There is no surefire way to get a high score on your screenplay, or a RECOMMEND in a script coverage, or even make a script reader like your screenplay.
That said, many good screenplays we’ve read over the years here at Screenplay Readers script coverage service tend to have a lot of elements in common, even if the stories they convey couldn’t be any more different from each other.
We’ll talk about those common elements in a sec, but first let’s establish who we’re talking about when we say “script readers.”
Technically, of course, a script reader could be anybody who reads your script.
But for our purposes, a script reader will mean people working for any popular screenplay scoring websites, including the ones that dangle “Hollywood access” for their “high-scoring” screenplays. (I’m looking at you, Black List)
Or anyone acting as “gatekeepers” — anyone with the power to pass your script on to someone with the power to greenlight your screenplay, whether they’re an intern or an agent’s assistant or high-level development executive at a studio.
The first thing to remember is that no matter who they are, a script reader giving a high score to a screenplay is a risk. Maybe not a huge risk, but the reader’s credibility in the eyes of their colleagues is on the line whenever she gives a high score or recommends a script.
So for most script readers, giving a high score is a rare event, and that high score needs to be backed up by a lot of great qualities, not the least of which is a great story by a talented writer.
Getting the script reader to trust you as a screenwriter
Script reading is very time-consuming. Sitting down to read 120 pages of anything, even a screenplay, with your full attention brought to bear, is a big ask, even for people who do it professionally.
So a script reader’s antennae are bristling when they first pick up any script. They’re looking for reasons to put the script down and move on to the next one.
To get a script reader to finish your script, you’ve got to set them off on a good footing. They’ve got to trust you as a pro screenwriter.
You do that by “framing” your script for them. That is, by conveying to them that reading your script will be a positive, easy experience.
The first step toward framing your screenplay for the reader in a positive light is to not put them off immediately by making it look like a difficult read.
If your page count is high (over 120 pages, generally), if your pages are thick with long paragraphs of action/description, if the script format looks way off, they may never even read page one, let alone the entire thing.
So your screenplay has to look like an easy assignment for them at first glance. That’s step one.
Here are five more key things to do to get the script reader to trust you, so that you frame their read of your script in a positive light:
1) Make your script “watchable,” not just readable
No script reader I’ve ever met has ever preferred to “read” a screenplay. They prefer to “watch” them.
You know, like movies in their head. That is, they want to read the lines of text as quickly as they would be hearing a character say them on screen or as quickly as a camera swoops down a canyon vista.
And the best screenwriters allow them to do it by keeping their scripts flowing, colorful, and visual. Cinematic. Worthy of the big screen.
If you want a script reader or other gatekeeper to love your screenplay, keep the images flickering past their mind’s eye quickly as they read your script, and don’t make reading your script a chore. Don’t bog down the read to the point that it slows their experience.
2) Write with a lot of “white space”
Writing a “watchable” screenplay requires you to write with economy. Use fewer words to say more, whenever possible.
And that dovetails nicely into “white space.”
A common metric we refer to in the script reading space is to “Make sure the screenplay has lots of white space.” Essentially, make sure your screenplay pages have more white space than printed words (black ink).
I know. It sounds silly, right? But believe me, the psychological effect of a reader seeing white space, who reads ten scripts a week and is accustomed to page after page of dense text, is real: they tend to view your script more positively.
To achieve that “white space effect,” do your best to keep only the vital details that need to be conveyed. Write your dialogue crisply. Paint visual pictures with your words, as few words as possible, whenever possible.
3) Get your script format right (or at least in the ballpark)
Screenplay format is one of those big, dumb snags that a lot of new screenwriters get hung up on.
But the truth is: just get it close. The more experienced you get as a script reader or a producer or any other kind of legitimate gatekeeper, the more you understand that it’s the story that matters most.
That being said, the more you can make your screenplay look like a real, professional script, the better.
It’s another one of those things that, whether we like it or not, conveys the message to the script reader that they’re in good hands with you as a professional storyteller.
Like white space and the “watchable” screenplay, it helps frame their read of your script more positive when they see that they’re reading a screenplay whose format is indistinguishable from the professional screenplays they’re used to.
