When friends read your script
What are your thoughts on choosing readers for first drafts? I’ve noticed that, for example, giving a Disney movie to a Fincher fan can turn a favor into a chore and leave the writer lacking in constructive feedback. Better to give it to someone who knows and enjoys the genre and is aware of that marketplace, past and present. You’re asking them to work for free, after all.
I’ve also made the mistake of allowing someone unfamiliar with screenwriting to read a script because they asked me to. You end up explaining everything to death and they still don’t get it which can feed your rampant first-draft-phase insecurity. Was there a strategy you followed back in the day to get the best feedback or did it just happen organically?
I looked but didn’t see anything on the site to help with this. May be helpful to myself and others.
- Matt
The screenplay format is so unlike traditional fiction that it’s hard for newcomers to offer much useful feedback. They often can’t distinguish between the strange experience of reading a movie on paper and the story they just read. You may feel a social obligation to let non-screenwriting friends read your work, but don’t plan your rewrite based on their reactions.
With friends and colleagues who are familiar with screenplays — by which I mean they’ve read at least a dozen, and can talk about them comfortably — you may still need to pick carefully. Certain people and certain genres just don’t mix.
A thoughtful reader, though, can often offer constructive feedback even when it’s not her type of movie.
Back when I was in the Stark Program, we all read each other’s scripts. Al Gough and Miles Millar made their first sale with a script about a cop and an orangutan — a very high-concept comedy. That’s not in my wheelhouse, but I went through two or three drafts with them, offering very specific notes about trims and clarifications. They did the same for me on my overwritten romantic tragedy. Regardless of the genre, a good reader can help a writer see problems and find solutions. More than anything, you want a second smart brain to bounce ideas off of. That’s why you ask people to read your work-in-progress.
And for the praise. You want people to tell you you’re great.
Another thing to keep in mind: Don’t burn out your readers. Unless they actively ask to read the next draft, give them a break. You may even want to keep one or two reader friends “fresh” for the inevitable rewrite.
Filed under: Education, Film Industry, QandA, Writing Process
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April 18th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Thanks John – you’re so right about the “burn out” thing, nothing worse than someone heaping draft after draft onto you : )
Something else that might prove useful to Matt in addition is the “Power of 3″ idea that’s popular amongst spec writers here in the UK. This involves having 3 people read your script and offer feedback – and you return the favour for those 3, naturally. Also that way if anything comes up 3 times, you know you have a problem for definite, as opposed to the script not being to a specific person’s taste. The man responsible for the Power of 3 Adrian Mead let me reproduce his handout explaining the strategy on my blog. This link will take any interested parties to the handout:
http://lucyvee.blogspot.com/2007/07/power-of-3-adrians-handout.html
April 18th, 2008 at 6:01 am
Maybe I had too much wishful thinking jumping around inside me after reading Stephen King’s “On Writing” and his explanation of how his wife, Tabitha, is his “ideal reader,” but my fiancee has a difficult time wrapping her head around screenplays and actually prefers to stick with my fiction and nonfiction short stories. However, my buddy Barry loves scripts; eats them with tongs and a bib. I guess the lesson is understand your readers’ strength areas.
April 18th, 2008 at 6:23 am
I find that with very close friends and family, they can sometimes just be excited that what you wrote even resembles something like a “real story” — That there’s a danger there to get caught up in some of the kind words coming your way.
Lately I’ve learned to give it to another writer I respect first. If you can keep sensibilities in mind, you very easily filter the applicable critcism from the not-so-much kind.
April 18th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Yeah, the more experience I get, the more prerequisites I realize are necessary in a reader. They need to be a writer, of course, but they also need to understand and hopefully enjoy the genre in which you’re working. And, the paramount requirement, they must have sufficient time to read your script and give you feedback. I’ve given another writer a script, waited eons for a response, and after several follow-ups gotten maybe a few lines of analysis. That’s just not helpful. You need someone who will get down in the trenches with you and give your material nearly the same level of attention they’d give to their own — and you need to be able to respond in kind (doing so will help your own development as a writer as much as it helps your friend).
April 18th, 2008 at 9:30 am
I’m in a fortunate position where I have a writing-partner who is a little older than me and has experience in lots of different genres. He’s also brutally honest. We’ve just spent 3 years coming through the process of writing the libretto to a musical – a test for any partnership(Further challenges await trying to get it produced, we’ve been advised it won’t sell at home in the West End; may end up in N.Y ‘Off-Broadway’)! As a consequence he knows me and my capabilities, knows what I can achieve and if my work is poor and needs rewriting or shown the bin. In return, I read stuff he’s done on his own.
