A
recent discussion by Craig Mazin and John August over at johnaugust.com stuck in my head and gave me a small but prolonged prickle of concern.
In their regular podcast, John and Craig honed in on
Scriptshadow and how that blog's author, Carson Reeves (pseudonym) harms script development.
John August: So, let's get into some of our bigger topics here. And this is actually — a couple different listeners sent this in saying like, "Hey, what do you think about this?" And I'm like, oh, I didn't even want to open the URL when I recognized what it was from, but it's probably worth talking about.
So, there's a blog called Scriptshadow, and my first interaction with Scriptshadow was when the man who runs the blog, Carson Reeves, had reviewed a project that I was currently rewriting. So he had read the script and written a detailed blog review of this script, this early draft by another writer, and I was the currently employed writer on it. It was, like, a pretty high profile project at that point. And so the studio I was working for went ballistic and got him to pull the review.
And that was the end of it, I think, from his perspective. From my perspective, his publishing this review of this other writer's draft made my life horribly worse, because suddenly I was having to sign all these things about, like, I couldn't send this script to anybody. I couldn't show it to my agent. I couldn't show it to my sort of trusted friends. I could only send it to this one executive. Everything had to be watermarked, and they got super paranoid about this.
And in a blog post I wrote up sort of my frustration, and so the blog post was called "Why Scriptshadow hurts screenwriters." I explained that reviewing a script of a movie that hasn't shot yet, hasn't come out yet, is really damaging for both the movie and for screenwriters. It's damaging for the movie because you're trying to review something that's still its fetal form. So you're pretending that this movie is the way it's going to finally be. But it's not. This is just a plan for, "At this moment this is what we kind of think the movie is going to be."
For screenwriters overall, it's incredibly damaging, because I suddenly couldn't go to the trusted people who I want to have read my script. What's worse is that sort of forcing us to lock down the script, I can't let anyone else read that script if it's sort of stuck in development for awhile.
You have to understand that when you're hiring screenwriters you are going to read scripts, their spec scripts. You're going to read stuff that's of movies that have been made, but you're also going to read the stuff that's in development, and that stuff does get handed around. And the rule is, like, just everybody be cool about it. Like you can pass the stuff around, just don't talk about it that much.
This script I wrote for them I can't show anybody now because they sort of had it on this crazy lockdown. So those were my frustrations with Carson Reeves's Scriptshadow that is the back story that I needed to sort of setup for this newest blog post.
Craig Mazin: And just to echo your thoughts here: Reviewing screenplays that are in development is a stupid, counterproductive thing to do. It is anti-writer. And it will make movies worse. Please don't do it.
You don't review food as the chef is cooking it. We have drafts for a reason. You cannot write a final draft first. Anyone who actually writes for a living, who understands what writing, or painting, or writing a song, or sculpting something knows what I mean when I say it's not done. We're working — ING — on it. So if you put it on the internet like it's done and review it like it's done, you are hurting something that was not meant to be read or seen.
Please be respectful enough to just wait until it's done. How hard is that? How hard is that? And I just find it so frustrating that people in their desperate need to be involved somehow, or to release a secret for whatever small burst of adrenaline that gives you, ruin something that somebody is working on. And they don't all turn out great.
But, you know, the example I always give is The Sixth Sense, which is one of my favorite screenplays. He wasn't dead the whole time until like the sixth draft. You know what I mean? You have to wait. Just wait.
John August: Yup. It's that need to be first, and that thrill at being first is why you — is that instinct to talk about it before it's ready to be talked about. But I think your cooking analogy is exactly right. It's not done. It's still in the oven. Stop. And that's maddening.
Craig's comment about The Sixth Sense is particularly apropos. It's a sharp reminder that writers approach their craft differently. Some make detailed treatments -- their roadmap -- before banging out the first draft. They follow the map and mostly end up where they expect to. Others do a broad-strokes treatment or don't bother with one, opting instead to find the story through the rewriting process.
I wondered if 10PTT hurts the latter. That would bug me. This site exists to help novice screenwriters. Necessarily, I need to be critical at times and be honest about my reaction to pages. That can be disheartening for a submitting author. I try to be encouraging about it, because that's how I want people treating me. Saying "OMG, your writing stinks!" has no value. I need to hear: "Today your writing sucks. Here's why. Try these techniques. Tomorrow you'll suck less."
Another ameliorating factor is how 10PTT is more about the words on the page than the story. I'm more interested in helping you achieve an industry-standard level of writing than achieving a working story -- or rather, a working opening for your story, because we're only dealing with the first 10 pages. I believe once you can write the same way you drive a car -- competently and without thinking about it -- you're free to fully focus on story and polish it to perfection.
Sure, you can write a fantastic story with poor word skills. And maybe a professional reader somewhere will overlook your writing shoddiness and boost your script up the ladder -- almost certainly with the assumption the script will get handed to an industry pro to lift the writing up to par. But I can tell you this: the proportion of sold scripts having mediocre story and great writing versus those having great story and lousy writing is vast. A hundred to one sounds about right.
Master writing. Then master storytelling. Master then separately or together, but know you will not sell screenplays without mastering both.
So having thought on it, I've put my concern aside. On the whole, I don't think 10PTT harms screenwriters the way some people feel Scriptshadow harms screenwriters. I don't trash stories based on their first 10 pages. I don't rank scripts on a scale. I acknowledge these are draft pages.
Me, you -- we're struggling to crack the code that unlocks the secret to engaging, effective, exciting writing on the page. When my writing sucks, I want you to tell me why and show me how to be better. I'll do the same for your where I can.
