A new year is upon us. One hopefully jam-packed with opportunity and lots of forward momentum for all.
I had the recent pleasure of having lunch with a writing group. As things started to wrap up, one of the members asked the rest of us to list the three writing-related things we hoped to accomplish in 2023.
It was a great idea, and just as great to hear what everybody was setting out to do.
For me, it’s adding two scripts to my catalog, filming the short, and possibly resuming the quest for representation. That last one’s still a maybe, with “Elevate the quality of my writing” a suitable alternative.
So in the same spirit of camaraderie, I pass the question on to you:
What are your three writing-related goals for 2023?
More than that is fine, but three is a good starting point.
No matter what they are, I wish you the best of luck with of all of them.
As the year starts to wind down, I’ve taken part in a few writer Zoom get-togethers where the participants all discuss how their 2021 went, and what they’re hoping to accomplish next year.
(I’ll go into a little more detail regarding my own plans for 2022 in the next few weeks)
It was great to hear about the wide variety of projects that saw completion, along with the pride each writer took in talking about their work. Also nice – modesty. No pumped-up egos or “bathe in the splendor that is my wonderfulness!”
There were also those who had started something, but for some reason or other, hadn’t been able to finish it. That yielded a lot of sympathy as well as encouragement to get back on their respective horses.
The biggest underlying theme of all the conversations was “This is something I’m passionate about, and I’m going to do what I can to get it done/made.”
Doesn’t matter if it was a script, a short, a film, a webseries, or whatever. Each person had a project (or projects) that they were working on and was excited to be doing so. Results were varied, as were the timelines of progress.
Which is really what a lot of this comes down to. Each writer was working on a project and doing so in the way that worked best for them.
What was also really nice was that nobody was comparing their progress to anybody else’s, which is how it should be. It’s easy to fall into that sort of trap, and doesn’t help with bolstering your own confidence.
Everybody’s path is unique to them, and them alone. What works for you might not work for somebody else, and vice versa. Focus on what you’re doing and don’t worry about the other person.
Seeking an outside opinion? Ask someone you trust for honest and helpful feedback, and don’t feel obligated to take their word as “this is what needs to be done”. This is YOUR project, so trust your gut instincts to lead you in the right direction.
Most of all, do what you can to enjoy the journey. If you’re not enjoying it, the odds are high the material will reflect that, which means the reader/audience won’t enjoy it either. If you’re not passionate about it, why should we be?
We do this because we like/love it, right?
And it’s great seeing people be excited when talking about a project they love, because it makes us want to know more. Maybe we’ll even be invited to offer up our thoughts and comments to help them make it better.
So here’s to you being proud of what you accomplished in 2021, and for more of the same in 2022.
Bill Donovan and friend (friend occupying Bill’s lap)
Here is the second of a two-part panel discussion with professional proofreaders Tammy Gross of proofmyspec.com and Bill Donovan of screenwritingcommunity.net about proofreading and its connection with screenwriting, along with some info about the proofreaders themselves.
When you proofread a screenplay, do you also take on the role of story analyst?
Tammy Gross (TG): Not as a primary service, but yes. Since I’m reading it anyway, I do offer inexpensive add-ons if a writer wants some basic “coverage.” And even with proofreading, there are some story issues which may be addressed during the edit if there’s a problem with consistency and/or continuity.
Before I started my proofreading service, I took a course on story analysis and offered a coverage service. I soon learned how bad formatting and text were too distracting for my left brain. It’s agony for me to look past multiple errors/issues.
Bill Donovan (BD): To a limited degree, yes. However, I put these and other words at the top of every set of notes I give back with the proofread copy:
“These are not the words of an expert script analyst … I strongly hope not to hurt your feelings … To the extent that you find my comments on your story to be wrong-headed, pointless, or insensitive, you are hereby counseled and, with regret for any hurt feelings, encouraged to ignore them.”
What’s your writing background?
TG: The agony of trying to look past typos sent me down an editing path in my 20s. I read a book published through a major publishing house that had multiple errors in the soft-cover version. I sent my corrections to the publisher, and the author contacted me personally to thank me. Ever since, I’ve honed my editing skills.
My life plan was “sing while I’m young and write when I’m old.” I did write a couple of novels in my 20s and managed to have some sort of writing or editing responsibility in every “real” job I ever worked, whether at a church, a bank or Fortune 500 company.
In 2008, while taking a break from singing, I learned about a couple of female pirates. These historical swashbuckling stories fascinated me. I traveled the world researching pirates (including falling victim to real ones in the Bahamas) and learning about writing screenplays. I haven’t looked back.
So far, every script I’ve entered in contests has placed or won. In fact, my first script won the first contest I ever entered. Since then, I’ve realized that my ability to write in “the language of screenplay” was getting me further than better storytellers due to their weaker technical skills.
I’m currently writing an adventure story for a producer who found me because of one of my scripts (which I also turned into a YA book).
BD: -Screenplay contest judge (three contests)
-Screenplay contest executive (11 screenplay contests, 5 scene-writing contests, two logline contests)
-Two of my own screenplays won three first prizes equaling $30,104 in prize money in today’s dollars.