I have another friend who did the same course and similar modules to me at University, he has a very acute eye.
In all cases we have a rule of ‘Constructive Criticism only’ – otherwise it dents your fragile writing soul, and doesn’t help you with rewrites.
Whoever reads your work make sure: 1. Aren’t members of your family. In all honesty, they probably are too close to you to give proper feedback. You might end up with your chosen relative saying ‘That’s nice dear.’ Great, but not useful to your work.
Make sure your friend/colleague/man in the park can be trusted and that they understand it’s a work in progress. To make sure they give useful feedback, issue them with a questionnaire (I make one up based on questions from ‘Teach Yourself Screenwriting’ by Ray Frensham, published by Hodder Headline (UK) or Contemporary Books (US).)
Don’t badger them – give them as much time as they need to pick through it. This is also a good workout for your patience should you submit your script to an agent/director/actor.
When your reader returns to you with feedback, if possible meet them face-to-face. You can ask them further questions, make extra notes on the draft. It also gives you a chance to re-pay them for their kindness with a few drinks or dinner. The very least a coffee and slice of cake.
Whatever you do, make sure you give your work to someone else to check. It’s one of the healthiest things you can do; makes you a better and stronger writer.
Good Luck!
April 18th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Asking somebody to read your spec is kinda like asking somebody to take you to the airport…at four in the morning. As much as it is a work in progress, you want to make sure the script is in the best shape possible. Don’t hand it out to friends unless YOU are confident that it is a solid first draft. The litmus test would be to consider if you can hand someone the script without saying “I know the protagonist is not very likeable…” or “I’m still tinkering with the end, but here it is”. Nothing worse than getting to the airport at four in the morning and realizing your flight’s been canceled.
April 18th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
It’s a sticky question, but isn’t usually that bad. A friend should be able to read something of yours for pleasure regardless of whether it is their favorite genre or not. Having said that, I probably wouldn’t even bother a friend if I knew he or she just doesn’t like that type of story.
I had a friend who never showed me his work, partly because he never finished anything, but mostly because of his own insecurity. He knew I wanted to read his material, that it was my cup of tea, and that I had enough experience working on feature films in the cutting rooms to give him positive and useful feedback.
I was vaguely insulted when he just refused to let me see anything he’d written, because he’d had free reign with my scripts, but then it dawned on me that perhaps my experience frightened him. Perhaps, as someone with full feature editing experience, who had already written five scripts and a stageplay on the side, who knows the classic films like my own life, he may have been terrified of what I would think of his writing.
I’ve been very fair with other friends’ scripts, but this is a very good question because it can be sticky.
April 18th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I asked my then-girlfriend to read the first screenplay I’ve ever written, and she loved it. She would read a novel every month or so and worked at the theater with me (The Bridge: cinema de lux for L.A. dwellers) so she saw movies all the time with me. I thought she might be a good source of feedback. I read it again recently (two years later) and it’s total crap.
What was more alarming was the fact that she enjoyed Soul Plane when we went to see it, and I could barely sit through it. Once that came to remembrance I knew it was bad.
Then, I had another “female interest” (she wasn’t my girlfriend) read my third screenplay. She “didn’t get it” and I took her word for a grain of salt. She, too, was a novel reader.
Moral of the story? Don’t take any advice seriously from anyone you’re screwing on your screenplay. Unless you’re screwing Penny Marshall (and if you are, God help you).
April 18th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
The problem I came across is that the screenplay is so radically different from reading a novel or even seeing a movie and most of friends didn’t understand this when they agreed to read mine. It requires a very special skill: to [i]see[/i]. With minimal set decoration, character description, cinematic approach, on and on, it’s really hard for people to [i]see[/i] your movie. I expected my well read friends to be especially able to understand my work, but they were dumbfounded the most. They were so used to pages of description and wildly decorative prose, that it was hard for them to decipher the minimality of the screenplay. I think it came to be the difference between those people who can judge visuals descriptions, and those who can make visual creations or imagine completely.
I’ve since had several professionals read it and it’s gotten an option and is currently in pre-production. Thank goodness. But for a while there it was somewhat disheartening. The producers who finally did give it a go really took the time to understand it and had the ability to [i]see[/i] it. It made me gain more respect for that title.
