The above “score grid” is from a coverage I bought from one of the script competition/coverage companies, Shore Scripts, which I’ve been using lately from time to time. Their readers seem pretty good, they are not too expensive, and the turnaround time is quick (five days).
The blog title (“The Buyers Are the Sellers”) is something I’ve been meaning to use, as it was a realization I had about the years-long difficulty in getting a lit manager. (I had one, in the past, but left him, long story.)
Oh yeah, here’s burying the lede—what I’ve been doing the past few years, and especially during the pandemic, is screenwriting. Great hobby!
So the blog title—I finally realized that we (meaning the screenwriting reddit/twitter community of aspiring writers, all 12K of us) have been thinking about managers all wrong. They are not the ones buying scripts. They are the ones selling—to producers, studios, talent, etc.
They just want something they can sell. This means super cool concepts, mostly. Even writer and idiot-proof concepts.
Oftentimes “stunt” concepts—things that are impractical or impossible to make, but interesting for executives to read (like biopics or expensive I.P., intellectual property)—can be used to sell a writer.
If you have a great concept, you can query them (meaning, send an email pitch) and get some read requests. But much harder to do that with a medium concept that’s uniquely executed. Because it’s a much harder lift for them, as they turn around and try to sell it. “Just read it” can only be used so many times, and only goes so far.
I think I come up with cool concepts, but I’m more interested in the execution...and I can be weird and different in my interests and taste.
I think this will serve me well in the long run. In the short run, it’s been bloody murder.
This script, “Boundaries,” is something I’ve been grappling with for years. I’ve probably blown it up and rewritten it from scratch eight times.
But it’s finally in really great shape. As some random reader validated for me, above, for $85.
If you want to read it, just email me. Enjoy the Labor Day weekend!