How to Write a Webtoon Script: Panel Format, Pacing and a Full Example

This guide covers the format most writers use, the pacing tools that are specific to vertical scroll, and a worked example of an episode opening you can copy the structure of.

What a webtoon script has to do

A script for any comic answers three questions per panel: what is seen, what is said, what is heard. A webtoon script answers a fourth: how fast does the reader move through this? In a print comic, the page and its turn set the rhythm. In a webtoon there are no pages, only a scroll, and the reader controls the speed. The writer's only levers are panel size, the amount of empty canvas between panels, and where text lands.

So the format is a panel list, top to bottom, with notes on size and spacing. That is it. Do not over-engineer it.

The format

Here is the layout I use and recommend. It is plain text, so it works in any editor and pastes into a spreadsheet if a studio wants one.

EPISODE 1 — "The Last Key"

[Panel 1] FULL WIDTH, TALL
Exterior, night. A narrow street of shuttered shops. One window lit on
the third floor. Rain.
SFX: (soft) shhhh

[Panel 2] MEDIUM
Interior. MARA (late 20s, ink on her fingers, hair tied with a pencil)
at a desk buried in ledgers. She is not writing. She is listening.

[Panel 3] SMALL
Close on her hand, pen stopped mid-word.

[Panel 4] SMALL
The door handle. It turns.
SFX: krrk

— gap —

[Panel 5] WIDE
The door is open. TEO stands in it, soaked, holding a wrapped bundle
to his chest.
TEO: You still lock it from the inside.
MARA: You still don't knock.

The elements:

• Panel number, in scroll order. Never renumber mid-project; add 5a, 5b if you insert.
• Size note in caps: FULL WIDTH, TALL, MEDIUM, SMALL, WIDE. These are relative, not pixel measurements. They tell the artist how much weight the moment carries.
• Art direction: what is seen, in one to three sentences. Camera-ish language is fine (close on, wide, over the shoulder), but describe the picture, not the emotion. "She looks sad" is a note for the actor; "her hand has stopped mid-word" is a note for the artist.
• Dialogue, labelled by speaker in caps. One balloon per line.
• SFX, marked and kept short. Note whether it is loud or soft.
• Gaps, explicitly. "— gap —" means leave empty canvas. A long gap is a pause; the reader scrolls through nothing, and anticipation builds. It is the closest thing webtoons have to a page turn, and it is your most powerful tool.

A first-line character introduction includes age range and two visual tags. After that, the name alone.

Keep a header block at the top of every episode with the episode number, working title, a one-line summary and the last panel of the previous episode. That last item is what the re-entry has to answer, and having it in front of you prevents the most common serial error, which is opening on something unrelated to the hook the reader has been waiting a week to see resolved.

Pacing tools that only exist in vertical scroll

Panel height sets duration. A tall panel takes longer to scroll past, so the reader spends more time with it. Use tall panels for establishing shots, big emotional beats and reveals. Use short panels for quick exchanges and action.

Stacked small panels accelerate. Three or four small panels in quick succession read as fast cuts. Good for a scuffle, a realisation, a rapid back-and-forth.

Empty space is a beat. The gap between panels is a unit of time. A normal gap is a normal beat. A large gap is a held breath. A very large gap, followed by a full-width panel, is the reveal.

Text position steers the eye. The reader sees the top of a panel first. A balloon at the top of a tall panel is read before the image; a balloon at the bottom is read after. Put the line that reacts to the image at the bottom.

The hook is the last panel and the space above it. A last panel that is small and crowded lands badly. Give it a gap, give it room, and give it one line at most.

If you want more on the physics of this, read vertical scroll comic pacing.

Structure of an episode

Story webtoon episodes tend to fall into a three-part shape that works across genres.

1. Re-entry (first 5 to 10 panels). Where are we, who is here, what was the last hook? Do it in image, not recap text. One establishing panel, one character panel, one panel that reminds the reader of the open question.
2. Development (the middle 30 to 45 panels). One thing changes. Not three. Alternate dialogue panels with silent panels so the eye rests.
3. Hook (the last 10 to 15 panels). Slow down. Fewer words. Bigger panels. End on a question, a reversal, a decision or a face.

The SparkLore 60-panel template uses a 10/35/15 split as its default and that ratio is a good starting point for a first episode.

