When I was about a year or two into my screenwriting adventure, an opinion piece popped up on a forum I frequented (Done deal, though I’m done with the ego on that site so…deal?) called “I Will Not Read Your Fu*king Screenplay.” To summarize the piece:
Man asks awesome screenwriter for notes.
Screenwriter gives notes.
Man gets sad.
Screenwriter regrets being helpful.
If you haven’t read the piece before, check it out:
https://www.villagevoice.com/2009/09/09/i-will-not-read-your-fucking-script/
I’ve hung out with Josh twice (once at a conference and once at a Final Draft engagement) and I’ve never met the man who wrote this piece. It’s just too bitter considering I found him to be genuine and funny as well as full of screenwriting adventures to share. So kudos to the rando who brought that out of him, because it’s a gem of a piece. Fun fact, the article was only about a two-page synopsis. Josh told us the guy eventually came back to him with a full script and he got a little catharsis by telling the guy he wasn’t going to read his f*cking screenplay 🙂
(If I can deviate for just a second, I got to ask him about an adaptation he was working on based on one of my favorite anime’s of all time, Monster. I asked how it was progressing and the answer I got was quite sad because it had been stalled due to the creator not wanting to work with the director who was from a different country…That’s bull, man. I digress.)
Anyway, having been on the receiving end many a time and been the di*k who has given those soul-crushing notes, I can attest that I know a thing or two about this. Hell, I’ve gotten ntes that have ranged from ‘Your script made me ugly cry (in a good way)’ to and I kid you not ‘You should completely abandon this project.’
I also bare the shame of posting a passion project, getting insane ridicule, taking it down because I couldn’t take the heat, and ended up learning the lesson I push below you. (TEASE: There’s one sentence you need to embrace if you’re going to do this writing thing well…And it’s number five on this list.)
Alright, enough bashing myself 😀 This piece isn’t about my notes, though we’ll go over thise another time in an article called “Building Weak Story Muscles” but this piece is about ASKING for notes. How does one do this?
1. Find a range of readers
After rewriting my most recent animated spec, I sent a draft to two friends. One of them subsists on a diet of popcorn and gummy bear movies while the other’s tastes borders on eating sashimi, specifically the spiky fish kind. What I’m saying is, I got amazing notes from the guy whose top 5 favorite movies are all Disney/Pixar and awesome notes from the guy who writes nothing but insane horrors and heart-stopping thrillers. It’s great to have a wide range of tastes reviewing your work, so find your community and get with it.
2. Find a gap in their schedules
Remember, this is someone else’s time you’re asking for and you’ve gotta be considerate. I’ve had friends ask for notes they needed in 24 hours only to do it and find that there was no deadline, they just, ya know, wanted em. RUBBISH. Be specific when you ask. See if they even have the time first and then ask if you could have it by say, the end of the week. If they don’t have the time, then don’t sweat it and grab another reader or two or three or four!
3. Find the nicest way to ask
No demanding.
No ‘you owe me one.’
No holding something hostage.
Do I have any examples of that?…. I don’t wanna talk about it, but be friendly for crying out loud.
4. Find something worth offering in return.
The simplest way to put this one is that it’s always polite to say ‘Hey, when the time comes I’m always happy to return the favor and offer notes when your next spec is ready.’ You could pay for notes services that range from $50 to, I’m not kidding, $10,000, so if a friend is being gracious enough with their time, the least you could be is gracious with your time in return.
AND FINALLY,
5. Find the perfect phrase that takes the pressure off.
This little sentence has opened the floodgates of good, valuable notes. Remember, whether this is a book or a screenplay, you need to use this sentence or a variant of it in order to get the best possible notes ever.
Ready?
Here it is:
“By the way, I want you to remember this when you’re reading my story;
You can’t hurt my feelings.
I can’t make that clear enough.
Whatever our relationship is (and I’ll be specific here) I want you to know that even if you think the whole thing is trash and that I should go to hell for writing it and I now owe you money for wasting your life, you seriously, under no circumstances can hurt my feelings by what you tell me.”
There.
You like that?
“You can’t hurt my feelings.”
Ya know what you just did? You just took the emotion completely out of it and saved the person from having to be like “well shoot, this part of the story really sucks, but I don’t wanna lose their friendship…Better find a way to soften the blow or just give up on giving out notes altogether.”
Now I’ve seen several variations on this particular sentence; a good friend likes to use “tear the damn thing apart,” which instantly means A, I desire for you to tell me why my baby is ugly and B, I didn’t care about the baby anyway.
….These metaphors are getting ugly, but listen, you have to let the reader know there’s no way you’ll be emotionally traumatized if they tell you to throw your computer in the fire.
Again, I’ve been there. Some notes are painful. I get it. But the only way you’re going to improve as a writer and reach your goals is to take notes when they’re at their harshest.
One person’s notes might just be an opinion, but if you see the same things coming up again and again, there’s something to that scene or that protagonist and you gotta get ready to change some things.
So hey, I hope this helped as always! If it did, please let me know in the comments and if there’s anything you want my take on, please let me know!
