Script Coverage Sample: What a Real “Consider” Report Reads Like
Consider is the most misread rating in development. Writers see it and hear “almost.” Executives see it and hear “there’s a problem, and someone thinks it’s worth solving.” Those are very different sentences, and the gap between them is where a lot of writers spend a year rewriting the wrong thing.
The fastest way to understand the rating is to read one. Below is a full script coverage sample carrying a Consider — the comments section reproduced in full, not excerpted — followed by an analysis of the specific language that makes it a Consider rather than a generous Pass or a cautious Recommend.
Key Takeaways
- Consider means the script has one identified problem and one identified asset, and the asset is worth the fix.
- The comments must name the fix specifically. Vague praise plus vague concern is a Pass wearing a nicer rating.
- Consider is a rating about the next draft, not the current one.
- Read the third and fourth paragraphs of any coverage — that’s where the real verdict lives.
What Does a Consider Rating Actually Mean?
It means the reader is telling their employer: don’t buy this, but don’t close the file either. Something in the material justifies the cost of a second conversation.
That’s a narrower claim than it sounds. Consider isn’t a participation grade handed to competent-but-unexciting scripts — those get a Pass with polite comments. Consider requires a specific, nameable asset: a premise, a voice, a character, a set piece. And it requires the reader to accept the risk of being wrong about it in writing.
Notice both Pass exits. A script with no identified asset gets a Pass. A script with an asset but no nameable fix also gets a Pass — because “this has something, I don’t know what to do about it” isn’t information anyone can spend money on.
The Sample Report
The script is THE LONG SATURDAY, a fictional feature we use as a teaching sample. The report below is written exactly as it would go into a real coverage file.
Coverage — The Long Saturday
| WRITER | J. Okonjo-Bell |
| FORM | Feature — 97 pages |
| GENRE | Ensemble dramedy |
| DRAFT | Second |
| SETTING | Suburban Ohio, one day, present |
Logline
Over the twelve hours of their father’s estate sale, three adult siblings must decide who gets the house — while the buyer they’ve been waiting for sits in the driveway, refusing to come in.
Comments
THE LONG SATURDAY has one of the best-observed families I’ve read this year and does not know what to do with them. The dialogue is exceptional — genuinely funny, unforced, and specific in a way that suggests lived experience rather than research. Two of the three siblings are fully realized within their first scene. But the script has no engine, and by p. 60 the strain of that absence is visible on every page.
Start with what works, because it’s substantial. The opening twenty pages are close to flawless. The scene on p. 8 — DENISE pricing her mother’s costume jewelry while carrying on a work call she can’t admit she’s on — establishes character, history, class anxiety, and the film’s whole tonal register in three pages without a line of exposition. RAY’s entrance on p. 14, apologizing to a stranger for a thing he did to his sister, is the kind of introduction most writers spend a full act building toward. The house itself is written with real affection. This is a writer who can see people.
The problem is structural and it’s the same problem throughout: nothing forces the decision. The premise promises that these three have to determine who gets the house, but nothing in the script makes the day the deadline. The buyer in the driveway should be that pressure — and for about eight pages, he is. Then he becomes a running gag. By p. 45 he’s a punchline the film cuts to when a scene needs an exit, and the tension he was carrying evaporates. Whatever the intent, the effect is that the film’s only clock gets defanged.
Consequently the middle forty pages are a series of excellent scenes that don’t accumulate. Any of pp. 45–75 could be reordered without damage, which is the reliable diagnostic for an absent spine. The siblings talk, brilliantly, and end each conversation approximately where they started. There’s a version of this movie where that stasis is the point — but that movie needs to know it’s about stasis, and this one keeps gesturing toward a resolution it hasn’t built the machinery to reach.
The third sibling, MICAH, is the other issue and probably the easier one. He has no want. Denise wants to be forgiven, Ray wants to be needed, and Micah wants — as far as the draft indicates — to be present. He gets the most screen time and the least definition, and every scene he anchors goes slack. He isn’t a bad character; he’s an unfinished one, and finishing him would firm up a third of the runtime.
What’s the fix? Reinstate the buyer as an actual force. If he leaves at sundown and the offer leaves with him, every scene in the middle acquires a cost it currently lacks, and the same brilliant dialogue starts doing structural work instead of sitting beside it. That’s a rewrite, not a polish — probably a substantial one. But the asset here is not a premise that a hundred other writers could execute. It’s a voice, and voices are the thing that can’t be developed into existence. The scenes on pp. 8, 14, and 52 are the reason this isn’t a pass.
Recommend meeting the writer regardless of what happens with this draft.