It takes little effort to master what a proper screenplay looks like, and the panoply of screenwriting apps makes all of that so ridiculously easy now that there really should be no reason for you not to nail the formatting part.
And if you really get hung up on script formatting, you can just pay for script formatting service from us and we’ll make it look great for you. (Shameless plug, yes.)
4) Fix your screenplay’s spelling, grammar, and any typos
When a screenplay is rife with spelling and grammatical errors, it doesn’t bode well for the script reader trusting that they’re in good hands with you as a writer.
Put in the effort to ensure your script’s spelling, grammar, format, and punctuation are 100% perfect. This is one of those things that’s entirely within your control, so there’s no excuse no to do it.
Use Grammarly or the spellcheck in Google Docs. If you use an LLM (aka “AI”) to do all this, be aware that, yes, Virginia, they’re training on your material, no matter what they say.
Heck, I’m pretty sure even Grammarly and Google are training on your material, so I can’t recommend them wholeheartedly either these days, to be honest.
Go through every sentence with a fine-toothed comb. Hire a script proofreader if you have to. (We do that, too.)
And don’t stress: everybody makes mistakes. Mine are always the same: I tend to type “the” instead of “then,” and I’m always dropping commas.
5) Speak the language of cinema and filmmaking
Script readers and gatekeepers reading a screenplay want to see that the screenwriter has command of the language of not only their written language but also the language of filmmaking.
Not prose, not poetry, not marketing lingo, but filmmaking. Cinema.
The language of filmmaking is different from the command of grammar and spelling. It’s what’s spoken by screenwriters to convey to a director, producer, actors, indeed the entire film crew, how the story is to be told practically — how the script is to be turned into a movie.
A screenplay is, after all, just a blueprint for a movie. Unlike nearly all other literary material, the screenplay itself isn’t the thing. The screenplay is just the plan to make the thing, the thing being the movie.
Good screenplays tend to mostly convey only what we can see and what we can hear, because those are the media that the film crew will be creating: sound and vision. Speakers and screen.
But it’s also true that many good screenplays convey things beyond speakers and screen, such as thoughts and emotions. These “unfilmables” can help get the actor in the right frame of mind, or clarify what the emotion of a scene should be, but they’re typically used sparingly.
Similarly, camera directions are more than acceptable in the language of cinema spoken on the screenplay page, but again, most good screenplays tend to keep camera directions to a minimum, reserving them only for key moments when it’s important for the writer to convey the precise emotion they’re intending to be composed by the director and crew.
All of these elements tell a script reader: the screenwriter is not wasting your time. And that tends to let their guard down, affording them the opportunity to actually get into your story.
Whether or not they enjoy the story, however, is a different question, but if you can’t get their guard down initially, you may never have the chance.
Getting the script reader to love your screenplay
So let’s talk about how the script reader then gets into your story, or doesn’t.
First off, know this: most script reads are a slog. Gatekeepers know this. Contest readers, festival readers, Black List readers know this.
But every so often, a screenplay will actually be a breeze to get through, and a reader will find herself turning each page with the same delight and curiosity she’d be experiencing in a theater watching a good movie.
So what makes the difference between a script where readers breeze through it and a script that’s a slog?
In my experience, the three biggest factors are strong concept, delicious characters, and surprise. Let’s dive into each one:
High screenplay scores more often than note correlate with strong concepts
A strong concept is not a requirement for a great screenplay, but a strong concept can make it easier for a gatekeeper looking for marketable, sellable material to react favorably to the script, as it makes it considerably easier for that gatekeeper to convey to others what the script is about.
And if a screenplay’s concept is easy to convey, it tends to make the script easier to sell, and gatekeepers understand this.
An example of a screenplay concept: Two people find love in Tuscany.
An example of a strong screenplay concept: A police chief who is afraid of the ocean must hunt a giant shark terrorizing a small beach town during its busiest tourist season.
What makes it strong? It’s specific; we can instantly picture the story, and we instantly know the stakes.
It must be emphasized: not every great script or movie has a strong concept.
