Why would you want to actively seek criticism? Why would you want to listen to people telling you where you went wrong and what they dislike about your work? Wouldn’t it be better to focus on the positives? Actually, it wouldn’t and here's why.
If you want to improve as a writer you need to know where you’re going wrong. Actively seeking criticism helps you to achieve that. But it needs to be the right kind of criticism and from the right people. Here are some handy tips to getting the best feedback for your work.
That’s right, I said people, as in more than one person. Why? Because when you have more than one person giving you feedback the serious problems with your screenplay will be highlighted by at least two, if not all of them. It’s those issues that crop up more than once which are the ones that urgently need fixing. But who do you ask?
Avoid family and friends. Why I hear you ask? Because they won’t be objective and objectivity and honesty are what you want here. The people you should be asking are your writing peers, those with a bit of experience or training. Three should be sufficient.
YOUR APPROACH
Contact them and first offer to read and give feedback on their work. They will be more inclined to help you if you offer to help them first. Second, tell them you only want to know what’s WRONG with your screenplay and not what is right. Ask them to be brutally honest with you and assure them you can take whatever they throw at you.
IT’S NOTHING PERSONAL
Whatever they say about your work don’t take it to heart. It's not about you, it's about your screenplay. The aim here is to find out what doesn’t work, not to stroke your ego. So keep a clear head and look at what they’ve said and what they mean with an objective eye.
If someone says they hate something, go back to them and ask them to explain why. The more information you have the more prepared you are when you settle down to get on with your rewrite.
COLLATE FEEDBACK
Read through the reports at least twice and on the second time take notes of the points that crop up more than once. These are the main problems with your screenplay and have to be dealt with. Ignore them at your peril.
What you do with the minor points, those that are only mentioned by one of your readers is up to you. I’m not saying they’re not important but they may have only been highlighted because of the reader’s personal preferences, rather than because the screenplay is worse off because of them. However, my advice would be to look at all of your notes, decide which ones you think are relevant and action them.
REWRITE
When you’re finished do it all again. Try to repeat this at least three times, more if you can. The more you rewrite the better your screenplay will be. Don’t be a fool and send it out to producers before it’s ready, it won’t do you any favours.
IMPROVEMENT
Do the same for every screenplay you write. Don’t become complacent with this. If you do this religiously you’ll soon find the problems with your screenplays lessen and the quality of your work will increase rapidly.
Happy writing!
No comments:
Post a Comment