The Holiday Season is upon us and is in full swing. Holiday parties at friends’ homes and at offices rob us of time as well as the money that we need ot use for all of those white elephant gifts that we have to buy. For most people at this time of year, if it doesn’t have anything to do with the Holidays, it isn’t getting done.

This is also the best time of year for film buffs, as the best films of the year are often released in December. You might have heard that there’s a new Star Wars movie coming out in less than two weeks, and most of the films that will contend for Oscars are getting at least a limited release right around now as well. So actually, if it doesn’t involve the Holidays, and it doesn’t involve going to the movies, it isn’t happening.

However, if you’re a screenwriter working on a script, right now is the ideal time to get your script covered by a professional service and there are 3 reasons why that is the case.

Timing is everything.

It’s the holiday season for studio executives and agents as well, so right now is a terrible time to submit a script to studios and agencies. In fact, it’s likely that no one will even think about looking at your script until after the first of the year, so it will be sitting in a pile with nothing happening to it and you not improving it. Then, when everyone is back at the start of the new year, they’re going to be greeted by a glut of new scripts, and yours will be just another one in the pile. However, if you use this time wisely by getting a professional reader to evaluate your screenplay and then use the time between now and January to address the notes, you will have a much stronger screenplay to submit in the New Year and have a much better chance of making your script stand out in what is sure to be a crowded market.

It gives you a breather.

Writing a script can be an exhausting endeavor and completing a screenplay adds more stress on top your holiday anxiety. Handing a script off to a Reader for an evaluation takes the pressure off of you, if at least for a few days, to not be constantly noodling at it with no clear indication if the work you’re doing is making the script any better or worse. Let an unbiased set of eyes take a look at it and give you an honest answer. Plus services like Monument Scripts often offer up suggestions as to in which direction it would make sense to take the story. I understand that it can be stressful to have someone else read your material, but you shouldn’t be nervous about how a reader will respond. Any reader worth his or her salt will not belittle your writing ability or insult you in any way. What they will do is provide you with an honest assessment of your work, and something like that can be very liberating for you as a writer as well as for your creative process. There’s something very refreshing and almost cleansing about knowing where exactly you stand as well as getting some guidance on how to move forward.

Getting coverage is an essential step in your writing process.

This is true no matter what the time of year, but especially so just after the holidays when the piles of submitted materials are at their highest point. The more professional writers that I speak with, the more I hear the same thing. Get your script read by a professional Reader. Have that coverage as a part of the package that you send to executives and agents. It not only shows them that you have such confidence in your work that you’ve already had it evaluated, but it allows them to look at the coverage first to determine if it’s something that they’ll be interested in considering in the first place. Having that coverage already as a part of your package will help your script stand apart from other writers who submitted only the screenplay. In those cases the executives have to have their own studio readers and/or assistants evaluate it, and that can take weeks, depending on how big the pile is. And as I mentioned before, at the beginning  of the year, it will be quite high. Having your own coverage ready for them will give you a leg up on the competition.

Yes, getting a script covered is an added expense during an already expensive time of the year. However screenplay coverage should be looked at as an investment. You’re investing in yourself because no matter what the reader says, you’re going to be presented with an opportunity to improve your script. That will present you with an opportunity to become a better writer, and that will keep your aspirations moving forward and prevent them from stagnating. As a writer, you should always be looking for ways to improve your craft, and using a professional screenplay reading service is one tool that you have to make that possible.

Please click here to see the services that Monument Scripts offers and how we can help you improve your screenplay in time for the New Year.