What happens when scripts get a full read?
After the flurry of blog-tivity surrounding the changes to our unsolicited submissions last year, I thought it would be useful to talk a bit about what happens when scripts progress through the system. A lot is talked about scripts not making it through - but what happens when they do?
So what happens is, a team of freelance script readers usually come in once a month and spend a day sifting scripts - reading the first ten or more pages to see if they will get a full read or be returned without comments. At the end of the day, they take away the full read scripts between them to bring back a month later. And so on, ad infinitum.
On that day we also have a script meeting where we sit and discuss the scripts they took away. For the 15-20 % that get through the sift we have a range of verdicts or actions - or if you hate those words, then decisions - that the readers can reach. But until we have sat down and talked through the scripts they have read, no verdict is firm and unchangeable - the meetings are an opportunity for the readers to make up their mind (with a bit of good cop/bad cop help from myself).
Feedback is the most common action. This is where we are offering feedback on the script to the writer but do not wish to actively develop them at this stage. This does not mean that the script is bad or the writer is bad. It also doesn't mean that we think they won't improve. It means that this script doesn't stand out from the rest of the scripts that have been given a full read. It means that the reader thinks there are difficulties and problems with the script and story.
Invitation is the next action. We used to reach this one more frequently, but we did not promise to read the writer's next script. This has recently changed. We do now promise to read the invitation writer's next script, but it's an offer we make to fewer writers (if in doubt, check your letter - if it says we promise to read your next script we will, if it doesn't then we won't). What this means is that the reader feels there are strong, interesting, promising elements to this script and writing; that the script isn't entirely successful and doesn't quite stand out from the best scripts that make it through; but that we feel the writer can and will develop and we wish to keep an eye on that development by promising to read their next script.
One difficulty with this action is that writers can get excited at the invitation and rush to send in something new - or something that has been sitting in a drawer - which then turns out to be not as good as their last script and so they have done themselves no favours in their eagerness. So if you do get an invitation, then don't rush out a new or old script. Take the time to make your next script as good as you can possibly make it. We want to see you improve as a writer - we don't want to see how fast you can RSVP.
Meet/develop is the next and final action. The term probably looks slightly strange to an outside eye but it still works for us. It simply means that the script is given to me with the recommendation that I need to read it, that the writer is potentially worth meeting and that their work is worth developing further. This does not mean the script should 'go into development' as that's not exactly what we do here. From this action, I will read the script and I will get in touch with the writer direct whatever my own feeling about the script might ultimately be. And from here any number of things might happen. I might (with the writer's permission) send the script straight to another BBC department for their attention. But I'm most likely to want to find out more about the writer, perhaps meet them for a chat, invite their next script, read more of their work myself, maybe help them develop this script further so that it's in a position to send on to another department. At this point, the writer is on our radar and can be considered for the many and various targeted development schemes and projects that we have on the horizon.
The point is that we are looking for writers to develop - not scripts to make or ideas to develop. If we find a great script we will happily try to help the writer get it closer to being made. But it's all about the writer and what we think the script tells us about the writer.
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