Silver Screenwriting

Posts Tagged ‘Done Deal’

Hello, everyone. For any of you who may be following the online controversy, aspersion has been cast upon the first round judging criteria and methodology of The Silver Screenwriting Competition. Some of the rumors have been wild and some wildly inaccurate but the bottom line is with a competition that has grown as quickly as ours has, we do need to take a look at methods to depersonalize and mechanize the first round judging. We’ve gone from a very mom and pop business to one much, much larger and comprehensive. With that growth comes more responsibility and constant re-evaluation of how we get our judging done.

It doesn’t matter how these rumors got started, by whom or for what reason, what matters is that I am the boss and I take responsibility for what is said – good and bad. I stand by my competition, my script coverage business, each and every reader and judge that I employ. I only work with the best and the long history and reputation we have at The Script Department attests to that.

But one thing is crystal clear: The Silver Screenwriting Competition has grown exponentially and it’s time for us to address first round judging in a new way. Anyone who has spent two minutes or less with me personally knows that I am a professional and one of the kindest, most honest people you will ever meet in your life. Unfair and untrue accusations hurt more for that reason. But I do see that mistakes were made and I do not shy away from my responsibility to every writer who submitted.

If you have concerns about the competition, you are welcome to call my private office number 323-300-6051 between the hours of 10am and 4pm Mon-Fri and have a dialogue with me. If any entrant would like a full refund, you will receive it promptly. If you would like to send me your script and discuss it over the phone or Skype, I am at your service.

Please email me personally (I will be out of town from September 2nd through the 6th for the Labor Day weekend, however).

We are announcing the top ten scripts tomorrow, on schedule, and each and every one of us here, but primarily me, Julie Gray wants to let you know that we run this competition with heart and integrity and if a reader was publicly bitter about the process, if some of you have been misled to think that your entry fee is a coverage fee rather than an administrative fee, it is my responsibility to make that right. It is more important to me to run both my personal and business affairs with integrity than it is to wonder who is saying what and what their agenda is. I have one agenda. To do right by every writer who entered. I do not give credence to malicious rumor, only to the essence hidden within them – something needs to change.

Again, please call or email me for a full refund or with any questions or concerns you may have.

Getting notes for free (or cheap) from message board types can be heaven and it can be hell. Some who offer free notes really are quite good at it – and others – well, they aren’t very experienced.

Bad note givers are totally SUBJECTIVE. They give their opinion based on what they like and how they would write this story. But it’s not their story. They make overt suggestions ala what THEY would do if the story were theirs. Sometimes they’ll change or suggest dialogue to the way they would like to see it written. Cardinal no-no.

Bad note givers have an unearned sense that they KNOW what is good and what is bad. And usually this vibe comes across in the notes. Ergo, bad note givers put the writer on the defensive.

Because some free note giver on a message board offers to give you notes doesn’t mean that they’ll be bad – or good. The stumbling block is that you’ll be on the defensive very quickly because the free note giver has very little experience doing this. So the jumping off point is dysfunctional; they aren’t experienced, so they have no authority in your view, and you’ll get defensive and they might be too subjective…and the whole experience can be a mess.

Free notes are hit or miss. The problem is that if they are a miss, the writer is left with a feeling of having been judged by someone not qualified to judge them…and even if there were salient points, they will not hear those points. It’s like I said about the spoonful of sugar.

Giving good notes is like being a therapist – oh, sure, the therapist sits there in their cashmere scarf sipping tea, all curled up in their chair and they seem very ordinary – they don’t discuss your issues with you from a technical standpoint – they get you comfortable but while you’re talking, they’re running your issues through their Psychology Degree Learning Background and searching for and addressing issues that have distinct jumping off points from an academic point of view. But when they talk to you, they put it in such a way that makes you feel comfortable. Something good is happening in this interaction but it’s beneath the surface. If they asked you questions more directly, you’d shut down and now the session is useless. It’s about how to get people to open up and hear you.

Free (and bad) note givers don’t have enough experience working with writers to use this methodology. They may (or may not) have some good points to make on the script but they don’t know how to deliver that information in such a way that the writer feels empowered. And though they’d never admit it in a million years, they get ego-gratification about pointing out what’s wrong with your script because somewhere deep inside there’s a little voice saying I could do this better than you.

A professional reader doesn’t have that voice because they just don’t care enough. They don’t know you, they have nothing invested in who’s a better writer. It’s a job. On a message board, there’s sometimes a weird, gossipy thing that goes on where someone offers to give you notes, and then they can sort of say on the board, in hushed tones – Oh, I read that script – it really isn’t that great. It’s one-upmanship. Professional readers aren’t into that. They aren’t going to go to CURLYGIRL3 and say Hey, did you know that FOXYCHICK isn’t a very good writer? Did you know that? She posts so much about her accomplishments but she’s really not that great!

A lot of writers can fall into one-upmanship. It happens. A writer is getting traction on a script and suddenly everyone wants to read it. Know why this happens? Not because they are truly curious as to what makes a script gain traction but because they secretly want to say – Oh. It’s not really that great. I have NO idea why that script is at William Morris. Hmmph.

Free notes can be a nice thing to receive but please, please consider the source. And if you OFFER to give free notes, ask yourself this – what is your agenda? Can you set aside your ego and just be honest? Are you really qualified to do this? I mean, sometimes a person will say hey, I just want your knee-jerk opinion. Did you laugh? Did you like it? Well, just about anybody is qualified to do that and that’s a nice thing. But do check in with your motivation on giving or receiving free notes. If you are getting the notes, are you secretly looking for praise or respect? If you are giving them are you secretly hoping to establish that YOU are the better writer?

Seven signs that your super cool free read was a very bad idea:

1) You feel defensive and upset.

2) The notes contain snarky comments and put-downs.

3) The person who offered is a blowhard on your local message board.

4) The notes are specific, not global and the reader offered advice that you dislike.

5) The person uses the word “I” a lot. (I liked this. I didn’t like that. I would do this. I wouldn’t do that.)

6) The person actually rewrote or suggested dialogue.

7) The person made plot suggestions that do not fit and spin the script in a totally new direction.

So (non) buyer beware. Free notes are a blessing and a curse. You need to vet who’s offering. And you need to check in with yourself – can you set your ego aside? Can you take what makes sense and dump the rest? Do you respect this person? Do they know a lot about screenwriting or do they just claim to give totally honest feedback? I will be totally honest with you is often a code for: I’ll rake you over the coals to make myself feel better. Believe it. I’ve been on the receiving end of that and I do think that experience in some ways led me to my current philosophy that giving notes must be done in such a way that it is respectful and palatable. Because if I’m going to take the time to read your script I want you to get something out of it.