The Script "Expert"

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  • The Script "Expert"

    I've been in some form of the online screenwriting universe forever, and there's a type that keeps popping up. The writer who tries to break in for years, fails, and decides that his new role is to present the rules he's learned as gospel. Sometimes he'll try to charge you for the advice, sometimes he'll dole it out for free...

    But what he's doing is: telling you the only way to write and break in is to replicate the methods he's failed with.

    It's madness. You wouldn't learn how to pass the bar exam from someone who flunked it forty times. And yet these guys are all over twitter and done deal and stage 32 and whatever other corner of the internet new writers flock to for advice.

    The worst part is most of the advice is stuff they've gathered from other cocksure amateurs. There's a whole database of bad advice that has become scripture. Look for the million "we see" threads here for an example.

    I'm not saying you have to be a professional writer to share advice/experiences. But either make it something you've experienced (here's what happened in this contest, here's how I get responses to queries, here's how I outline, etc, etc) or cite some actual expert - "here's a link to Pro Writer X talking about how he handles notes."

    In short: don't get sex tips from someone who's never fucked.

  • #2
    Originally posted by JeffLowell View Post

    In short: don't get sex tips from someone who's never fucked.
    That strikes me as a comment worthy of the governor of New York.

    Do you understand that you're killing what should be an insightful post by being crude? Unless you're not describing human beings, in particular women, when you use the term "****ed"? Because the majority of women are well aware that men who make utterly offensive off-handed comments like you have with the excuse that they're driving a point home by using strong language, well, they are the males least likely to able to offer "sex tips" of any value, even to their chortling buddies at the bar.

    Oh yeah, you write comedy, right? Then you get a free pass. Oh yeah, you're wildly successful, right? Then you get a free pass. Excuse me.

    Same old, same old.

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    • #3
      I've learned everything i know from Erica Jong and Cosmo.

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      • #4
        Jeff Lowell is just about the only reason to check into this forum at this point. His advice is excellent and his analogy was perfect.

        Calling his advice "utterly offensive" is the kind of hysterical response that has driven away the vast majority of pros from this forum.

        And for the record, people use UTTERLY OFFENSIVE language all in the time in industry meetings and creative discussions, and no one gives a sh1t. Please give us all a fvcking break.

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        • #5
          My take is that writing good scripts is pretty hard. Hard enough that it can't easily be distilled into bullet point advice that someone can read, digest, and master in five minutes. But there's a demand for instant solutions, and people who speak with certainty are able to meet that demand by filling the airwaves with reassuring checklists. Placebo effect for the writer crowd. There's a high-rated thread on the Reddit screenwriting sub right now that cites passive voice as a big no-no. Instant death for any script. Now, I'm not some big shot writer with a long list of credits, but I'm thinking that if I ever passed on a great concept/story/project as a reader because the writer used too much passive voice, whoever I was reading for would take me out back and do an Old Yeller. "This is a great idea and it's definitely a movie, but unfortunately there's too much passive voice. We have to pass." I've been in those rooms a little bit and that's not a conversation that I can imagine happening in the real world.

          If your theories about what makes scripts work don't actually translate into successful material then how valuable are those theories? It's a sliding scale, but I'm definitely wary of the learn from my failure crowd that you're describing. I want to write a killer how-to book eventually, but I'm not nearly shameless enough to do it without having at least earned that shiny WGA membership card. "Here's what I did and here's how to do it" is exponentially more convincing than "Here's something I've never done and here's how you should do it."

          I guess since there are far more failed writers than successes, it makes some sense that there are far more of those voices in the conversation though. How many people really know how to write script? 500? 5,000? There are over 1.1 members on the Reddit screenwriting sub. Long odds.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by DaltWisney View Post
            My take is that writing good scripts is pretty hard. Hard enough that it can't easily be distilled into bullet point advice that someone can read, digest, and master in five minutes. But there's a demand for instant solutions, and people who speak with certainty are able to meet that demand by filling the airwaves with reassuring checklists. Placebo effect for the writer crowd. There's a high-rated thread on the Reddit screenwriting sub right now that cites passive voice as a big no-no. Instant death for any script. Now, I'm not some big shot writer with a long list of credits, but I'm thinking that if I ever passed on a great concept/story/project as a reader because the writer used too much passive voice, whoever I was reading for would take me out back and do an Old Yeller. "This is a great idea and it's definitely a movie, but unfortunately there's too much passive voice. We have to pass." I've been in those rooms a little bit and that's not a conversation that I can imagine happening in the real world.

            If your theories about what makes scripts work don't actually translate into successful material then how valuable are those theories? It's a sliding scale, but I'm definitely wary of the learn from my failure crowd that you're describing. I want to write a killer how-to book eventually, but I'm not nearly shameless enough to do it without having at least earned that shiny WGA membership card. "Here's what I did and here's how to do it" is exponentially more convincing than "Here's something I've never done and here's how you should do it."

            I guess since there are far more failed writers than successes, it makes some sense that there are far more of those voices in the conversation though. How many people really know how to write script? 500? 5,000? There are over 1.1 members on the Reddit screenwriting sub. Long odds.
            I’m against any and all rules but the passive voice should be terminated with extreme prejudice.

