You Need Them to Forget They're Reading.

You want the reader of your next new thing to almost forget they're reading a script and embark on an emotional journey with your characters as defined by your structure. Of course it's true. Reading a script in silence will never carry us to the emotional highs and lows of lives in conflict portrayed by actors while we sit cloaked in darkness.

Nevertheless, experience tells us that professional gatekeepers are only going to advocate to their colleagues on behalf of work that moves them.

No one stirs up the courage to knock on the studio head's door for a moment propelled by an intellectual notion. No. We find it in ourselves to suggest to colleagues "this script must be produced"solely as a result of our having been moved.

The Next Best Thing to Being There

For anyone who's ever submitted an original screenplay or stage play to a writing competition or a producing entity you know that the few days just before you hit SEND and the following weeks or months of waiting can be kind of excruciating. There will always be little things you worry about getting just right and elements of your storytelling that you hope will appreciated by the reader(s).

Chances are there's at least one detail that makes you wish you had the superhuman ability to just beam yourself right into the room at the precise moment when the reader comes upon it in your script. How helpful it could be for you to miraculously and effortlessly appear on hand, ready on a moment's notice to explain whatever device or beat or word choice was in danger of misinterpretation. (The Page 1, pg. Two worksh0p gives you the tools to engineer the read as best you can without actually flying in to sit on your reader's shoulder.)

The Stress and Schedule of a Typical Reader

And let's just hope for your sake, you never had the pleasure of yourself volunteering time as a script evaluator.

Because if you ever have spent a few weeks or months reading and evaluating unsolicited submissions from the slush pile then you know something which you can never un-know...

something that just

might

keep you up at night.

Reading Screenplays and Plays for Contests or Coverage is Never Not a Chore.

Why?

'cause, hate to say it but...

Most of the scripts in that pile are horrible.

And they're horrible in that soul-crushing way that a bunch of typed pages accumulated by an author who has no genuine passion or curiosity about the art form (theater or film.) Turns out it's rather boring trying to get through a 70-pg. script written by someone who didn't much care whether they were submitting a novel, an opera or a Power Point presentation. Reading page after page of a writer hacking, chasing some idea of "what everybody expects" will inevitably become a tedious chore... something to slog through until the clock gives the reader permission to eject for the day.

Reading a New Script Start to Finish in One Sitting is Almost Unheard Of Today

Add to this general bad mood, the fact that there are lots of other tasks competing for attention in your reader's day including meals, phone calls, meetings and trips to the bathroom. So it would be safe to assume the next full-length play or feature screenplay you submit ain't getting read in one sitting... or even one day. No. Given the constraints of life bas we know it today, that script is getting read i fits and starts.

And then let's imagine you're aiming for one of the most coveted prizes or development opportunities like the Nicholl Fellowship or Sundance Institute, Scriptapalooza or Austin. Or if you're a playwright: Bay Area Playwrights, the O'Neill or New Dramatists. The higher the stakes, the greater the prestige, the larger the slush pile.

A Process of Elimination. And Then There Were None.

If your script is competing with hundreds or even thousands of original scripts, I can tell you one more interesting fact about your reader (guaranteed).

Your reader is looking for reasons not to advance your project to the next round. Because there's just not enough time or human power to go around. So... if your script is gonna have a fighting chance at the golden crown, it's gonna have to make your reader sit up a little straighter, put down whatever she's drinking and take a deep breath as she realizes she's stumbled upon one some kind of greatness.

Case in point from my recent experience. The Hear Me Out Monologue Competition receives more than 400 submissions each year. Our National Circle of Judges usually number between 30 and 40 professionals reading to deliver 12-20 to finalist status. That amounts to less than one finalist per judge. So there will be several judges who will have evaluated dozens of submissions, not one of which makes it to the final festival presentation.

God is in the Details. (Many of them may have previously been dismissed as cosmetic.)

That's Why I've Created the Page 1, pg. Two workshop which opens screenwriters' and playwrights' eyes to all those little choices we make about how our script will unfold on each page.

Once I started investigating what we could cover together even I was surprised at how much of a difference these 6 essential areas could impact the entire reader experience, top to bottom. Without needing to look beyond the first two pages of scripts by half the writers in the Zoom classroom, we were able to find countless examples of details which when carefully calibrated go a long way toward Engineering the Read. When a writer's use of stage direction, dialogue, scene headings, parentheticals, punctuation and syntax receive the attention they deserve and become uniformly focused on that audience journey, the reader is far more likely to forget about the writer and lose themselves in the thrust of your drama.

If you'd like to explore this unique 2-hr. interactive workshop, click below to be taken to Roland Tec Teaching dot com where you can also secure your spot in the upcoming June 22 class.

Because it turns out, you really do have far more power to Engineer the Read than you may suspect.

No one is better positioned to get under the hood and make those adjustments than the person who first imagined everything.

You

The Author

The Engine

(that never runs out of fuel)

Writers who register for the June 22 workshop before this Wednesday June 14th, will be invited to submit the first two pages of one of your own recent plays or screenplays.

Several will be selected for discussion in workshop.

Why not one of yours?