Writing dialogue for balloons

Phone screens are small and balloons are smaller. Two rules:

• One idea per balloon. If a character has two things to say, that is two balloons, often two panels.
• Under about 20 words per balloon. Longer lines get skimmed. If a speech genuinely must be long, break it across panels with the character's expression changing between them; the expression is the reason the reader keeps reading.

Cut anything the picture already says. "I'm scared" under a panel of a terrified face is a wasted balloon.

A worked opening, annotated

Here is how the example above continues, with notes on why each choice was made.

[Panel 6] SMALL
Mara, deadpan. She does not get up.
MARA: Whatever that is, put it down before it drips on the ledgers.

[Panel 7] SMALL
Teo does not put it down.

Two small panels: a quick beat that tells us the relationship (siblings, or as good as) without explaining it.

[Panel 8] TALL
Teo unwraps the bundle. Inside: a brass key the length of his forearm.
The lamplight catches it.

Tall panel: the reader slows down. The object is the point of the episode.

[Panel 9] SMALL
Mara's face. The deadpan is gone.

— long gap —

[Panel 10] FULL WIDTH
The archive door, seen from inside. Old, iron-banded. A keyhole the
size of a fist.
TEO (off-panel): They're coming for it tonight.

A reaction panel, then a long gap, then the reveal panel with an off-panel line. The gap sells the moment. Note that the dialogue is placed off-panel so the image stays clean.

That is ten panels and the episode has a place, two people, a relationship, an object and a threat. The remaining fifty carry the development and hook.

Genre notes

The panel list is the same in every genre; the allocation is not.

Romance runs on faces. Budget more panels for reaction than for action, and put the episode's biggest panel on an expression, not an event. Silence works: a panel with no balloon after a confession is worth three balloons of reply.

Action runs on runs of small panels and one enormous one. Script the choreography beat by beat, then mark the single panel where the fight turns and make that the tall one. Sound effects carry more of the load here; write them into the script rather than leaving them to lettering.

Horror and thriller run on gaps. Longer gaps than any other genre, and more empty or near-empty panels. The scariest panel in most horror webtoons is the one where nothing is there yet.

Comedy runs on timing, which in a scroll means the gap before the punchline panel. Set-up panel, gap, punchline panel, and make the punchline small if the joke is dry and large if it is loud.

Slice of life can afford medium panels and even pacing, but still needs a last-panel hook, even if the hook is gentle: a question, a small decision, a face that has changed.

Revising a script before it goes to art

Read it once for pacing only, ignoring content: count panels between hooks, and check that no more than about eight dialogue panels run without a silent one. Read it once for balloon length and cut. Read it once as the artist: is there any panel you could not draw from the description? Fix those. Then, if you can, read it aloud with someone else taking the other voices; balloon dialogue that sounds stiff aloud looks stiff on a phone.

Common mistakes

• Writing a page script. If your script says "page 3, panel 4," it is a print script, and you will be surprised when the pacing does not survive the scroll.
• Describing feelings instead of pictures. The artist cannot draw "tense." They can draw a hand on a door handle.
• Dense balloons. See above. Cut.
• No gaps marked. If the script has no spacing notes, the artist will space evenly, and evenly spaced panels have no rhythm.
• A crowded last panel. The hook needs air.
• Recap dialogue at the start. "As you know, since the fire last week..." Readers who need a reminder will re-read; readers who do not will leave.

Working with an artist

If someone else is drawing, add three things to the script: a one-page character sheet with visual tags (see the character design brief guide), a list of recurring locations, and a note at the top of each episode saying which panels are the ones that matter most. Artists budget their effort, and telling them "panel 8 and panel 10 are the episode" gets you a better episode than leaving them to guess.

A checklist before you hand it over

• Every panel has a size note.
• Gaps are marked where the pacing needs them.
• No balloon over about 20 words.
• The first ten panels re-enter without recap text.
• One thing changes in the middle.
• The last panel has a gap above it and at most one line.
• Characters are introduced with visual tags on first appearance.

Try it in SparkLore

Start from the webtoon script template, which is already laid out as a 60-panel episode with marker rules for art direction, dialogue and SFX and a planning note for the panel allocation. If you have a scene in prose and want it turned into panels, the script generator will draft a panel list you can then re-pace by hand. Sign up to keep episodes, cast sheets and location notes in one project.