-Former Editor of Creative Screenwriting Magazine
-Author of three e-books for screenwriters to date; a fourth is upcoming
-USC Master of Fine Arts, Screenwriting and Filmmaking
-Copy desk chief at a daily newspaper, the Morristown, N.J., Daily Record
-Copy editor at the Associated Press
-Copy editor at another daily newspaper, The Record, Hackensack, N.J.
-Copy editor for several business-to-business trade publications
-11,200+ published pages and screenplays edited/proofread over the years
-News stories I wrote and/or edited won five national journalism awards.
How’d you get into proofreading?
TG: Totally by accident. I started a screenwriting group where we would table-read 10 pages of each writer’s script. I found myself making lots of corrections on everybody’s pages, and many of them asked me to proofread their entire scripts. It was a little overwhelming, due to also running a thriving music-arranging business at the time, so I put up a website to help me prioritize and charged a low but fair fee.
And it’s good that I did, because after the 2007 writers’ strike, followed by the recession, the spec-writing business boomed while music arranging fizzled.
BD: For an upcoming book, I surveyed and interviewed producers, agents, screenplay readers, directors, contest judges, and contest executives, asking them for their comments on the most common and the worst mistakes they see. Within the screenplay, proofreading and editing mistakes were named both the most common and most disliked by people in the industry.
How can people get in touch with you to find out more about the services you provide?
I recently had the pleasure of giving notes on a friend’s script. It was an early draft, so it had some of the usual problems that were easily fixable.
But the one thing that really stood out to me was their use of unfilmables.
“Unfilmables?” some might ask. “What are those?”
I’m glad you asked. Here’s an example:
“EXT. PORCH – DAY
Jane sits on the stained deck chair her father bought for her birthday last year.”
If you saw that onscreen, you know what you’d see?
A woman sitting on a chair.
In other words, HOW DO WE KNOW it was a birthday present from her father? We don’t. How can you let us know? Maybe we see the father giving it to her. Or another character asks about it, and she delivers a one-line explanation.
If there’s an important detail to your story, you need to find a way to include it as part of the story, and preferably in the most organic way possible.
What’s on the page is what we see and hear.
Unless there’s a line of dialogue or some kind of action somewhere in there that reveals these kinds of things, the audience has no way of knowing them.
Here’s another:
“INT. KITCHEN – NIGHT
Kevin washes dishes. He thinks about that time he and his high school girlfriend crashed her mom’s car.”
What’s on the screen? A guy washing dishes.
HOW DO WE KNOW that’s what he’s thinking about?
Maybe we see the accident take place. Or hear Kevin talking about it. Maybe the story involves how the accident leads up to him washing dishes.
In my old writing group, one writer was insistent about leaving these sorts of things in. When pressed on why they were so adamant about not being willing to take them out, they’d launch into a long-winded explanation of why it was necessary to include them.
“So if we were watching this, you’d be there explaining things, rather than working them into the story and showing them on the screen?”
Intimidating at first, but eventually, just a big ol’ pussycat
When I was part of a writing group last year, each week we would read and critique a few members’ sets of pages. Some were just starting out, some had a few scripts under their belt, and some had been doing this a while. You can probably figure out which category I fell into.
Simply put, some of the writing just sucked. Really sucked. Like painful-to-listen-to sucked. To my credit, tempted as I was, I never actually expressed my thoughts that way.
I fully understood that not everybody had a firm grasp on the basics, and I, along with a few others, made a sincere effort to explain what would help improve their work. While a majority were appreciative of our comments, a select handful got defensive, some even to the point of flat-out dismissive, of any kind of comment that didn’t reinforce their belief that their writing was fine just the way it was.
This was one of the things that helped me decide to leave the group.
One of the universal truths about being a writer is that not everybody’s going to like what you’ve written, and just about everybody will have a suggestion as to how it could be better.
While there’s nothing you can do about the first part, the great thing about the second is that it gives you options. A lot of them. You like what this person said? Use it. Don’t like what that other person said? Ignore it.
Some people will make suggestions based on how they would do it, which is all well and good, but what’s more important is how you would do it. Do you agree or disagree with what they’re saying?
You’ll be bombarded with a wide variety of opinions, but don’t feel like you have to incorporate every single one. And while you may be the final word on what works and what doesn’t for your story, you shouldn’t dismiss every suggestion either. Some of them may be more helpful than you realize. There are a lot of writers out there with more experience than you, so their opinions should be at least taken into consideration. But it’s okay to disagree with them, too.
Speaking from experience, it takes time to learn not to take criticism of your material personally. The comments you receive may sting at first, but you have to remember they’re about the material, not you. Read them with a “How can I use these to get better?” frame of mind. That’s the only way you’re going to improve.
One last thing – make sure to thank the person for giving you notes, even if you totally disagree with everything they’ve said. Doesn’t matter if you asked them to do it or they offered. They took the time to help you out, and the least you can do is acknowledge that and express your appreciation for it. And it’s the polite thing to do. Manners still count.
Maximum Z 