Hello, and welcome to The Editorial Department’s Screenplay Division. We tell it like it is here—the good, the bad, and the ugly—because we believe that anything less would be a disservice to our clients. Drawing on 25 years of story editing experience, we’ll let you know what’s working, what could be better, and what could be gone from your script. Because in today’s ever-more competitive marketplace, you only get one chance to make a first impression—and our job is to make sure it’s your best.
Services for Completed Screenplays
▪ Short Critique
Services for Screen Treatments
▪ Treatment Analysis
▪ Submission Guidelines
Other Services
▪ Personal Consulting / Coaching
▪ Screenplay Adaptation (adapting other works into screenplays)
▪ Novel Adaptation (adapting screenplays into novels or nonfiction books)
▪ Ghostwriting
▪ Submission Guidelines
Short Critique: Your opening is crucial. Agents, managers, studios and production companies are swamped with submissions—and if your script doesn’t hook the reader at the outset, your first impression could be your last. The Short Critique evaluates the first ten pages of your screenplay, and provides feedback on what’s working, what’s not--and how to make your opening as compelling as possible. We’ll point out problem areas, suggest improvements, and give you our opinion on the script’s commercial potential.
The Short Critique offers a fast, low-cost way to get a professional appraisal of your material. You can use it to test our abilities, before sending the entire script—or simply to get an unbiased opinion on the first ten pages before deciding whether to pursue a particular screenplay. If you then decide to submit the entire script for one of our other services, the cost of the critique will be deducted from the fee for that service—making the Short Critique free.
Turnaround Time: 7 days (standard) / 24 hours (rush)
Price: $35 (standard) / $52.00 (rush)
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Evaluation and Story Development Notes: A comprehensive written report addressing the script’s overall strengths and weaknesses, commercial potential (including novel and game crossover potential, when appropriate), and specific issues such as plot, structure, pacing, narration, characterization, character arc, dialogue, writing style, formatting, spelling and grammar. Hollywood coverage stops there, but we don’t: we go the extra mile, providing you with development notes to tell you what’s working, what’s not—and why, and suggesting specific improvements to maximize your script’s potential.
Each Evaluation includes a 30-minute phone consultation with TED’s Director of Development, John Robert Marlow.
Turnaround Time: 10 days (standard) / 24 hours (rush)
Price: $250 (standard) / $325 (rush) up to 125 pages
Additional pages: $2.00 per page (standard) / $3.00 per page (rush)
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Detail Notes: Our Detail Notes service provides highly detailed notes placed throughout the body of your screenplay, pointing out areas which need (or would benefit from) improvement and making specific suggestions. This service takes things one level deeper than our Evaluation and Story Development Notes, and is generally most appropriate when the major elements of the script (plot, structure, characters, dialogue) are already in place, and you’re looking for detailed feedback on highly specific matters. Detail Notes are intended to push an already good script toward perfection.
All notes are inserted into the body of the screenplay itself, allowing you to see the notes as you read.
Turnaround Time: 10 days (standard) / 24 hours (rush)
Price: $375 (standard) / $562 (rush) up to 125 pages
Additional pages: $3.00 per page (standard) / $4.50 per page (rush)
Line Editing: A literal line-by-line edit of your screenplay, with suggested changes written directly into the script. Changed lines are indicated by revision marks in the margin. Our Line Edit can be as detailed as you like, from simple proofreading (for typos, ghosts, inconsistencies, etc.) to a full-blown, hands-on polish of your writing style and voice. Line Editing is most appropriate for scripts that are already in final form, but would benefit from a final pass to smooth things out, catch errors, etc.
Turnaround Time: 2-3 weeks (standard) / 48 hours (rush)
Price: Price varies with amount of work involved, but typically ranges from $5-$8 per page (standard) and $10-$16 per page (rush).
Task Memo: Our Task Memo provides instructional feedback to help writers better understand the principles and techniques necessary to craft an effective screenplay; these include storytelling, structure, plot, pacing, dialogue, and characterization. The intent is to ground writers in the basics by providing instructional feedback using examples from the writer’s own screenplay. The end result is a more knowledgeable screenwriter and a better script.
Turnaround Time: 2-3 weeks (standard) / 48 hours (rush)
Price: Pricing varies with the nature and amount of work to be done; prices start at $600 (standard) / $900 (rush).
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One-Sheet (logline and teaser/summary): A one-page pitch designed to hook the reader’s interest and intrigue him/her enough to ask for the treatment or script. Longer than a logline, shorter than a treatment, the One-Sheet is an ideal way to get the promise of your story across briefly and persuasively. In a town where attention spans are notoriously short, this is crucial. The logline hooks the reader’s interest at a glance, and the teaser reels them in. The One-Sheet is best employed after the script is in final shape—as the better the script, the better the One-Sheet.
