Why This is Good

As a consultant, of course I strongly believe writers can benefit from having a paid professional evaluate their script and give them useful feedback. A professional can pinpoint areas that don’t work and tell you exactly how to fix them, giving you constructive criticism you can use and explaining why the problems in your script exist. That said, I also think it is extremely important to have other people read your script.

Once you’ve polished a final draft that is free of typos, spelling errors, format mistakes and gaping story holes, get that draft registered with the WGA and/or copyrighted. Then start asking everyone you know to read your script. If you can at all afford it, go with a professional consultant, but in addition ask your friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, everyone who is willing, to read your script. Offer to take them out for coffee or lunch to discuss their thoughts and thank them for their opinions. Getting varied opinions from non-professionals and non-writers extremely important to the development of your script.  Laypeople won’t be able to tell you what screenwriting rules and principles you violated and how to fix the problems like a professional screenplay consultant or fellow writer can, but they can tell you what about the story worked or didn’t work for them. They can tell you if they liked it or not, if the characters felt and sounded authentic, and behaved in believable ways. Most importantly, they can tell you if the script, in its current form, held their interest. This is one of the most valuable pieces of information you can get from a friend or other non-industry reader-when the story bored them. Ideally, it was so compelling throughout that they couldn’t put it down and ended up neglecting their appointment, forgot to answer an important call, or stayed up really late finishing the read because it was so awesome and exciting that they just kept turning pages. In actuality, especially for early drafts, there are places where the story is lacking and when the person reading will get bored, put it down, and move on to something else. Your friends, fellow writers, and paid consultants will keep reading out of obligation, but a reader, agent, contest judge or producer will not, so it is vital to pinpoint where the story bores the reader so you can remedy the flaws before submitting to professionals.

Put together a list of people you know will be willing to read your script for you. Make it as varied as possible. It should include people in your target demographic, and those outside of it. Ideally, the age range should go as young as ten or eleven (assuming it’s not too graphic and R-rated) in order to determine if you are writing clearly enough for a young person to understand. Make sure the people on this list will be honest with you and not spare your feelings or just tell you it’s great. Moms are notoriously unreliable sources of criticism, they’ll praise your crappy screenplay as highly as they praised the crappy gold spray-painted collage of macaroni you made in second grade. When you have a list of people, give them your script and ask them to keep in mind the following questions as they’re reading:

-Do you like the story?

-Are there any parts that don’t make sense, or that you don’t understand?

-Do you like the main character? Why or why not?

-Did you read the script all in one sitting? Why or why not? If not, when did you put it down? While you’re reading, mark the page whenever you stop reading to take a break.

-If you saw a preview for a movie like this, would you want to go see it? Why or why not?

-Who do you see cast as the lead? Why? What about the other major characters? What actor seems to fit them best?

-Was it easy to tell who was who, or did you have a hard time keeping the characters straight?

-What did you think about the ending?

-Did you laugh, cry, smile to yourself, or feel any other strong emotion while reading? When? Why?

-Where there any implausible or hard to believe events or holes in the story?

-If this script were a book, would you recommend it to a friend to read? Why or why not?

-What movies would you compare this one to? Is it better or worse than those similar movies?