High screenplay scores more often than not correlate with delicious characters
There are a million little things that add up to make that difference, but one of the biggest is delicious characters.
Delicious characters are characters with a strong voice, unusual behavior, emotional extremes, or permission to break normal social rules. They’re fun to read, they’re fun to act, they’re fun to direct, and yes, they’re usually a lot of fun to write.
Some examples of delicious characters:
Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
A villain but not a regular villain. She’s evil but calm, professional, and in control at all times.
Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean
Unpredictable, drunk, fun, wild.
The Joker from The Dark Knight
Sort of changes mood and personality from scene to scene, no?
Daniel Plainview from There Will Be Blood
Obsessed, nonstop ambition, rage, paranoid, but isn’t he charming? And does he drink your milkshake?
Elle Woods from Legally Blonde
Sincere, smarter than what people assume, cheerful no matter what.
Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs
Creepy but sort of upper crust, and is completely terrifying even though he’s in a cage.
High screenplay scores more often than not correlate with the script reading being surprised
Little surprises, big twists, script readers love to be shaken out of the complacency of what we expect. Some examples:
Indy shooting the swordsman after his big fancy sword dance in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Inigo in The Princess Bride revealing he’s not left-handed.
In Pulp Fiction, Vincent accidentally shooting Marvin while leaning over the back seat to talk to him.
Jason Bourne discovering he can fight. Who knew?
Kimble in The Fugitive putting himself at risk while diagnosing a patient who’s been misdiagnosed.
Any little reversal works as a surprise. For example, a heated argument turning funny, or the audience learns something before the hero/protagonist does, the perfect date ends with a kiss at the doorstep and then the woman pulls a hidden microphone out of her purse.
Really, any scene going in a direction we didn’t see it going in.
Never forget: Storytelling is about emotionally moving an audience
But if you can’t quite master the art of the surprise, at least shoot for making the script reader feel something. Anything.
Nothing’s worse for a script reader reading a script when they don’t feel a damn thing from page 1 through page 120. Not a laugh, not a tear, not a moment of surprise, nothing. What script readers love is feeling something. Anything. At any time.
Remember that our love for storytelling comes from thousands of generations of telling stories around a fire, with dark on all sides, the caveman audience rapt as the caveman storyteller weaves a tale of battle with the fierce saber-toothed tiger.
Screenwriting is storytelling. And storytelling is more than typing. And it’s more than you feeling good about yourself by stringing some words together to form a stack of paper and calling yourself a screenwriter.
Storytelling, screenwriting, is about making human beings feel something. Giving them an experience.
Surprise and delicious character (one not possible without the other, really) are just two of the biggest ways to give them an experience, but also a way to keep your readers turning pages.
At least be interesting!
But explore what’s possible beyond character and surprise.
What’s most important is that you just keep being interesting on every page.
Write with surprise, controversy, color, vibration, subversion of expectations. These things keep gatekeepers turning pages and increasing their confidence in you and and your story as they progress through it.
Keep in mind: screenplay scores really do not matter
So as we wrap up with the lesson of what storytelling truly means, the concept of a “screenplay score” sort of fades into the background, as it should.
That said, the reality of the screenplay score is here to stay, as long as sites like The Black List keep making everybody believe that they’re one of the only paths remaining to aspiring screenwriters looking to break into the film industry.
There are as many reasons for script readers giving out screenplay scores as there are script readers, but this to-do list should at least give you some food for thought when contemplating a script submission, whether to a contest, script hosting website, or even directly to an agency or producer.
Remember that at the other end of the submission could be any variety of script reader:
At The Black List, it’s more than likely a know-nothing newbie willing to work cheaply for experience.
At an agency, it could be a jaded assistant and part-time actor working for a manic lit agent whose tastes change with the latest viral video trend.
At a production company, it could be Reese Witherspoon herself, or one of her smart team members willing to take a chance on a new writer, or not.
Whether you’re submitting for a screenplay score or submitting for a shot at a sale or representation, these tips should help you maximize your chances of the script reader finishing your screenplay, and quite possibly liking it. Or even loving it.
Give them a try! What do you have to lose? Screenplay score?
This gives us comfort.