In the "Crazy Little Thing Called Coverage" column I describe how Development Executives use the two page report that describes and analyzes your script. This coverage report is the thing you get when you submit your screenplay to www.scriptshark.com.

But if Development Executives read coverage, who writes it?

Meet the Hollywood Story Analyst, also known as the Reader.

If you know any screenwriters, or if you've been lurking at the screenwriter sites on the net, you've probably heard of Readers in the following sentences:

"The stupid [expletive deleted] Reader didn't get it!"

"Readers don't know anything about screenplays!"

"How can I get past that dang Reader?"

Writerly dislike of Readers is so entrenched that Jennifer M. Lerch recently released a book called 500 Ways to Beat the Hollywood Script Reader : Writing the Screenplay the Reader Will Recommend.

Her title says a lot: the Reader is the adversary, the enemy, the one to beat.

Most screenwriters HATE Readers for the perfectly understandable reason that "the Reader" is an anonymous judging absence: a cloaked figure who rejects nine out of ten scripts that he or she covers.

That's right. Ninety percent.

There are a lot of bad scripts floating around out there. Not YOUR scripts, certainly, fellow writers, but trust me, they exist: scripts written carelessly, or scripts that merely copy another movie without adding anything original. These scripts compose the majority of what Story Analysts read.

But who are these Readers? It might sound like a simple question, but it requires a three part answer, the subject of this week's column.

Part I: Who are the Readers? What are their qualifications? Part II: How do they do that voodoo that they do so often? In other words, what is a reader thinking when she covers your script? Part III: How should your knowledge that a Story Analyst will be the first person to read your script affect your writing process?

Part I. Who Are The Hollywood Readers?

Story Analysts fall into lots of messy categories. One common way to divide them is union versus non-union.

The Union Reader: Most of the major studios (Paramount, Disney, Warner Bros., Universal) use union readers. These are the salaried members of the Studio Readers Union, who usually cover two scripts a day, five days a week. They have lots of experience, and often advanced academic degrees. Getting into the union is difficult: a new reader has to be nominated to the union, and there have to be more scripts needing to be read than there are union readers available. For a union member, reading can be a well-paid career unto itself. These readers tend to be fast, talented, accurate, and excruciatingly hard on the scripts they read.

The Freelance Reader: Most production companies do not have the budget to pay union readers. Instead, they rely on freelancers. These readers earn between $40 and $60 per script, depending on the company and how quickly the executives need the coverage.

Legitimate freelancers are equally--if not more--experienced and qualified than union readers.

Not all companies use legitimate freelance readers. Sometimes an executive at a production company will hand a script to an freshly-minted intern from the local college with a brusque "cover this." If the intern is lucky, then the executive's assistant will then hand over some sample coverage as a model. Our hypothetical intern is not necessarily a bad reader, merely inexperienced.

As I discussed in my last column, the only people who ordinarily see coverage reports are Development Executives. Typically, writers never learn the real reason why the executives "pass" on their scripts. Perhaps the most common sentence heard from an exec's mouth when passing on a project is "The writing has merit, but it's just not the kind of project we're looking for right now."

The Freelance Reader's Orientation: Why He Does It

Nobody makes a career--or much of a living--as a freelancer.

Even if a speed demon Story Analyst can read and cover a script in two hours, he would have to read and cover four scripts a day--that's twenty scripts each week--to make $1000/week, and this is before taxes, social security, health insurance, etc. The Reader will also have to budget time to drive to and from all the different companies that employ him. In traffic plagued Los Angeles this can mean a LOT of time in the car.

Perhaps, reading this, you are thinking "hey, $1000 a week is good money! Maybe I should try this coverage gig."

Two problems mar this logic.

First, good luck finding twenty scripts a week to read more than once in a blue moon. Hollywood is chock full of freelance readers out there, and coverage is a boom and bust business. Some weeks a reader will be turning work away there are so many scripts. Another week… nothing. Zip, zilch, nada, bupkiss. Zero.

Second, if a Story Analyst is even remotely professional, reading scripts is hard work: the reader has to engage deeply with each script, imagining the characters and their plot, pondering both the aesthetic and commercial potential of the script. The most scripts I have ever been able to do in a single day is three, and each time I was a wreck afterwards.

Why do it? Why bother being a freelance reader if the money is unsteady and the work is hard? This is where orientation comes into play.

Most freelance readers are ambitious to be either Screenwriters or Development Executives.

Screenwriters become Readers because it brings some cash in and keeps a lot of unstructured time open for their own writing. In addition, a big part of being a screenwriter is knowing the form. Doing coverage is a good way for a writer to get paid to read a lot of scripts. In doing this, the writer submerges himself in the craft, building up a mental muscle that he can later flex while writing his own scripts.

