Script coverage: what readers write about your script

A report for someone who won't read the script

Production companies, agencies and competitions receive far more scripts than anyone senior has time to read. So each script goes to a reader first, who writes coverage: a report of a few pages saying what the script is, what happens in it, how well it is written, and whether it deserves more of the company's time. Often the coverage is all of the script the decision-maker ever sees.

Because it is written for the company, the writer rarely gets a copy, and it is blunter than any reader would be to your face. Knowing how it works tells you what a reader looks for when they open your script, and what to do with a report when one does reach you. The glossary has the two-line definition.

What goes into a coverage report

Every company has its own form, but the forms share a shape.

The synopsis is the longest part and the least glamorous. It runs from the first page to the last in the present tense, names each main character in capitals on their first appearance, and keeps the reader's opinions out of it, so that an executive can come back months later and remember what the story was.

The comments argue for the verdict. They usually take in the premise, the structure, the characters, the dialogue and the tone, and finish on whether the company could make the film and sell it. Many forms add a grid that rates the same things on a short scale, such as excellent, good, fair and poor, so the shape of a report shows at a glance.

Pass, consider, recommend

• Pass. Nobody else needs to read it. At any busy company this is the verdict on the large majority of scripts, including many that are well made but wrong for that company, its budget or what it already has in development.
• Consider. Worth a senior person's time, usually with reservations that the comments spell out.
• Recommend. Read this soon. Readers give it rarely, because a recommend that their boss ends up disliking costs them credibility.

Many forms ask for two verdicts, one for the script and one for the writer, and the two often differ. A script can be a pass because the company has something similar on its slate, while the writing shows someone it would like to meet about other work. For a new writer, a consider on the writer can lead to a general meeting even when the script itself was a pass.

Who writes it

At the large American studios, staff story analysts cover scripts. They are a small, specialised group, represented by the Motion Picture Editors Guild, who also write longer development notes and compare scripts with their source material. Most other coverage comes from freelance readers paid by the script, assistants at agencies and management companies who read in the evenings, interns in development offices, and readers for competitions and fellowships, many of them writers themselves.

A lot of them want to write or produce, and they are on your side more often than writers assume, since a reader who finds a good script gets the credit for it. They also read a great deal, sometimes several scripts in a day, which puts real weight on your first pages. A script that is slow to show whose story it is asks a lot of someone on their fifth script of the day.

An example: coverage of Low Tide

Imagine a reader at a short film fund covering Low Tide, the 12-page drama that ships with Scriptopus as its sample project. Our treatment guide tells the story in full, and the writer's and the reader's names below are invented. A feature's synopsis would run a page or two; twelve pages need only a few paragraphs.

Several of the reader's habits are good ones to borrow. The logline gives away the twist, which your own logline would hold back, because the fund needs to know what the film is. The synopsis holds no opinions, and the comments are nearly all opinion. Each criticism points to a page or a scene, and the reader keeps an eye on running time and cost, since the fund will pay for whatever it backs.

The split verdict says the most. This draft has a problem, and the reader would happily read whatever this writer sends next.

Reading coverage of your own script

Coverage of your own script may come from a competition that sends readers' notes, a fellowship, a service you paid, or an assistant who forwards a copy as a favour. It is written quickly, by someone who may have read four other scripts that day, and it will sting. Nearly every script gets a pass, so the verdict says less than the notes underneath it.

1. Read it once, then leave it for a day. The first time through, most people take in only the verdict.
2. Start with the synopsis. It is the reader's account of what your script told them, and wherever it gets the story wrong, the page probably wasn't clear enough.
3. Look for the cause behind each note. A reader who calls the dialogue flat may be reacting to scenes where nobody wants anything. Readers notice where a script stopped working for them; they are less reliable on why.
4. Compare readers. One reader disliking your ending is a matter of taste. When three readers drift off around the same page, that page needs work.
5. Leave it unanswered. Arguing with a reader, a company or a competition never helps, and you are free to decide a note is wrong.

Paid coverage, and whether it is worth it

Many companies sell coverage to writers: you send the script, and a reader sends back a report. Some are run by former studio readers and development executives, some by competitions as an extra with your entry, and prices and quality both vary widely. Since it is written for you, the best of it reads like development notes, saying more about how to fix the script than about whether to buy it. Before paying, find out:

• Who will read it. A named reader whose work you can check is worth more than a promise of "industry professionals".
• What a sample report looks like. See whether its comments discuss one particular script or could have been written about any.
• What the fee buys. Pages of notes, a call with the reader, a second read of the rewrite. Compare like with like.
• Whether the verdict comes with a sales pitch. If a consider arrives alongside an offer of a paid listing or a mentoring package, judge the notes on their own.

Try the free routes first, such as a writers' group or a script swap with someone whose writing you respect. Paid coverage earns its fee once you have had those and want a stranger's eye, or a reader who knows a particular market. And unless a service says plainly that it passes strong scripts on, and to whom, assume nobody in the industry will see its report.

Giving notes to another writer

Swapping scripts with other writers costs nothing, and giving notes teaches you as much as getting them. Notes for a writer are there to help the script improve, so the detail matters far more than any verdict.

• Ask what kind of read they want. A first draft needs notes on the story. A script going out next week needs notes on clarity, and a list of typos.
• Write a short synopsis of what you read before any notes. Wherever it doesn't match what they meant, start there.
• Describe your experience as a reader, with page numbers. "I lost track of what Des wanted around page 5" gives a writer something to work with, where "Des doesn't work" leaves them guessing.
• Say what works, specifically, so they know what to protect in the rewrite. Suggest a fix if you have a good one, and remember the script is theirs.

Write coverage yourself

Plenty of working writers started as readers, and covering scripts teaches you quickly how they are built. Take a produced screenplay (many are published, or released by the studios during awards season), read it in one sitting, and fill in the whole form in under two hours. Then watch the film and see what changed between page and screen.

After that, cover your own draft when you have been away from it for a few weeks, as though a stranger wrote it. The synopsis is the hard part. If you can't find the midpoint, or the turn into the last act, while summarising your own story, it may not be on the page yet.

Download the coverage template

A coverage form with every part a reader fills in, from the header and logline to the ratings grid, the comments and both verdicts. Use it for practice, for a writers' group or for your own draft. The Low Tide report from this page comes as a PDF too.

Questions

Sources and further reading

1. Motion Picture Editors Guild, Why you need a union story analyst, on coverage, development notes and comparisons.
2. Michael Kunkes, Read On!: Story Analysts Strive for More Recognition, CineMontage (2007), on the work of studio story analysts.
3. T. L. Katahn, Reading for a Living: How to Be a Professional Story Analyst for Film and Television (Blue Arrow Books).
4. Asher Garfinkel, Screenplay Story Analysis (Allworth Press, 2007).