Friday, July 23, 2010

Focus?

Yes again it's been a little longer than I intended but I'm back!!!!

I've been writing a little and working (my pesky day job) and hanging with my little dude of a son Benjamin!!!!

While trolling the net I came across a blog called 'Go Into The Story' and they are very prolific bloggers about writing and the industry. About 4-6 blogs a day. Well they have a GITSClub where wannabe writers submit their scripts to be torn down and hopefully receive some constructive useful criticism.

I placed my finished feature and 3 shorts and just sat back to see what would happen. I read about 20 reviews before I did this and I was expecting what I got got but still it left me wondering.

98% of reviews are hardcore focused on the layout of the script and NOT/NEVER EVER using verbs in the action/scene part.

I had one lovely reviewer who stated straight off the bat to read a few scripts for an education and bring my best attempt to the board!!!!!!  Here is a short excerpt of this response.

I'm not here to teach you how to write a script. I come here to help and to learn. What you presented is an unthinkable request for assistance and I don't think you'll find too many who will offer that much until you learn and present the basics of screenwriting.

There's much more to the response!

Now at first I was shocked/taken aback/ hurt and demoralised. I had a serious think about my writing future. After I had a day to digest this I started to wonder if I had missed the point or not.

I've had reviewer come across as angry that I used a verb or the VO (voice over) didn't have parenthesis.

Now in my humble opinion, I am way more concerned with the story than whether I have a characters name in bold. However these particular reviewers are concerned with spelling and layout. If the script gets read and the reader likes the story and the characters, isn't that the goal of a script?

Hey I may be wrong and call me on it!!!

Until then hail to the story!