This post is excellent and such a helpful reality check. My question is this: why is putting the WGA number amateurish? Doesn't that show you've done your homework a little and value your work? Thanks for clarifying.

Poor Beth. I'll write her a fun midnight read. Great post Scott, I can now see why Bitter Script Reader is soooo "bitter". hehe

God this post depresses me. As a former and still occasional script reader--in New York, no less, which is bleaker when it comes to both material, money, and amount of work--this made me think of how many hours I spent, how many sunrises I saw, reading terrible scripts and having to regurgitate them. And boy do I remember starting out unpaid reading scripts that were written by someone's nanny's nephew, then feeling proud of getting promoted to go-to reader... and still reading crap. As a writer, it depresses me to think what a statistic I am. To know that a reader will judge me the same way I judged so many others. How much someone will dread reading my script.

You may have left out the bleakest part, which is that script readers read so that producers/execs/etc. don't have to. As a script reader, even if you go into scanning mode, you not only have to finish every script, but you have to relive it when you synopsize it. So the resentment that comes from a bad script is extraordinary.

The bright side: Most scripts are so bad that even if you don't gradually recommend worse and worse scripts, you do learn to appreciate even good moments in scripts that aren't quite good enough. Or you remember writers that make you laugh or immerse you in a world or mood effectively. There are a few writers whose script I had to say pass on who will still get a very hearty handshake from me if I ever meet them. I even look some of them up occasionally to see if they've broken through.

@Shawndra: First off WGA registration is virtually meaningless and legally absolutely so. I have posted on that here and elsewhere. Second no professional writer would ever register a script with the WGA -- we don't worry about our material getting stolen because we are represented by agents, managers and lawyers, so no studio or producer would rip us off. So the only people who might include their WGA registration number on the title page of a script are people who are non-pros, read: amateurs.

Rule of thumb: Make the title page as clean as possible: Title, your name, contact info, done.

@Amos: I can't tell you how many professional screenwriters and TV writers I know who at some point along the way were script readers. And almost to a man or woman, they all say the same damn thing: "I figured, hell, I can write better than this." And off they went to knock out some spec scripts and eventual glory.

To another point: I didn't do the Beth post to depress anyone, but rather yet another way to press writers to bring their A-game to every story, every scene, every page, every line they write. Because in order to succeed, that's precisely what we have to do.

OMFG... swap Los Feliz for Sherman Oaks, the drunk roommate for a few stoners, and her getting paid for me doing all this at my internships... and this is EXACTLY what I used to go through!

@Shawndra, to further confirm Scott's answer, here's another take: http://johnaugust.com/2010/screenplay-title-page

I don't know why, but I didn't find this depressing at all. If anything, it challenges me, as Scott suggested, to make sure my script being read at 1a is as awesome as it can be.

It sounds shitty, but isn't that essentially what we all do, reading scripts (granted already produced ones, but still) at all hours of the day, basically dissecting them and giving them our own coverage so we learn?

As always, great post.