Future Development Executives become Readers because it gives them a window into what scripts are hitting the town each week. Sometimes former executives--perhaps an exec who needs time off to write something herself, or to have children--keep their feet in the Hollywood pond by doing some coverage. Generally speaking, coverage is a decent way to network: Readers meet people, learn about the business, and watch the development process from a ringside seat.

Part II: How Do Readers Read?

Quickly.

Here's what even the most professional and responsible reader is thinking as he picks up your script and takes a first gander at the title page.

"The clock is ticking. How long is it going to take me to read this puppy?"

Remember that on average a Reader gets $50.00 to cover a script. If it takes three hours and fifteen minutes to read it, write the synopsis, and then write the commentary, that averages out to $15.38/hour. If it takes four hours then the Reader's hourly wage drops to $12.50/hour, and so on.

How much does your job pay?

Does this mean that we Readers are slackers? That we do the least amount possible? That we rush?

Nope. Every time I pick up a script I want to be impressed. I long to find a script that bowls me over with its plot, characters, and dialogue.

When I find a script that has problems, I look for the strengths and think about how to fix the problems. If I find a script that I think has potential, then I'll write extra-long comments (even though it lowers my hourly when I do this) and then phone the executive to say "Bob, this one you gotta read."

I love movies. I love scripts. I want every script to be great.

But time weighs. Heavily.

Readers, all readers, dislike writers that waste their time.

Hypothetical Example: Let's say I'm on page 13 of a script and suddenly a character named MATTY starts talking. The problem? The script has yet to introduce him. I don't know Matty. I have no idea who he is, how old he is, or even if he's a he.

"Have I missed something?" I ask myself. "Is this sudden-onset amnesia?"

I return to page 1 and skim, looking for an introduction that I have forgotten.

It isn't there. It's never there.

I just lost two minutes.

My reading process resumes with page 13, but now I'm testy. The little guy in the back of my mind keeps poking me, "who's Matty? Haven't you figured it out yet?"

Then, on page 22, the script introduces Matty, a 35 year old high school Sex-Ed teacher from Madison Wisconsin. Matty is disfigured by a horrible facial scar-- grim reminder of a rhinoplasty gone horribly awry.

What happened? A no-brainer: somewhere in the revision process the writer moved some scenes around to make them more effective, and forgot to move the introduction to Matty's first appearance.

An honest mistake, but by this time I don't care. The writer has irretrievably lost professionalism points because he forgot the single most basic writing rule.

Always get somebody else to proof your stuff.

Always.

Really. Always.

It may not sound fair. Too bad.

It's a simple fact of the writing life: if the baseline mechanics of your script are shoddy, that will infect the Reader's other evaluations. Matty may be a good character, but in our hypothetical example the screenwriter inadvertently biased the Reader against Matty by forgetting to move that introduction.

Many writers, reading the last paragraphs, might cry out against the injustice of it all. "I labored for months on that script, infusing my heart and soul into the story, and the Reader complained about the mechanics?"

Ever watch a movie where the sound is out of synch with the pictures? The characters' mouths move before you can hear the voices, or keep moving after the voices fall to silence.

Pretty hard to concentrate on the story, ain't it?

Part III: How Should Any Of This Affect Your Writing?

The Reader will only read your script once, so your first shot is also your last.

Why only once? That's all the production companies will pay for.

The real work of screenwriting begins between the moment you type "Fade Out" on your first draft and when you drop your script into the mailbox to ScriptShark.

In the revision process, you have to stop thinking like a creator and start thinking like an audience.

Are all the characters introduced? Do the transitions make sense? Have you accidentally deleted a scene that contains a crucial piece of information for the climax? Does the right character have the right dialog in every single line?

I'm not only talking about mechanics here. When I write, everything always seems clear as the stars illuminating the desert sky. The jokes are funny. The plot moves forward inexorably. The characters are all well-motivated and charming.

Then I ask my wife to read it. She writes question marks in the margins. "What does this mean?" "Is that a joke?" "Why is Felix bathing the parrot with a turkey baster?"

Oops.

So I revise, and edit, and revise some more, and then edit some more. Then I ask her to read it again. When I've exhausted her patience I turn to my best friend, or my parents, or the telemarketer who calls during dinner.

Last time, my Dad caught a typo that nobody else found.

Before you send that script out to the people who might actually buy it, make sure that somebody reading quickly will not miss anything.

Mark Twain famously said "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."

Never let your script interfere with your story.