I’m a big fan of professional script readers. In my short experience they have been invaluable (I rate Euroscript but that’s only out of a shortlist of two so far). Yes they can be expensive but if you’re going to go through the painful process of criticism then its much easier to hear it from someone who knows what they’re talking about. And who really needs food??
However, I am also lucky that I have another critic whose opinion I value and who comes absolutely free. This is my best friend K. Personally I think this is pretty amazing.
Like everyone I suppose I sent out the first draft of my first script to all my friends and family in the blithe belief that I would get nothing but adulation and admiration back, making me feel all warm and happy about myself. I didn’t want criticism (despite claiming to the contrary). I made this very clear to my mother who dared to hint that the lead character was “a bit inconsistent”. Through studied silences, clipped answers and swift changes of topics she soon learned that her role as mother was to tell me I was the cleverest person in the world and THAT WAS IT. She soon caught on.
My husband wisely declined to read it at all. Although that didn’t stop him describing a script about the suffragettes as “Judy’s lesbian play” to all our friends when they came over for dinner. I tried to explain that it didn’t actually include any lesbian scenes and he shook his head sorrowfully and said “well really that’s a problem isn’t it?”.
But by and large everyone else played by the rules. Thus I was in a state of glowing pride when my best friend rocked up one day, script in hand….covered in red ink!
The hackles went sky high and I immediatley started evaluating how easy it would be to cut her out of my life.
She sat me down in a chair and very gently began feeding me the biggest praise sandwich I’ve ever had to digest in my life- ripping apart my heart’s own with honeyed but deadly words. My silences, my studied looks out of the window did not have the slightest impact at all- she’s never been good at taking hints, blast her.
But finally she said something that forced me to pay her more attention. “After all I would have thought that I am pretty much your target audience for this. And if I don’t get it then I don’t think anyone else is going to.”
Hmmm…she was right. K and I had grown up watching and dissecting films together (much to the annoyance of anyone who made the mistake of coming to the cinema with us) and we loved exactly the same type of films for the same type of reasons.
This forced the first doubt into my mind and it soon ate away at me and forced me to go through her pages of red ink and think about each one critically and objectively. She was largely right about all of them. A professional script reader soon confirmed it all as well.
So for this reason I sent her my second draft, confident that praise would now gush forth. A night after I sent it to her she was on the phone, telling me she didn’t like it as much as the first draft and for all the following reasons. As the silence from my side grew deafening she finally said: “Well I’ll just let you have a think about that for a little while. I’ll give you a call in two weeks.”
Sure enough after two weeks of me fuming that she had no idea what the hell she was talking about and who the hell did she think she bloody was, the film critic for the New York Times??? I soon started to reflect and again- damn, damn, damn her- she was right.
Thus she is the only non-professional script reading person who gets to read every one of my drafts. She’s the only one who’s opinion I take seriously and she’s the only one who, when she gives praise, I actually believe.
And we are still best friends.
Which all things considered I think is a bloody miracle…and means I’m possibly one of the luckiest writers in the world I guess.
Speaking of writing I guess I should actually get back to it. Am off to our soon-to-be-sold cottage in the country now for three weeks where I intend to do lots and lots of writing…amidst intensive potty training and selling furniture. Should be interesting!
himalayan epiphany 