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When I first started here, I too, felt like there were some harsh critiques on here...was almost turned off by it.
BUT that said, NOW I would go to the HARDNOSED reviewers first hand for help because these are the ones that wake me up to what I'm doing wrong.
Sometimes it may hurt your feelings, but take it with a grain of salt and consider youself lucky that they would even take a stab at reading some of OUR new stuff.
Thank you to the everyone in here for all you've done to help me in my learning curve. And I'm sure I have many more lashings to come, but call me a sadist if you want, I look foward to any reviews good or bad.
Honesty is the key word, and the most helpful approach. I personally would rather just tell everyone I love their work. But to help them, you have to be honest about flaws you find.
Same applies to reviews of my work. Obviously you want people to approve your stuff, but it's the criticism that's helpful.
Honesty also means constructive, however. Every script you open should be a script you want to succeed, or don't open it. There's no room for attacking scripts for personal reasons, or because of some kind of general bitterness or frustration. Give a script a chance, then advise how it could be made better.
BUT that said, NOW I would go to the HARDNOSED reviewers first hand for help because these are the ones that wake me up to what I'm doing wrong.
There's a difference between a harsh and honest review and one that is just mean and demoralizing. Writing the latter will scare the new writers from the site.
I actually remember my first posted work. It was actually the first time anyone had read my work anywhere. And it was about a year ago, the Feb OWC.
It's definitely a weird feeling, especially when it's your first and you have no idea how people will react to your writing. When the returns start coming in negative, it's definitely demoralizing.
As I remember it, the first reviews were either negative, or people just trying to be nice. Then a few good reviews came in to balance it off. Jeff, who I did not know, wrote that my writing was awful...but his review was actually encouraging because he hated the writing but liked the story. So I began trying to learn how to write.
But I agree with Phil, the idea should be to help and encourage a writer, whether it's a new writer or a veteran. If someone's purpose in reading a script is only to attack it, for whatever the reason, you're wasting your time and the writer's.
lets remember that we're all here to help eachother. it's not a competition and no one's going to win anything.
Actually, for those of us trying to go pro, it is a competition. If someone is looking is looking for a Filipino tranny romcom and several people here have such a script, we'll be competing over who catches the director/producer's eye. Until then, however, we can be nice to each other.
Oh crap! I just gave away the theme and genre to the OWC.
Actually, for those of us trying to go pro, it is a competition. If someone is looking is looking for a Filipino tranny romcom and several people here have such a script, we'll be competing over who catches the director/producer's eye. Until then, however, we can be nice to each other.
Oh crap! I just gave away the theme and genre to the OWC.
Phil
Actually, like the OWC, the site is not a competition -- it's a challenge . But if you do compete against each other on the site, I hope you do so by writing quality screenplays instead of trying to tear each other down.
interestingly enough the Regs rarely seem to go after eachother. most of the "tearing down vitirol" gets directed at the n00bs....which was sort of my point. there's a bit of a "prove yourself" mentality on this board.
so maybe by competitiveness i mean... elitist? (ugly word)
which works out if your going for the whole "microcosm of Hollywood" deal
interestingly enough the Regs rarely go after eachother...which is funny because they are the tough competition. most of the "tearing down" gets directed at the n00bs....
Not all the regs do this...
Also, a lot of the regulars are also on Facebook. That's usually where the real trashing occurs.
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