Every script has something unique and wonderful about it.Īs a writer and writing coach, there is one truism that I will swear by: every script has something unique and wonderful about it. What you like in your script is your best clue as to what the revision calls for. I recommend to writers that as they go through their first draft and circle everything they like without paying mind to anything else. Without clarity about the strengths of a script, a writer has no perspective on the work. If we felt good about our work, rewriting would be a fun and enjoyable challenge. That’s the reason that most unfinished scripts remain unfinished scripts, and it’s the reason that rewriting is a notoriously painful process. Most writers spend the rewriting process obsessing and agonizing over the “problems” in the script. My tips on giving constructive criticism: Beginning the revision process with a list of “problems” is the fast track to nowhere.
The moral of the story: Positive feedback is more useful than any constructive criticism a writer will ever receive. He could have easily handed me a list of a thousand problems, and I would have gotten buried in discouragement and put writing on hold for a few …decades. I still know how he got through reading that script. It was one, boring, impersonal, and laboriously written page after another. Mind you, the script I handed my boyfriend at the time was atrocious. The script sold on spec, was made for two million dollars, paid off my student loans, and garnered twenty awards at international film festivals. So with that one piece of feedback, I put the script away and wrote a new one in which that subplot became the main plot and those two characters became the leads. It was the most fun part of the script for me to write. I felt inspired, because I too liked that subplot. He pointed out that there were two characters with cool chemistry between them and that every time he got to a part that had them in it, he got into the script. He got back to me with only one comment: there was a subplot that he liked. When I was a 19-year-old film student, I gave my boyfriend a script for feedback. Here’s a personal story that encapsulates my approach: Constructive feedback is that thing we writers, filmmakers and all artists have a love-hate relationship with.
0 kommentar(er)
