Screenwriter in Residence

If you do get your screenplay in the hands of a production company or broadcaster or studio willing to read it, it’s unlikely that anyone you might want to meet there will read your script.

What they will read is the coverage.

Coverage is a document provided by a reader of your screenplay or TV project. It’s usually 2 – 3 pages and gives the producer or broadcaster all the information they need to make a decision about your project. Who writes this incredibly important document? Probably the most junior person at the company or even someone who writes coverage piecemeal, for a fee for each script read. Without impressing this person, your script will never get a chance to impress anyone else!

The coverage will include the title and name of the writer. It will indicate the type of project and genre and then will give a brief synopsis. This synopsis will not outline every intricacy of your story, but the general action, important characters and tone of the script.

Finally, there will be some kind of analysis of the script that describes what works and what doesn’t work. And there will be the “what to do with it” grid: the reader will check off one of usually 3 possibilities, Recommend (highest praise), Consider (next highest), or Pass (usual grade.) These 3 speak for themselves and it’s safe to say that the reader is probably going to give out a recommend for maybe 1 in a 100 or maybe more scripts.

There’s an old Hollywood saying, “I haven’t read your script, but I have read the coverage.” In fact, the coverage on your script could be more widely read and circulated–even between companies–than your script!

As part of my job in reading all the screenplays and TV scripts submitted to me as screenwriter-in-residence, I have been writing coverage on each project. It’s usually pretty blunt, but I warn the writers who come to meet me about their script that I tried to write it with the same mindset as a typical reader who isn’t trying to be supportive and who actually doesn’t care whether your script gets made or not. Unfortunately, that’s the reality you face in submitting material–in fact, consider yourself lucky if your script even gets covered!

I have to say all the writers I’ve met so far have been very accepting of the coverage I wrote–in fact some have even welcomed it. That’s a real sign of professional maturity–learning not to take a reaction, whether negative or positive, personally. (This is something I’m STILL trying to learn!) Trying to see through the analysis and figure out what the person really felt. In fact, they may have misunderstood your script and suggested a wrong direction for you to go. In that case, ignore the solutions suggested, but try and figure out what the problem was using the coverage or someone’s reaction as a clue. You need to be a creative detective, trying to get under the surface of a reaction and learn what’s really going on. Because if you can do that, then you have a shot at rectifying whatever problem sent the script off the rails–at least as far as that person is concerned.

Or you may decide that it’s better to ignore that negative reaction entirely!

In any case, if you do get access to your coverage, read it carefully AND with a grain of salt. The clues to fixing your script may lie in the coverage’s pages–but you may also have ruined any chance of your script getting made due to bad coverage!

All this to say, the writers submitting scripts to me have a chance at getting free coverage and perhaps using that to focus a rewrite–before submitting their scripts to someone who could make or break their career.