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Hey Mark, genuinely interested to know if you consider yourself to be apart of this or feel like you are making the comment as an observer of the behavior, that behavior being "reviewers are reading these scripts with a desire to find fault. The last thing they want to do is to actually like it".
It's a very hard thing to make a judgement on, I think it's clear when a script is being bashed, but when is a comment not part of someone's desire to find fault? I'm very happy with my script, so definitely no hard feelings on any reviews that were made on my entry. But for examples sake, you made a comment on mine along the lines of me having an obsession with hands, but every time I mentioned a hand it was critical to the story, in my eyes it had purpose, yes there was a line that could have been written better and that has since been changed, but it still has the word 'hand', in my eyes this is finding fault where there is none, in yours it's constructive criticism (hopefully :p).
I'll use another example with one of my own comments. I said that I wasn't quite as thrilled with The Stowaway as you were, I acknowledged that it was brilliantly written, and had excellent suspense, but for me it was too comedy heavy to be a horror. The majority spoke and it took out the mug, but that's still my view, excellent craftsmanship but 8 pages of pure comedy in a 12 page horror. So is this finding fault where there isn't any, or my actual feeling? I'm putting words in your mouth now but you might think it's finding fault, but those were my thoughts and I stand by them.
So back to my original question, do you think you are part of the problem or just an observer?
I think Dustin is somewhat right about that being why we love it. There is something very sweet about making it through that gauntlet and getting the mug dispute all odds being against you.
I do think it can be taken too far though. I guess the people in receipt of negative comments will always be the ones to call out when they think that point has been reached.
I don’t see there being any problem with the OWC, nor am I simply an observer as I take part in most of them. It’s understandable psychology. To thine own self be true. When I enter these OWC’s my ego wants my script to impress and be the among the top scores, if not the overall winner. Therefore no matter how good my intentions are, I know there will be a certain bias on my part when reviewing. When I do come across a script that impresses me despite this bias, I then heap praise where I think it is due unreservedly.
Based on my observations over the years, there are a number of participants in every OWC who want to find fault. Their review is an attempt to influence those who read comments before reading the script and to cast dispersions. There are those who skim read scripts, trying to review them all in one sitting. They tend to drop out early in the script at the slightest irritant or miss important elements. There are those who mimic what the majority of the comments say to make it appear that they’ve read the scripts. And of course, you get those who enter but do not participate in the feedback stage at all.
All the above is understandable – basic human psychology.
On the plus side, you get those who not only read the scripts properly, but take the time to offer some detailed constructive feedback to most scripts. I’ve read and offered feedback to pretty much every script since around 2014 (not sure about the year, roughly then anyway) in every OWC I’ve entered (and a few I didn’t). The level of feedback I give depends on how advanced I believe the writer to be and how useful the advice could be, especially if someone has already stated what I would suggest. I’m not always as constructive as I should be – I get cranky sometimes. I’m certainly not as constructive as some who offer amazing and very detailed feedback. Those are to be commended.
For me, it’s important I recognise and accept all the above because I always go through a bad stage in the OWC and hit rock bottom when my script receives brutal comments. The first comment on Ganglers floored me and I wanted to throw my laptop through a window. I was in a sulk for a whole day lol.
At the end, when I filter out comments that are not useful in the slightest and find the pattern of comments that are, I end up realising what needs addressing in the script and sort it out. My OWC scripts have ended up being the best things I’ve ever written (IMO of course) because of it.
I don’t think the OWC, warts and all, needs changing much. Maybe changing the wording like Britman has suggested is enough. There are plenty of participants, a range of reviews to help the writer and it’s been going for years. If there was a fundamental problem, these would have stopped years ago and folks wouldn’t get hyper with excitement when a new one is announced.
For more of my scripts, stories, produced movies and the ocassional blog, check out my new website. CLICK
It honestly never crossed my mind to be tactical with the reviews - I just read the scripts and wrote what I felt. But, I didn't go into this with the mentality of trying to "win" as I know my writing isn't good enough yet (Not putting myself down, it's just a fact - I'm a new writer still learning)
I only had 2 aims going into this - Overall more positive feedback than the last OWC and get Jeff to read the whole thing - Tick Tick
If people believe these tactics go on in the public reviews - What do we think happens come private voting? Would people purposely vote scripts lower in the hope it pushes them up? - My faith in humanity is constantly bashed lol Just looking at my scoring spreadsheet, I voted 8 scripts either Excellent/Very good (It would have been 9 but I docked points on one for being too graphic)
Of course some will do that... some will even PM other members revealing their script to up the points. I was approached by somebody once but I publicly outed them. Gamesmanship is one thing, outright cheating is abhorrent.
