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You’re an Idiot: Making Value from Reaction to your Screenwriting
By Gordy Hoffman



If you’re like me, if someone doesn’t like something about my screenplay, my
very first reaction is always the same.

You’re not as smart as me. If you knew what I knew, you would understand what
I wrote. And you don’t understand what I wrote, because you don’t know as
much as I do. About everything, in general. In short, life. You know, people.
Planet Earth.

If you really don’t understand what I’m doing in my script, my first feeling
is I don’t respect you. I have contempt for you. I feel attacked personally,
and with my feelings hurt, I want to denigrate your position, and while I
won’t call you an idiot, basically the foundation of my exchange with you in
the wake of you reading my script is you are, in fact, some kind of idiot.

Someone once told me I can be right or I can be happy. Or you can be right, or
you can get your screenplay produced into a motion picture. I have had this
happen twice, and I can tell you if I had committed myself to being right about
everything during the development of the screenplay, they would still be living
as files in my hard drive. Any produced screenwriter will attest to this.

Whenever a reader doesn’t get information from my screenplay, facts crucial to
the function of the story, stuff I feel is so obvious that the only reason they
could’ve missed it all is carelessness, I know I am responsible for the
breakdown. Writers over and over complain about this, appalled that someone
could miss something so blatant in the script. Two ways you can take this note.
One, reader read poorly. Two, you have clarity problems. What is the
constructive reaction? You have a clarity problem.

You might get a note saying they don’t believe a character would do or say
something, particularly dialogue or actions of a certain time period or
profession, such as a cop, or a farmer from the 18th century in Russia. The
writer defends the charge by citing historical facts, or stating they have seven
relatives in law enforcement, or they grew up in Canada, and they do, indeed,
talk like that. Well, it doesn’t matter. If your audience is distracted by
your authenticity rubbing them as cliché or improbable, you need to revise.
Screenwriting is compression and art. It’s truth, not a transcription. Where
do clichés come from anyway?

I recently got a reaction from an audience member to a movie I wrote that I had
never heard from anyone EVER. My first instinct was to say to myself, well, um,
that’s stupid, because EVERYBODY else thinks differently. This is another
reaction I’ve run into quite a bit with writers. “Everybody else thinks
it’s funny or realistic or a perfect movie or…”
Who is your “everybody else”? Consider your sources, and keep your mind
open. In the end, “everybody else” doesn’t exist.

Notes on your screenplay are not a personal attack. They might feel like that.
You have made an investment of self, and you love what you have created. It is
you. But someone’s reaction to your writing is not a reaction to you. It is a
reaction of the person who read your screenplay. Same screenplay, different
people, different reactions. So the reactions are personal to the readers.
Detach from the notes to the degree to which you can improve your screenplay.
Their reactions are formed primarily from their lives, not your words. Which
leads me to this.

Do not embrace the extremes. Listen to the ends of the spectrum of opinions, but
do not wallow there. If someone thinks your script is the worst attempt at
screenwriting on record, take what you can, but do not stay with this, toss it
off as something off and wild. If someone thinks your script is so awesomely
perfect and beautiful that there’s really nothing to be changed, take what you
can, but do not stay with this, toss it off as something off and wild.

Let’s say you’ve offended someone. They think your choices about language or
characterization or action are patently offensive, maybe immoral, bigoted,
racist, or sexist, disturbing to the point of quit. Do you need to change
something? Perhaps. It’s up to you. Know that you’ve offended someone. I
have written disturbing material and I didn’t change it. But I’ve learned to
sincerely respect that reaction and allow it to help strengthen my creative
positions.

Do not listen to hysterical advice about formatting, but if people say they
found typos, that means you don’t respect your movie and you need look at your
attitude to your work on story.

Don’t ever question the credentials of your reader. We can seek the
experienced and the professional, but in the end, to discredit notes because the
reader is “not a screenwriter” or “some punk in a mailroom” or “the
assistant fresh out of blah blah”, I put this to you. Where exactly do you
think the studios come from? Do you know where the executives started? Do you
know how Hollywood began? Who is sitting in the movie seats every Friday night
across the planet? Screenplay consultants? No. Your audience.

Seek their reaction. They are the flashlight that works. You can gleam the most
incredible insights from any one who reads your screenplay, if you put aside
your fight and remember the goal of production. We can’t wait for the
“qualified” to tell us what’s wrong. We don’t have to.

I don’t remember what the newspapers wrote about the movies I’ve written,
but I do remember what the audiences said. The hell with right. I want to make
movies, and I strive for that direction.



About the Author
Winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival for
LOVE LIZA, Gordy Hoffman has written and directed three digital shorts for Fox
Searchlight. He made his feature directorial debut with his script, A COAT OF
SNOW, which world premiered at the 2005 Locarno Intl Film Festival. He is the
founder of the BlueCat Screenplay Competition. Dedicated to develop and
celebrate the undiscovered screenwriter, BlueCat provides written script
analysis on every script entered. In addition, Gordy acts as a script consultant
for screenwriters, offering personalized feedback on their scripts through his
consultation service, www.screenplaynotes.com.

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