            And I do think that the consistent use of it significantly reduces the chances that a script will be good, merely because I can’t imagine that person having the right set of tools in their toolbox to execute at a competent level.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Satriales View Post

              I’m against any and all rules but the passive voice should be terminated with extreme prejudice.

              And I do think that the consistent use of it significantly reduces the chances that a script will be good, merely because I can’t imagine that person having the right set of tools in their toolbox to execute at a competent level.
              Don't want to derail the thread with a pointless debate, but I think content is a lot more important than style.

              I remember reading See No Evil (the loose source material for "Syriana") many years ago and immediately thinking it had some of the worst prose I'd ever read. After a few more pages I was completely hooked because the content was so interesting that the style didn't really matter. I wouldn't say style doesn't matter at all in a script, but I'm of the belief that a script is just an intermediate blueprint for a movie and not a standalone literary product. If I put myself in the position of a development person, the task is to look at any source material (script, novel, news article, comic book, life story, video game, board game, phone book) and find the movie in there. Action description is (IMO) a pretty small part of the equation and never the reason why I slide something that I've read from my mental "pass" to "recommend" file or vice versa.

              But here I am preaching rules and principles in a thread that cautions against that very thing, so...

              Let me just be clear that it's my opinion as someone with (very limited) experience reading for producers/talent, and who is currently 74/80 scripts deep in the 2020 Black List. I look at the concept, characters, plot progression, and other elements a lot more than how the writer chose to describe a tree on page 37. That type of thing is not really relevant to the hypothetical final product, though I agree that shoddy prose is often a symptom of shoddy everything.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by DaltWisney View Post

                Don't want to derail the thread with a pointless debate, but I think content is a lot more important than style.

                I remember reading See No Evil (the loose source material for "Syriana") many years ago and immediately thinking it had some of the worst prose I'd ever read. After a few more pages I was completely hooked because the content was so interesting that the style didn't really matter. I wouldn't say style doesn't matter at all in a script, but I'm of the belief that a script is just an intermediate blueprint for a movie and not a standalone literary product. If I put myself in the position of a development person, the task is to look at any source material (script, novel, news article, comic book, life story, video game, board game, phone book) and find the movie in there. Action description is (IMO) a pretty small part of the equation and never the reason why I slide something that I've read from my mental "pass" to "recommend" file or vice versa.

                But here I am preaching rules and principles in a thread that cautions against that very thing, so...

                Let me just be clear that it's my opinion as someone with (very limited) experience reading for producers/talent, and who is currently 74/80 scripts deep in the 2020 Black List. I look at the concept, characters, plot progression, and other elements a lot more than how the writer chose to describe a tree on page 37. That type of thing is not really relevant to the hypothetical final product, though I agree that shoddy prose is often a symptom of shoddy everything.
                I'm with Dalt, who has the experience of being a reader for producers/talent. I, as a screenwriter competition reader, am forced (paid) to read a script in its entirety after which I must score the elements of the script, originality, concept, story, structure, pace, plot, theme, characters, dialogue, marketability, production value, etc. These all make for the script as a whole... as it should. All may be 5/5, I can't (would note) pass the script because of a passive voice. I've read scripts that I wanted to stop reading after page 10... when I got to fade out: I was WOW! blown-away, and sent it straight through to quarter-finales.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Barry John View Post

                  I'm with Dalt, who has the experience of being a reader for producers/talent. I, as a screenwriter competition reader, am forced (paid) to read a script in its entirety after which I must score the elements of the script, originality, concept, story, structure, pace, plot, theme, characters, dialogue, marketability, production value, etc. These all make for the script as a whole... as it should. All may be 5/5, I can't (would note) pass the script because of a passive voice. I've read scripts that I wanted to stop reading after page 10... when I got to fade out: I was WOW! blown-away, and sent it straight through to quarter-finales.
                  I’m curious, what are your qualifications to be a reader?

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                  • #10
                    Dear god. It’s all gone so wrong.

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by JeffLowell View Post
                      Dear god. It’s all gone so wrong.
                      I’ll take the L for careening us into a ditch. ?

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                      • #12
                        Yeah, let's not confuse being a reader for a contest or even production companies with those Jeff is talking about. Interns do that too.

                        But I would put consultants in that "expert" category, people who hang out a shingle and charge for services they're not qualified to offer. Because message board advice -- good or bad -- is at least free, but if you're being asked to pay for bad, unqualified advice, that's just adding insult to injury.

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by muckraker View Post
                          Yeah, let's not confuse being a reader for a contest or even production companies with those Jeff is talking about. Interns do that too.

                          But I would put consultants in that "expert" category, people who hang out a shingle and charge for services they're not qualified to offer. Because message board advice -- good or bad -- is at least free, but if you're being asked to pay for bad, unqualified advice, that's just adding insult to injury.
                          I’d disentangle contest readers from production company readers. There’s plenty of overlap but absent any other information, the quality of the latter is likely to be better, IMO.

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                          • #14
                            Yes, contests pay warm bodies ten bucks to read scripts. Those people aren’t the same as someone who works for a production company or a studio or an agency.

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                            • #15
                              I doubt very much NIcholl is only paying its readers ten bucks a read. I got some of the best specific feedback/positivity in my life from a Nicholl reader on a script a few years back --ain't NO WAY that guy was giving all that specificity for ten bucks. It was his jam, so I doubt he was doing it for scripts he didn't like, but even so, you ain't doing all that for ten bucks.

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