in _The Moving Picture World_, was at first called "The Scenario
Writer;" however, Mr. Sargent, like most writers and editors, has
abandoned the use of the word "scenario" as applied to the complete
script. "Scenario" is the name now properly given to the continuity of
scenes, or "the continuity," as many are calling it in these days of
more precise nomenclature. Furthermore, various trade publications are
now urging writers and all others interested in the work to substitute
the word "photoplay" for "scenario," as being more comprehensive and
exact when applied to the complete manuscript. In strict accuracy,
however, even "photoplay" is not a sufficiently explicit term when
applied to the manuscript only, while either "photoplay manuscript" or
"photoplay script" is; for, as all writers may learn to their cost,
the "script" is not always destined to become a "play." To some,
however, this distinction may seem like splitting a hair nicely
between its north and northwest corners. At all events, the "photoplay
script" is an exact and descriptive term and may well be used by all
interested.

What is of fundamental technical importance in a novel, a short-story,
or a play? The story itself--the plot. And so also it is in the
photoplay; only, and the reasons must be obvious, its importance in
the photoplay is even greater. Without the plot, the writer's script
will remain forever a script, a mere piece of hand- or typewriting; it
will never be transformed by the magic wand of the director into a
film picture. Remember always that the photoplay is nothing but a
series of scenes _in action_ which make up a story. How can you expect
to have action without a sufficient cause for every effect shown and
the scenes arranged in such order as to produce a complete illusion of
a connected, progressive, climax-reaching story? (And it is just this
connected, progressive, climax-reaching arrangement of the events of a