All One-Sheets are prepared by TED’s Director of Development, John Robert Marlow. He’ll read your script, boil it down to its most essential elements, and deliver a document containing a teaser and two or more loglines. (Occasionally, John will suggest an alternate title as well.) To see the One-Sheet he used to land a manager, sell his Nano novel, and get the adapted script into development, see his sample One-Sheet. Ideally, the One-Sheet should read like the back cover blurb on a novel or DVD. In fact, John’s publisher—Forge/ St. Martin’s Press—chose to run his One-Sheet teaser as the back-cover blurb on the Nano novel, rather than use a blurb written by its own in-house copywriters (who write back-cover blurbs for a living).
You’ll get a 50% discount on our One-Sheet service if you simultaneously submit the same script for another of our full-length script services.
Turnaround Time: 7 days (standard) / 24 hours (rush)
Price: $200 (standard) / $300 (rush) up to 125 pages
Additional pages: $1.60 per page (standard) / $2.40 per page (rush)
Treatment: In many cases, industry readers will ask to see a treatment before they’ll commit to reading an entire script. Boiling a complete screenplay down to a few pages can be difficult, particularly for those closest to the work. We’ll read your screenplay objectively and prepare a five- to seven-page Treatment covering the most important points of your story in the format expected by industry readers. Our Treatment service is most appropriate for scripts that are already in final form, and ready for industry submission.
Turnaround Time: 7 days (standard) / 24 hours (rush)
Price: $350.00 (standard) / $475 (rush) up to 125 script pages
Additional pages: $2.80 per page (standard) / $4.20 per page (rush)
Treatment Analysis: For those who already have a treatment, and would like some objective input, we’ll go over your document with a fresh perspective, pointing out errors and potential problems involving specific issues such as plot, structure, pacing, characters, dialogue, writing style, spelling and grammar. We’ll tell you what’s working, what’s not—and why, and suggest ways to improve your presentation. Often, problems within a treatment indicate larger problems in the script itself; in such instances, the Treatment Analysis can serve as a broad-stroke diagnostic tool for the screenplay.
Turnaround Time: 7 days (standard) / 24 hours (rush)
Price: $100 (standard) / $150 (rush) up to 20 pages
Additional pages: $3 per page (standard) / $6.00 per page (rush)
Personal Consulting / Coaching: For those wanting personal, one-on-one script consulting or coaching, this service is now available by phone or email. If you’ve submitted your script for one of our full-length services within the past 100 days, the cost is $75 per hour. If you’d like to receive consulting / coaching on a different or less-recently submitted script, there will be an initial reading fee of $1 per page.
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Adaptations and Ghostwriting: The demands imposed upon the writer by novels and screenplays are very different—so different, in fact, that few novelists write screenplays, and vice versa. Wonderful novels can make terrible movies, if not artfully adapted, and screenplays often lack the complexity and detail expected of novels. Nevertheless, successful adaptation is possible (witness the Harry Potter novels). If you’re seeking to maximize the commercial potential of your novel (or appropriate nonfiction book), we can adapt it into a screenplay for you. We can also adapt your screenplay into a novel (or, in some cases, a nonfiction book). To inquire about these services, or about ghostwriting services—please contact TED’s Director of Development, John Robert Marlow .
Submission Guidelines for Screenplays and Treatments
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Treatments should be submitted as Microsoft Word documents, using 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced lines, and 1” margins all around. Please put your name and script title in a header on each page, and number all pages.
Scripts submitted electronically should be in one of the following formats:
• Final Draft (.FD)
• Movie Magic Screenwriter (.SCW, .STW, .SCR)
• RTF (Rich Text Format) for PC (.RTF)
FD and MMS are the industry standards; if you’re not using one of these programs, we strongly recommend that you start now. (Click here to learn more about these programs.) We also accept screenplay submissions in RTF format (but see note below). Most word-processing programs, including Microsoft Word, can save files in RTF format.
“Cheated” scripts should be uncheated prior to submission, and text should be industry-standard 12-point Courier, Courier New, or Final Draft font. Cheated scripts will be uncheated for purposes of editing and pagecount. Revision marks should be removed prior to submission. (Exception: when we’re specifically evaluating revised text.)
Note that scripts submitted in formats other than FD or MMS will be imported into one of these programs for evaluation and editing. This sometimes causes errors in the converted script; when this occurs, we must charge for the time it takes us to correct those errors. Because of this, it may be more economical for you to purchase a copy of Final Draft or Movie Magic Screenwriter, and to perform the conversion and correction yourself; you can the then send us the corrected FD or MMS file to work from.
If for some reason you must send your script as a paper hardcopy, we can work with that as well. We can also take your hardcopy, type it into FD or MMS, and give you back a properly formatted electronic copy of your screenplay. (Please inquire for pricing.) If you do submit a hardcopy, please do not bind the pages (no brads, clips, binders, etc.).
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