Evaluation
| Premise | Good |
| Structure | Poor |
| Characterization | Excellent |
| Dialogue | Excellent |
| Commercial Potential | Fair |
| SCRIPT | CONSIDER |
| WRITER | RECOMMEND |
Why This Is a Consider and Not a Pass
Three sentences do the work, and none of them are the ones a writer would expect.
The first is “has one of the best-observed families I’ve read this year and does not know what to do with them.” That’s the entire report in one line — asset, then failure, in that order, with the asset stated as a superlative the reader is willing to be held to. A Pass version of that sentence reads: “has a well-observed family but struggles to find a shape for them.” Same content. Completely different level of commitment.
The second is “Reinstate the buyer as an actual force. If he leaves at sundown and the offer leaves with him…” — a specific, executable fix. This is the sentence that makes the rating legitimate. Coverage that identifies a problem without proposing a mechanism is diagnosis without treatment, and readers who habitually do it end up writing very tactful Passes with Consider written at the bottom.
The third is “voices are the thing that can’t be developed into existence.” That’s the reader making an argument about why the fix is worth the money. Structure can be fixed with a good executive and six weeks. Voice can’t be bought. That asymmetry is the actual case for Consider, and stating it out loud is what separates a report someone acts on from a report someone files.
The Language of Consider vs. Pass
Read enough coverage and the vocabulary becomes legible. Certain constructions are load-bearing; others are polite noise.
| Reads like a Pass | Reads like a Consider |
|---|---|
| “There’s something here.” | “The scenes on pp. 8, 14, and 52 are the reason this isn’t a pass.” |
| “The second act needs work.” | “pp. 45–75 could be reordered without damage.” |
| “With revisions this could be strong.” | “Reinstate the buyer as a force and the middle acquires a cost.” |
| “The dialogue is a strength.” | “The dialogue is exceptional — specific in a way that suggests lived experience.” |
| “Not quite there yet.” | “That’s a rewrite, not a polish.” |
Every phrase in the left column is compatible with never thinking about the script again. Every phrase in the right column commits the reader to a claim. That’s the whole distinction — Consider is a rating you have to defend, and the prose either defends it or reveals that you didn’t mean it.
What Should a Writer Do With a Consider?
Read the fix paragraph and ignore the rating. This is counterintuitive and it’s the most useful advice available on the subject.
The rating is a signal to the company. The fix paragraph is a signal to you, and it’s the only part of the document with information you can use. If the reader names a specific structural cause and proposes a mechanism, you’ve received something valuable regardless of whether the word at the bottom says Consider or Pass. If they haven’t — if you got a Consider with four paragraphs of hedged encouragement — you’ve received nothing but a mood.
The other thing worth noticing: the writer rating. In the sample above, the script is a Consider and the writer is a Recommend. That’s not a consolation prize. In practice it’s often the more consequential line, because it’s the one that gets someone into a room. Scripts get passed on constantly. Writers get remembered.
Find out what your script would actually get.
ScriptCoveragePro returns a full report with the rating, the reasoning, and the specific fix — written the way the sample above is written.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a Consider rating good news?
It’s real news, which is rarer. Consider means a professional reader put their name on a claim that your script has an asset worth spending money to fix. That’s meaningfully different from a polite Pass. But it’s a rating about your next draft, not this one — treat it as an assignment rather than an achievement.
Why do some coverage samples rate the script and writer separately?
Because they’re separate questions. A script can be structurally unsound while the person who wrote it is obviously worth a meeting — the sample above is exactly that case. Companies staffing writers’ rooms and open assignments care about the second rating far more than the first.
How specific should coverage comments be?
Page-specific. Every claim in the sample above attaches to a page number or a page range. Comments without page references can be written by someone who skimmed, and everyone in development knows it. Specificity is the only proof of reading that coverage can offer.
Can a script get Consider with a Poor structure score?
Yes, and the sample demonstrates why. Structure is fixable with time and a good development executive. Voice isn’t. A Poor structure attached to Excellent characterization and dialogue is a coherent Consider; the reverse — good structure, dead voice — is almost always a Pass.
Do readers ever change a rating after writing the comments?
Frequently, and it’s a sign of a good reader. The comments are where the argument gets made, and sometimes the argument doesn’t hold. If you can’t write a paragraph defending a Consider, you didn’t have one. Write the prose, then set the rating.
Read the Fix, Not the Verdict
A Consider is a reader saying: I found something I can’t get elsewhere, and I found a problem I can describe. Both halves have to be there. Without the asset it’s a Pass. Without the nameable fix it’s also a Pass, just a slower one.
If you’re writing coverage, the test is whether you can defend the rating in one sentence with a page number in it. If you’re the writer receiving it, skip to the paragraph that starts “what’s the fix.” Everything else is context.