Once, several years ago, after I’d completed a first draft, I excitedly solicited a feedback exchange in a social media group I was a part of. A writer who’d purportedly written and sold a script of the same genre volunteered to read it, I sent it, and a few days later I got this back…

Read the first 10 pages – with all do respect – can’t go any further – boring and uninteresting writing – no depth or imagination to the characters – nothing pulls you into the story on page one or to page 10 – go over ur [course] notes to see where you went wrong or buy

I would have to write many pages of notes to get you in the game

Best

Pretty harsh, huh? My favorite part is “with all DO respect”. I guess if you’re gonna ‘do respect,’ do it write! Sure, it’s dismissive and snarky, there’s a lack of DO respect, and it’s a half-step above telling me to give up all hope; but do you see the real problem here? In the long run, what really bothered me was that, as a writer who’d agreed to give feedback, he didn’t honor his commitment.

When it comes to giving feedback, there’s loads of great advice out there about the mechanics of script dissection and evaluation, but what I’m really talking about here is mindset. When the writer enlists you for this crucial task, they’re trusting you to aid in translating their vision from the subjective creative echo chamber of their brain to the objective world at large, or, more frighteningly, the market. You have a job to do. What is that job? First, here’s what it’s not… 

• Making it all about you – Showing off your own screenwriting prowess by picking out everything you would’ve done differently, and then sending the writer something that reads like a “top 100 list of the ways I’m better than you.”
• Being an unconditional cheerleader – The other extreme. Usually, this happens when it’s a close friend’s work you’re reading, so you praise every single word, even the misspelled ones, calling them a creatively quirky stylistic choice, and tell the writer they’re an unadulterated genius with nothing to improve, regardless of the objective quality, clarity, and impact of the writing itself. This may sound unrealistic, but trust me. That nasty note above notwithstanding, I’ve exchanged feedback with some real sweethearts.
• Treating it like an academic assignment – marching through it with your red pen and a mechanical “correct/ incorrect” mentality (“Oh, your description got inside the character’s head here, minus five points!”), rather than a storytelling/ marketability perspective, and handing them back something that’s more “graded” than assessed for its narrative effectiveness.
• Copping out – Telling them that after the first few pages you already know it’s not good enough and giving no real guidance or tips to course-correct, except maybe vague book or course recommendations. SEE ABOVE (More on this momentarily).
• Faking it – Instead of taking the time to read it, just picking out a few random scenes and making a few comments about them to give the illusion that you read it; and turning over a few disjointed unhelpful comments. 

All of these amount to misunderstanding the central tenets of the feedback-giving mission: 

It’s an employment/ business proposition: Even if the writer calls it “friendly feedback” or some other gentle euphemism, you should still think of it as business. This will put your ego in check. In a job interview, if the HR person asked about your interest in this company, would you think of that as a juicy opportunity for a power trip to pick apart and harp on every aspect of the business you think is “wrong”? If so, how do you like living in your parents’ basement? The dynamic here is that someone is employing you to enhance their enterprise, thus… 

Join the writer’s team. By agreeing to give feedback, you’ve taken on an interest, however small, in the direction this piece will go. You’re putting, at the very least,  your trustworthiness with this writer on the line, and purporting to put your best writing know-how into picking up this script, wherever it is now, and carrying it as close as possible to the end zone as defined by the writer. This is a task not to be taken lightly. BUT… You don’t want to cross the line and start offering notes like “I think it would be cooler if right here this character did x,” and “I would like it better if this scene ended this way.” You’re on their team, but not their new writing partner. this hasn’t become your script, which brings me to my next point.

You’re a hired gun. This should provide just about the right balance between detachment and commitment.In reverse order, the hired gun is committed enough that he’s made the client’s enemies his enemies, and will risk his own life to kill them. Luckily you’re not being asked to risk your life, kill anyone, or make any enemies (if you are, maybe pass on this one). But you should take on the writer’s desired outcome as your own; whether that’s to get the draft ready for a submission, iron out an Act 2 lag, flesh out one or more characters, whatever. But… the hired gun is also detached enough so that there’s no personal investment or emotional dissonance to get in the way of accomplishing the mission. So you should not get so emotionally involved in the writer’s script that you do things like forego your own work, relentlessly follow up on how your feedback was applied or not after the fact, or get involved in the writer’s decision about the next step. A hired gun doesn’t really care, as the job is just a job he took on under certain very strict terms. He’ll do his part and then move on with his life. If he’s not ready to do that, he’ll turn it down, as should you, so…

Get all the way in, or all the way out. If you’ve got too much on your plate already, you really don’t care for script-reading, or for some other reason you just have a distaste for the job from the outset, don’t take it on just to be nice! Politely declining to read and give notes is far preferable to giving half-baked, disinterested, or even fake feedback (see above) that can set the writer on the wrong track moving further away from their vision. If you’re not ready and willing to do the job right, don’t do it at all. 

So back to that love note I received,…

It’s fine to think my writing is crap. That’s just an honest assessment of the quality as he sees it. It’s fine to stop after ten pages. As mentioned, it wasn’t paid feedback, and ten pages is more than enough to get a feel for how the rest of the script will go. I dare say no script has ever been crap for ten pages and then morphed into greatness on page eleven (what a twist!). But what about that part where he said he’d “have to write many pages of notes to get me in the game?” Does he owe me that? Should he or any other generous offerer of feedback have to trudge through writing so bad that it’s hard to know what the intention was, and pen 120 pages of notes for a 90-pages script? Of course not. BUT… to read ten pages and then write a few sentences just saying it’s basically hopeless? Good thing this wasn’t paid feedback. What should he have done? 

Well, someone claiming to be on the level he did shouldn’t require this explanation, but here we go… He should’ve isolated one scene, or even one scene segment, that he felt was representative of a fundamental problem with the writing overall; missed opportunities for “depth or imagination,” description and details that were extraneous and don’t “pull you into the story,” whatever; and given me a few tips on what would be a better direction to take it. 

So, the lesson here is, in case it wasn’t clear or was too “boring and uninteresting” to follow (I’ve heard that my writing can be that way), NEVER give feedback like the note above. Actually, it’s too generous to call it feedback. He basically offered to give feedback and then withdrew his offer in a rather nasty, back-handed fashion. When a writer shows the respect and reverence to request your thoughts on their work, do your job!