April 19th, 2008 at 3:33 am
Naturally you won’t get much constuctive feed-back from someone who doesn’t understand what a screenplay is, but as long as the person can imagine a movie while they are reading I think pretty much everyone’s opinion is interesting. The only important thing is to KNOW YOUR READER. I have writing friends whose tastes are very different from mine that I will routinely ask to read what I’ve written. Because I know where they are coming from, I know how to filter their notes. When “dark-tragedy-friend” points out a couple of scenes in my sunny comedy as scenes that made him laugh, I know that these are parts of my screenplay where I’ve transcended genre and hit on something that’s pure gold. And that is a starting point for my own process. I can analyse what it is in these pages that speaks to the humanity in all of us. And is there someway I can develop those aspects in the parts he really didn’t like. Knowing where “dark-tragedy-guys” notes are coming from I can also discard them when I don’t agree.
The other thing I ask myself is what I am worried about with this draft. If I have a nagging feeling that it isn’t visual enough I might ask a cinematographer-friend to look at it. If I know it’s too long I might ask an editor-friend to take a peek. If the premise feels murky, I have an ex-copywriter-turned-screenwriter-friend who is great at distilling the idea into strong concepts.
The last important point in asking friends to read is that it makes everything real. I am no longer just playing on my own with my little ideas. The pressing of the SEND-button on my mail-browser, or the handing over of a printed script always makes it painfully clear to myself what I should have written but didn’t. So the notes I write myself while waiting for feedback are often the best notes I’ll ever get.
(Of course sometimes you just need someone to say “that’s great dear” – so don’t knock the “giving-your-script-to-mom”-routine)
April 19th, 2008 at 4:39 am
For what it’s worth, I always show my work to one or two trusted readers. And, although it’s pleasant to hear that they enjoyed it, I am not really interested in their praise. I want to know where I went wrong, what doesn’t work, what’s unclear. I always ask readers to be brutal, and I think that’s what everyone should ask. Because dispassionate readers are going to be brutal. Agents and producers are going to be brutal. Now, I choose carefully–that is, I have, over the years, figured out who can give an honest, helpful read. And, I try to make sure that I can no longer see the holes myself, that I have taken it as far as I can, that it seems right to me. Because otherwise, the reader is only going to point out what I already know, and I’ve burned a read for nothing.
April 19th, 2008 at 8:21 am
I don’t know how many people know about Trigger Street at http://www.triggerstreet.com
Basically, you review four screenplays then you’re allowed to post your own screenplay for feedback.
Mark
April 19th, 2008 at 10:24 am
John, since you mentioned Gough and Millar several times, is there a possibility to interview them for your series How I Write?
April 19th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Agree on having the right readers. I used to go this playwright until I realized she could never understand the visual nature of film. She would always seem confused by the scenes without dialogue. Finally, I decided it wasn’t the visuals. It was whether she appreciated the nature of screenwriting. I also started to give her examples of how in film what might require dialogue in a play could be rewritten in film visually to accomplish the same goals through visual elements. I have to say the process taught me a lot about my own process talking to her.
April 19th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Alex: “The last important point in asking friends to read is that it makes everything real. I am no longer just playing on my own with my little ideas. The pressing of the SEND-button on my mail-browser, or the handing over of a printed script always makes it painfully clear to myself what I should have written but didn’t. So the notes I write myself while waiting for feedback are often the best notes I’ll ever get.”
That was my defining moment. That’s when I graduated.
April 20th, 2008 at 2:29 am
My wife is not only my ideal reader (in that she understands story, character, dialog, and also when she’s pressing my buttons and should just back off and let me struggle with it and come to her conclusions on my own), she’s also a stellar copy editor. She’s not a screenwriter (yet), but as another kind of writer and editor, I was able to explain the screenplay format basics very quickly. Since then, she’s totally rocked out at giving me notes. My suggestion is everyone hook-up romantically with a great editor.
Even so (or if you haven’t managed that trick in the first place), I also ask certain friends to do reads. I offer them reads in return, which some of them decline, but the offer is always there. For those who don’t take it, I try to buy the lunch or something nice like that. I have developed a pool of them that I can ask (many, but not all, I first started exchanging notes with in a workshop or writers’ group), and try to avoid burning them out. I also agree with the “know your reader” advice. You need to understand that person’s tastes and personality — and if you find yourself getting pissed off with their notes, maybe there’s such an impedance mismatch you should save the friendship and skip the notes part.
