The writing process for many screenwriters is a solitary one. Holing up in a dark room for days or weeks at a time, those blank pages begin to fill up until, at last, you've got your first draft. The problem that proceeds this joyous moment is the very thing that made it possible to focus on your screenplay in the first place: solitude. You need someone to read your script and tell you honestly if it's a masterpiece or a exploding pile of wet garbage, but 1.) your mom always loves your garbage scripts, and 2.) you don't really know anyone else who knows what a good screenplay looks like. Coverfly, a ginormous database of screenwriting competition entries, wants to make this issue a thing of the past with its brand new free peer-to-peer service, coverflyX.
coverflyX (short for "Coverlfy eXchange"), allows you to exchange script notes with other screenwriters, which consist of 300 words on the strengths of the script, as well as 300 words on its weaknesses. Upon receiving your script notes, you'll be prompted to rate them, which gives members an incentive to provide quality evaluations of their peers' work.
Credit: coverflyX
"This concept is new, and largely experimental. We don’t know yet if the marketplace will be able to balance itself and meet the demands of writers requesting peer notes, so we’ll be constantly monitoring and evolving the platform in the coming months."
The exchange is done through a free token-bidding system. Coverfly tokens are earned by giving script notes and tokens are spent by paying to receive script notes, so the more script notes you give, the more tokens you'll have to "pay" other members. There is also a bidding element in the exchange. If you want to receive notes on your script, you must "bid" how many tokens you're willing to give up. This means you'll have to keep your bids competitive, in case there are other screenwriters in the marketplace willing to pay more in tokens.
Once you agree to provide script notes to another member, you'll have five days to complete them. If you don't, you'll receive a "strike." If a user gets too many of these bad boys, their account could be suspended, so watch out!
In the end, though, the service is free. Getting tokens is free. Getting script notes is free. In this marketplace, time and participation is like gold, so if you have some to spare, head on over to Coverlfy, sign up for your free account, and get cracking! (If you already have a Coverfly account, did you notice your complimentary Coverfly token?)
Source: coverflyX
