Fresh Eyes is a cold read on your first 10 pages, no context, no backstory, no "here's what I was going for." Just what a trained reader's brain actually does with your pages, seen fresh, one time. Not a verdict on whether it's a good story, a record of what came through versus what you meant to land.
Script coverage and a cold read aren't quite the same thing. Here's the difference →
10
Pages read, logline plus first ten
2wks
Cycle length, every submission gets a shot
1
Random slot, picked outside the score
9
Tags in the read, zero rewrite notes
01
Logline plus your first 10 pages, standard format, PDF. No synopsis, no context, nothing about what you were going for. That's not an oversight, it's the whole method. Full mechanics →
02
Every cycle I score the eligible pool on teaching value, clarity of intent, variety, and whether it'll spark real discussion, then draw one more slot completely at random. Not selected just means you're back in the pool, no resubmission needed. Full rubric →
03
First impression, then the read itself beat by beat, tagged as it happens, then whose journey it turned out to be, then what stuck. One time, cold, published for everyone to learn from. House rules →
"Several teeth fall to the ground." Was this literal? A dream? I want to make sure.
A character seen hurrying while carrying an iced coffee. No note. Just highlighted.
"He tries to remember." How do we know this?
A world rule planted flat in transactional dialogue. No exposition dump, the audience infers it.
Two characters talk in what reads as a void. No sense of the room, or who else might be near.
A funeral, then a wedding, in the space of one page. How long between these? It matters here.
"She's fiercely independent," a line says. Nothing she does on the page shows it.
Read cold, before the pages: sounds like a thriller. After: it's closer to a eulogy.
Whose scene this actually was surprised me, it isn't who the pages spend the most time on.
An instant AI-generated pass, trained on the same nine-tag method, the same rubric. It's a taste of the approach, not a replacement for the real thing, so it's always labeled clearly as "AI Cold Read" and kept visually distinct from the reader's own human notes.
Only Fresh Eyes gives teardown-style notes. Everyone commenting on someone else's pages keeps it constructive, no pile-ons, no relitigating a read after it's posted. Feedback on the pages is fair game. Feedback on the person isn't. Read the full guidelines →
Fifty people get in at $19/mo. Everyone after that pays $29/mo. No catch, no upsell sequence, just an early-member rate that never goes up, for as long as you stay.
Everything in Priority Read: guaranteed queue placement every cycle, early access to featured picks, higher cap on AISHA reads. Plus a Founding Member badge on Skool and a permanent spot on the founding members list.
Community
$0
Priority Read
$29/mo
Inner Circle
$99/mo
1:1 paid coverage and consultancy calls open later this year. Also in progress: the "How to Read Like a Director" ebook ($19) and a directing course module ($149) — comment "IN" when they go live, or join the waitlist. Not sure where to start? Submit for free first.
You're automatically back in the pool for the next cycle, no resubmission needed unless you've revised the pages. Priority Read members get a guaranteed queue slot every cycle instead of just a chance.
Honest, not cruel. It's a real stranger's first reaction, not a performance of meanness, and it's never a verdict on whether it's a good story, only a record of what came through.
Yes. One active submission per person per cycle, and a featured read only happens once, no redo, but a revised draft is a new submission.
AISHA is an instant AI pass trained on the same method, always labeled and visually distinct. The reader's human notes are the premium, featured layer, the AI pass is a taste of it, not a substitute. Free reads are capped per hour so the tool stays available to everyone. Priority Read members get a higher cap.
So the work speaks for itself, and so does yours. The sample notes show exactly what you're signing up for before you submit a single page.