Some people are unbelievable - it's just a bit of fun. I'm still in shock that Don has to go through and remove self votes - who the hell votes for their own script lol
Some are connected up on social network platforms and interact with each other all the time. How easy to share the scripts they wrote whilst all genuinely having the intention of voting 100% fairly and definitely leave an impartial review.
People will even lie to themselves... believe themselves completely innocent, and genuine, and honest.
You see it all if you look long enough.
To be honest though, I don't think this is about winning a mug or even winning as such. It's more about ego.
Well, I definitely try, and think I am 100% honest in my reviews. Jeff usually complains to me how few reads his script has and I always ask which one is his so I can give it a read. Never ever has he told me which one it is. I think he wants people to be honest and I guess he thinks I can't, but I would argue about that. Kevin revealed to me that he and Dena co-wrote one. He told me it was bad, so I told him I wouldn't read it then. He knows, I'm always honest with reviews. I do know that some people like to pm and ask for reviews, but no one does that to me anymore. I'd like to think it's because I will not sugar coat. Same goes for the voting. I did vote for my own once, but immediately pm'd Don and asked him to remove it.
I don’t see there being any problem with the OWC, nor am I simply an observer as I take part in most of them. It’s understandable psychology. To thine own self be true. When I enter these OWC’s my ego wants my script to impress and be the among the top scores, if not the overall winner. Therefore no matter how good my intentions are, I know there will be a certain bias on my part when reviewing. When I do come across a script that impresses me despite this bias, I then heap praise where I think it is due unreservedly.
Based on my observations over the years, there are a number of participants in every OWC who want to find fault. Their review is an attempt to influence those who read comments before reading the script and to cast dispersions. There are those who skim read scripts, trying to review them all in one sitting. They tend to drop out early in the script at the slightest irritant or miss important elements. There are those who mimic what the majority of the comments say to make it appear that they’ve read the scripts. And of course, you get those who enter but do not participate in the feedback stage at all.
All the above is understandable – basic human psychology.
On the plus side, you get those who not only read the scripts properly, but take the time to offer some detailed constructive feedback to most scripts. I’ve read and offered feedback to pretty much every script since around 2014 (not sure about the year, roughly then anyway) in every OWC I’ve entered (and a few I didn’t). The level of feedback I give depends on how advanced I believe the writer to be and how useful the advice could be, especially if someone has already stated what I would suggest. I’m not always as constructive as I should be – I get cranky sometimes. I’m certainly not as constructive as some who offer amazing and very detailed feedback. Those are to be commended.
For me, it’s important I recognise and accept all the above because I always go through a bad stage in the OWC and hit rock bottom when my script receives brutal comments. The first comment on Ganglers floored me and I wanted to throw my laptop through a window. I was in a sulk for a whole day lol.
At the end, when I filter out comments that are not useful in the slightest and find the pattern of comments that are, I end up realising what needs addressing in the script and sort it out. My OWC scripts have ended up being the best things I’ve ever written (IMO of course) because of it.
I don’t think the OWC, warts and all, needs changing much. Maybe changing the wording like Britman has suggested is enough. There are plenty of participants, a range of reviews to help the writer and it’s been going for years. If there was a fundamental problem, these would have stopped years ago and folks wouldn’t get hyper with excitement when a new one is announced.
We had a discussion in a OWC once about self voting and I was surprised by the number of people who did that, and how they attempted to justify it as being fine to do so. I was pleased when Don said he deducts self-voting. I think he also said, even taking the self-voting into account, it never affected the overall outcome.
For more of my scripts, stories, produced movies and the ocassional blog, check out my new website. CLICK
Some people are unbelievable - it's just a bit of fun. I'm still in shock that Don has to go through and remove self votes - who the hell votes for their own script lol
I always vote for my own script.
That doesn't mean I vote it as the highest score, but I give it a grade. I give every single script a grade.
You can never take bias, in some for or another, out of the equation as we're all human.
But the scripts that do reasonalbly well in terms of decent reviews then do well in the voting, so bias or not it seems to be the liked scipts that ascend in each OWC.
So apart from participation levels of some people who enter scripts but don't review... maybe we don't need to fix it?
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