standard... Probably because the author was a professional script reader for Warner Brothers for something like 15 years or so. From what I understand, he even wrote and sold some specs.
Most newbie screenwriters seem to end up with The Screenwriter's Bible. Nothing wrong with this book for most formatting issues and if you know anything about David Trottier, he approaches the craft with logic... i.e., as long as you can come up with a way to format something and it's completely understandable by anyone in the business reading it? Go for it.
Sometimes, there are simply no rules or so many rules, you can pretty much get away with anything as long as it's CLEAR and CONCISE as to what you're actually TRYING TO GET ACROSS TO THE READER.
The plain and simple fact is that most people wanting to write screenplays read SHOOTING SCRIPTS. Why? Because they are freely available online and in script stores in Los Angeles. Even most of the scripts at the Writer's Guild West are shooting scripts. Shooting scripts are the scripts most newbies learn screenwriting from -- NOT SPEC SCRIPTS. Screenwriters rarely write shooting scripts. These are usually co-written by the director and cinematographer. Shooting scripts always include formatting practices that a spec script should NEVER use.
So why do so many people wanting to write screenplays read shooting scripts? Where are you gonna find a spec script? I'm lucky... I have a lot of them. I like reading specs WAY more than reading shooting scripts as one of the many ways to learn screenwriting. You'd be surprised at how different the two mediums really are. A spec script is written to be READ. Sure, you'll want the reader to simultaneously run the movie in his or her head while they read but make no mistake... It's written to be read.
When something is written to be read? You want it to be a fast and furious read so that the reader reading it, simply cannot put it down. You want them to keep turning the pages and read to the end without stopping... Without taking them OUT of the story. As I said before... Some script readers have (CONT'D) blindness... They're so used to seeing it, they hardly notice it anymore. There are in fact, a lot of these kinds of blindess examples when it comes to reading screenplays. This is but one of them.
My personal take on writing specs is to remove or change ANYTHING that MIGHT take a reader out of the story. One of my personal pet peeves is overwriting. 99 out of 100 specs I read from people trying to break into the business are WAY overwritten and while I would never see a (CONT'D) and officially call it overwriting? That's exactly what it is to me. My take... Being in this business for a very long time is simply this... Why give a reader anything that might take them OUT of the story even if it's for a second or two? Hence, why I don't use (CONT'D) when one of my characters continues on with his or her dialogue after some action/description. When it's OBVIOUS? I see no reason to include it.
Out of all the specs I've written and work for hire gigs I've gotten? I've never used it once and nobody has ever even mentioned me not including them. LOL. And? I doubt they ever will.
To me? It's just another piece of unnecessary content that the reader will most likely keep looking at as they do their read-through. Will they mention it? Probably not but a reader who doesn't like seeing them? Could that possibly influence their opinion on your spec? Most certainly. In fact? They might not even be able to actually be specific as to why it was a difficult read. I've seen hundreds of pieces of coverage over the years where the reader giving the coverage just seemed to have a difficult read overall but wasn't super specific as to why. You do NOT want a reader to give you that kind of coverage. 999 times out of 1000 if you get a PASS on your spec? You're DONE when it comes to THAT PARTICULAR studio, producer, agent, or manager.
So to me, it comes down to WHY TAKE THE CHANCE? If a reader doesn't mind seeing (CONT'D)s or has a blindness to them, what problem would there be by completely eliminating them?
NOTHING.
And as far as I'm concerned... There is NO flipside. I cannot imagine ANY professional reader dinging a spec because of its LACK of (CONT'D)s. LOL.
But back to The Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Script Format and Style written by Christopher Riley... Again, this book and its author is arguably the de facto standard reference manual when it comes to spec screenplay formatting. I personally know 7 professional readers and I heard about this book YEARS ago from 3 of them.
One of them that I know has a website... He's not one of the 3 that told me about the book but I did find this on his site:
The Top 5 Most Common Script Formatting Errors
His comment at the very bottom pretty much says it all as far as I'm concerned. He and his people do this for a living just like Christopher Riley did and in his book, Christopher Riley says specifically about using (CONT'D)s,
"no longer standard practice in Hollywood and hasn't been for at least 20 years." Originally published in 2005.
But by all means... Leave it IN if that's your preference.