Additionally, I try to attend as many workshops, classes, and writers’ groups as I can stomach (sometimes they’re great, sometimes I’d rather be eating broken glass).
Even so, I also employ the services of a professional reader. The right ones are smart, experienced, and deal with producers all the time. They are forced to read every genre, and have learned to squelch their own tastes as much as humanly possible. A professional reader doesn’t get burned out, and since they’re not your friend (at least, not at first), they don’t tiptoe around difficult pieces of your story. A freelance reader currently makes about $60/script from studios and prodcos. Some will offer notes to individuals for somewhere around the same price. I recommend those people over the “experts” that charge an arm and a leg (especially the ones that offer special mumbo-jumbo that will help you unlock some secret thing or whatnot).
Another thing people need to do is know how to receive notes. Here are my main tips on this:
Don’t defend (perhaps unless you’re in a development meeting where often the most passionate voice wins, but we’re not talking about that situation). What that means is, you asked the person for notes, don’t counter their every note with some explanation of why they didn’t “get it” and you were right all along. Ask clarifying questions, and if absolutely necessary offer a clarification or correction — but don’t get defensive.
Don’t believe everything anyone says. Writing is subjective. Nobody is always right. Something that one person loves, another will hate, and vice-versa. You can’t please them all and you shouldn’t address every note you get because some of them aren’t what your story needs. In the end, it’s your story, not design by committee.
Write your own notes about their notes (even if they sent you written notes). The process of writing your own notes filters them back through your own ideas about your story. Also, your own notes will still be comprehensible to you after you kick over your computer in frustration, get drunk, vow never to touch that piece of crap script ever again and to become an investment banker or mountaintop hermit, realize you’re addicted and write a whole other script, and then come back to the stupid pile of rubbish in six months.
Thank the person, even if their notes were totally retarded and you’d rather have been punched in the back of the head a hundred times than endure one more moment of their raging stupidity. Being rude isn’t going to make their notes any better, and it’s not going to make you any happier.
My $0.02.
April 20th, 2008 at 6:16 am
My husband, though not a writer, is a passionate and knowledgeable film buff who knows a good movie when he sees it. When I first switched to writing screenplays, his comments ran along the lines of “not good, honey”. I got so pissed off I would go back and rewrite. After about 2 years, he said: “This is pretty good.” After 3 years he said “This is really good” and after 4 he starting pushing me to hit the market. Though it was rough there for a while (I’m afraid he got the silent treatment a few times), I’m glad he didn’t pull his punches in the name of being “supportive”. His toughness spurred me to prove to him I could write a fucking great movie; it’s made me a better writer than I might have become.
One thing I learned: how to move beyond the defensive and welcome the indication of a possible script problem. Even non-experienced readers can provide this. For example, if someone says “he needs to blow somebody’s head off here”, instead of thinking “well that’s a stupid suggestion” as I might once have done, I think about the fact that, at this point in the story, the reader felt a need for a) more tension b) a stronger character reaction c) a reversal, or any of a number of things that might improve a dead moment in the script. You don’t have to follow people’s specific suggestions, but I think it’s wise to identify the underlying issues beneath them. Then you can address them in your own unique way.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Here’s something I did on a recent script that was very helpful. I developed a short questionnaire that helped focus the feedback from my readers. It was about 12 questions long, but many of the questions were open for elaboration if the reader felt so inclined. Sending the script out to my readers, I knew there were certain areas where I wanted specific reaction, so I tailored the questions around those key points.
But I also asked basic stuff like: what were your three favorite moments?…. were you ever unclear about what the main character’s objective was — and if so, what scene?… were there any moments that felt predictable?…. Did you find yourself putting the script down at any point because you were starting to lose interest? If so, what page? (etc.)
I love having an apples to apples comparison on the feedback. I’ve never quite had that before. On previous scripts, my reader feedback was all over the place. I felt like the questions made the feedback more objective and I didn’t have to sit down with someone over coffee while they figured out the best way to tell me a part of the script they hated.
And now based on the responses, I feel like I can follow up some certain people about certain points if I need to bounce a specific idea around.
Highly recommended.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:24 am
Here’s another idea – I’m in a writers group where a few of my friends give me feedback along the way, in the outline stage, etc.
I always find it’s crucial to have at least one or two readers who have NOT heard you talk about your idea before and especially not read any outline or prior draft.