500 Ways to Beat the Hollywood Script Reader: Writing the Screenplay the Reader Will Recommend

asked by lauren on November 26, 2006 5:42 PM

So you want to write a movie! You could consult Robert McKee's influential Story, Syd Field's rather schematic Screenplay, which extrapolates lessons from famous films, or novelist-turned-screenwriter Meg Wolitzer's literate Fitzgerald Did It, inspired by her own experience.

But the script you pour your soul into won't be read by a single soul you've ever heard of. If a star or mogul reads anything about your story, it will be in the form of "coverage," a brief report reducing your screenplay to a one-sentence summary, with a very few pages of synopsis and ratings of your characters, dialogue, and plot. That report is written by a Hollywood reader, who is likely to be a smart woman desperate to find something she can recommend to her boss--someone like Jennifer Lerch. If her eyes glaze over, you're dead.

Your eyes won't glaze over reading Lerch's 500 brisk mini-lessons. How many pages can you turn in? Not over 120. How crucial are the first 30 pages? Utterly. How many big, climactic moments do you need in those 30 pages? Two. How many scenes do you need in the dramatic opening sequence? Three to five. How many parenthetical comments directly addressed to the reader can you include? One or two per script. How about your favorite passages, where you plumb your characters' inner depths? Throw them away: "If the character doesn't say it, wear it, or do it, delete it." How do pros write? "Staccato. Economical." That's how Lerch writes. And if you want to get anywhere in Hollywood, you'll have to please someone just like her. Know your enemy--and make her your best friend. --Tim Appelo

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Reviews

I have bought this book 12 times as a gift for various friends who aspire to be screenwriters. This book is deceptively easy to read and at first glance, it's easy to dismiss the content as "phoned in". Once you begin reading the 500 suggestions, you begin to see the structure and form of "Drama" come through. I keep referring to this book over and over as I write because One writes to be read. What Jennifer Lerch accomplishes is the gentle reminder that screenplays are literary experiences before they are visual experiences. That in order to get produced, the screenplay must sell the story and create a reasonable expectation in the reader's mind of what the audience will experience once the film is made. I've read all the other screenplay books and taken the seminars and all that and this book is the one I keep around because it reveals more information the more times you read it and take it's lessons to heart.

reviewed by james58 on November 27, 2006 12:31 AM

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As I surfed Amazon.com looking for good books to improve my craft, I came across this book and each time I saw it, I decided NOT to purchase it.

For some reason...it just seemed cheesy. Perhaps it's the cover or the title.

Well, now that I am ý finished my screenplay, I decided to come back to this book. And I must say...it isn't as what I thought it would be. Each one of the ways she listed it good information of what to look for within your screenplay to see if you've minimized any mistakes that would stand out to a Hollywood Reader.

The book is written in simplistic terms. It's fast and easy to read. Yet it packs a lot of good insider information that will assist even a novice of how to get their script read instead of flipped through.

I recommend this book as a secondary resource.

reviewed by perfectjen on November 28, 2006 9:55 AM

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add a new book!