Well, it's been a couple of weeks since I posted the first draft of my script, Tag up on Zoetrope for review by my fellow screenwriters. The passing comments I've had on it have all been very encouraging and positive. Now the reviews proper have started to come in and I have to say that the reaction to it has been quite surprising.
When I posted the screenplay, I expected to have it if not mutilated then certainly dissected with intent. After all, I may be a fairly experienced writer when it comes to features and interviews, but this is my first script. When I started it, I didn’t have a clue about structure, format or anything. I wrote, I read one book about screenplays, and I finished. Naturally I expected it to be crap and to be torn apart by more experienced writers.
Instead, I’ve been surprised by the comments that have come back. Although many of the review have pointed out weaknesses, which is all for the good as that will help me rewrite, they’ve also included compliments. Yes! Actual compliments!! And my average rating is ‘very good’, which is equivalent to 7 or 8 out of 10.
Now, because this is my blog, and I’m chuffed as a small horse about what people are saying, here are some extracts from the five reviews I’ve had:
“Your pacing was good but your progression was fantastic.”
“Mathonwy’s past with Dev was incredibly done. A great montage.”
“Very tightly written.”
“This is definitely a script worth recommending for production.”
“You’re in the game. Your story and presentation are way beyond most other efforts I’ve seen here.”
“You have good dialogue skills. You’re a natural at movie talk.”
“Having bacon and eggs for lunch is much strangers than some of your monsters to North Americans.” (ok, not actually a compliment, but it made me laugh.)
“It’s a damn good screenplay.”
“It shows all kinds of promise.”
“The structure of the work is well laid out and the dialogue has a spark all it own.”
I don’t normally pat myself on the back in public. In fact, I don’t normally pat myself on the back at all. But, with my life in the godawful messy state it’s in right now, I need some light at the end of the tunnel to move towards. Rightly or wrongly, this is my light. This is my future. And if I can’t talk about this in public, there’s the risk I may not follow through on what I have begun because it would be all to easy to put it on the backburner and leave it there to rot.
I encourage you to nag me about this if you see no further posts on the subject in the near future.
there's your first! 🙂
Bob
LOL
Keep it comin' Bob!
I promised a review.. finished it on my system, tried to get into Zoetrope, zmail is fookin' broken. I don't have your regular email addy. Also, I rec'd the POTC script but bless me, I don't have any software to open it with.. is your system running well enough to create a .TXT version and then perhaps email that as an attachment? Or if it's huge (over 800K) it could be zipped.. I may be asking too much.
km
Karl [mkarl2@qwest.net]
Thanks for the note, Karl. Check your email!!
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