What’s the difference between Coverage and Conversation?

Notes in doubt? Chat it out!

Why is some feedback more valuable — and less frustrating — than the average coverage? We think conversation is the secret sauce.

Getting notes is how we make our scripts, and our writing, better.

Nobody enjoys getting notes. They’re the penicillin of the writing process.

You’ve put in hard work, pushed through tough spots, come up with great new ideas, and sweat it out to get to wherever you are, whether it be pitch, outline, first draft, or seventeenth draft. And you’ve finally handed it over to someone else to read. Deep down, even if you know it’s not realistic, you want your reader to tell you it’s all perfect. You did it! You cracked the code! Oscar is calling!

But no matter how experienced we are at writing, we all know that’s not going to happen. And it’s for the best. Getting notes is how we make our scripts, and our writing, better.

But not all notes experiences are created equal. They can all help in different ways, for sure, but, to be frank, some can help a lot more than others. Even when getting notes from an expert writer or experienced note-giver, there’s one method that I’ve found most useful: the conversation. 

Opening up a dialogue about what you were hoping to achieve vs what is coming across on the page can really unlock new ideas for how to improve your story.

Here’s an example of why talking it out is so important:

Let’s say you are writing a crime thriller focused on a woman who is racing to solve a mystery before she becomes the next victim. You thought you were demonstrating how tough your hero was throughout the script. But your reader noted that she seems “a little unsure of herself” in the second act.

How can that be? Without more context, you might be left scratching your head.

When you get to talk to your reader, they point you to a scene where your hero is asking a lot of questions of her suspect and waiting for the answer before she can solve the crime.

Oh, that wasn’t what you wanted at all! You just thought she needed to get the answers that way!

But when you are able to talk this through, you realize your hero can come across much more confident if she accuses the other person of the crime and explains WHY she knows it was them, forcing a confession.

This is why you’ll see so many people posting online to complain about script coverage they got from a service where, “the reader just didn’t get what I was going for.” It’s probably true!

This common gap between intention and execution is why you’ll see so many people posting online to complain about script coverage they got from a service where “the reader just didn’t get what I was going for.” That’s probably true!

For example, the reader may have thought you were trying to write a sentimental rom-com, when you were going for a biting, insightful comedy about dating. Both end with your protagonist in love, but imagine how differently you’d interpret one instead of the other.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t good, valuable notes in that coverage; your structure may, in fact, be confusing. And your tone is, most likely, unclear, since it didn’t land with your reader. This ambiguity can come from the way you're putting dialogue and action into scenes.

But even if they get some things right, these written notes will still feel confusing and hard to swallow, and you really won’t know why your reader didn’t “get it.” This also means that a lot of their notes may try to push you in a direction that doesn’t interest you or serve the intention of your script, while others may be irrelevant and off-topic. (For example, your reader might focus on ideas to get you to enhance and foreground the romance in your story instead of helping you make your satire sharper.)

A lot of coverage notes may try to push you in a direction that doesn’t interest you or serve the intention of your script, while others may be irrelevant and off-topic.

Written notes can tell you a lot about your script, but they can’t let you delve into what it was that a reader is reacting to.

Whenever a friend is reading a script for me, I always ask to meet at a coffee shop or do a Zoom notes session. (In fact, almost all of my pro writer friends do.) It’s also a lot more fun and way less painful. You feel much less defensive when you can ask questions about what isn’t working for your reader, and understand the why behind a note. 

This is the reason we’ve built Plot & Page the way we did to include a Zoom session with every single notes call (with the exception of final proofreading services). We want to create a conversation with you, not just give you coverage. That back and forth can help you solve problems in a much more dynamic and effective way, and allow us to help you write the script you want to write, not the one we decide you should write.

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For more reading on the power of collaboration in the writing process, check out our blog post on learning from the power of Writers’ Rooms.