Quoted from Dreamscale Dustin, if you choose to not comment on the "bad" scripts, you'll find you won't be commenting very much at all.  Most are pretty bad and few know how to write or spell, believe it or not. Brutal honesty is appreciated, at least by this Kid.

Quoted from mcornetto I think the main misunderstanding here, Dustin, is that people have perceived that you were planning on telling writers that they were "bad writers".   Whilst Dreamscale might agree with this tactic, most everyone else on the site won't. However, after reviewing this discussion, I don't think you were saying that at all.  I think you were just explaining that you don't read scripts that you consider bad.  Fair enough, lots of people do the same and unless you are participating in an OWC -- no one will expect you to read anything you don't want to read.

Thank you. Glad we got that cleared up.

Welcome to the boards Dustin.  

I agree with your style of reviewing or, lack of reviewing, for the most part.  I don't comment on 90% of the scripts I start, mainly due to poor grammar or the inability to tell a story.  Format is low on the list of reasons I'll stop reading, as is a poor logline.

However, I have learned much from reading other people's reviews, Dreamscale's in particular.  If you have some knowledge to share, most of us will appreciate you taking the time to share it, regardless of how blunt or honest it is.

I also appreciate the work of other members like, crookedowl, who do take the time to comment on an obviously atrocious script, in hopes of helping someone to become a better writer.

Jordan

have you ever watched a conversation fall down the stairs?

"A bad script is one with poor grammar first. First thing I look for..."

Sure, I can agree with you under the condition the grammar is treacherous bad. It would be hard to get through. But that to me seems to suggest formatting issues. Not necessarily a story issue. Because grammar is a way to put forward an idea or a story in a clean way. It bears no relation to the content or value of a story. So I think it depends. It's not very clear cut -- black and white.

But I tend to agree with what others have said. In correcting other's mistakes you prevent making them yourself. We're not perfect. None of us. So there's the occasional typo here, a grammatical mistake there, something odd over there. And again, it does depend on the severity of it. Obviously it's out of respect for getting feedback on the content of a script that a writer will proof read their work before uploading it here. But I personally would not go so far as to comment on the story as a whole because that depends on taste. And my taste is pretty acute, anyway, and I wouldn't want to say "I don't like it" because in reality it could appeal to a different audience. I think you could get that, "Well it's a nice little story" from anyone. I don't think that's what a write strives to get from others that read his or her work. I think it boils down to technical things, sometimes they're fair, sometimes not -- and they resolve themselves to personal preference, I understand.

But I mean, it's up to you what you do Dustin. Just something to think about.

I know this is off topic, but I am reminded of a story, I think it was Billy Wilder who said it in an interview, about how the Studio Producers that read the scripts would basically comment at the bottom of each page with the WORD "Improve". Bottom of next page, "Improve". Bottom of next page, "Improve". Bottom of next page, "Improve."

In regards to spelling and grammar, it's obviously not the crux of what a given script amounts to and indeed, nobody's perfect. Mistakes get made. New ones come out even when old ones are being corrected. There's the mentality that if they don't get in the way of the story, the reviewer doesn't need to get worked up about it. I think this is a fair stance.

But spelling and gammer still matter. To me, it all boils down to presentation. Even if the script's not a minefield of typos and grammatical errors, they can still be off-putting if they're noticeable enough. It suggests that the writer didn't care enough about their work as a whole to really comb through it and make it look presentable and contrary-wise, if the script isn't littered with errors, it suggests that the writer did care. It's kind of the same as going to a job interview or to court. If you show up in sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt, it's going to give a bad impression right off the bat.

That said, I think it's totally someone's choice to dismiss a script based on spelling errors or frankly, anything that might rub them the wrong way. Personally, if a script's a disaster from a technical perspective, I won't touch it but otherwise, I'm pretty easygoing. But for everyone else, you're ultimately the one who's going to be taking time out of your schedule, reading and taking notes for free for the benefit of someone else. Scripts hardly ever get unfairly trashed here. For as long as I've been around, the majority have generally been very helpful and courteous so I think it's something of a waste of time to get hung up on what may or may not be someone's bad attitude in regards to reviewing scripts or writing in general.

OK, peeps, here's my offbeat analogy that may or may not make any sense.

Back in the day (the 80's to be exact), my sister's new boyfriend challenged me to a tennis match, knowing I played. He went on an on about how good he was and how easily he'd destroy me, no matter how good or bad I was.

I took him up on his challenge, not caring whether or not he crushed me, as I enjoyed playing and every chance I got to play against someone new, I took, as I knew I could learn in either victory or defeat.

I crushed him 6-0, 6-0, and I honestly doubt he won more than 10 or 15 points throughout the entire match.

The funny thing was, that the entire time, he continued to say, "if only my serve was on, you wouldn't stand a chance".  Hmmm...uh...yeah...right.

So, we drove home in relative silence and when we walked in to my place, my sister was waiting with wide eyes, hoping her honey beat my ass.  She asked how it went, who won, etc.  I remained quiet and said it was a good match, fun, and that I won.  This douche bag continued to say how much better he was and that next time he would destroy me.

The guy was completely clueless and for some reason I'll never understand, actually believed he was a great tennis player. I tried and tried to help him during the match, but he didn't want to hear anything about what he was doing so drastically and obviously wrong.  I never once rubbed any shit in his face or put him down, even though I could have so easily, as he was actually pissing me off with his arrogance and downright stupidity.

Morals of the story?  Everything is relative.  Don't be arrogant unless you literally know you can afford to be.  You can learn alot by failing, and you don't have to be great at something to enjoy doing it.  We should all understand our skills and our weaknesses, and when someone tries to help, there's nothing wrong with accepting it.

Peace out. Word to the mother.

Excerpt:

Dear Fucking Cathryn, How dare you send me this fucking piece of shit. You must be out of your fucking mind. You want to know how I feel about it? Here’s your fucking piece of shit back. Fuck you.

http://thebitterscriptreader.blogspot.com/2013/02/you-are-not-tarantino.html

Quoted from Dreamscale We should all understand our skills and our weaknesses, and when someone tries to help, there's nothing wrong with accepting it. Peace out. Word to the mother.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Christianity Jeff. Knew you'd make it one day. Wanna pray wit me sometime?

Quoted from Forgive Welcome to the wonderful world of Christianity Jeff. Knew you'd make it one day. Wanna pray wit me sometime?

Only if we'll be praying for me, Simon.  

The tennis bit plays out like a scene from a good '80's movie D'scale!

Bjamin- I clicked on the link and that's a great story...and a blog that it looks like I'll need to add to my reading list!

For writers new to SimplyScripts  (or fairly new, like me), I recommend reading this thread. It starts in  2005 and continues on for eight years or so. It's fascinating to read about the various approaches to reviewing scripts, especially in light of comments (and arguments) in this OWC.
Henry

Stump's right.  This is a long slog of a post at this point.  But it's still quite valid.  

--J (W)

IMO - three simple rules:

1. Polite criticism is better than rude criticism and it generally doesn't take any more effort.  So why not be polite?

2. Rude criticism is better than no criticism. I'll take it any day.

3. Writers need to keep in mind that they are not paying for reviews - so try to appreciate that anyone bothered to provide comments (good, bad or ugly) and focus on whether or not the advice you received (rude or not) has value for your script and for your writing and move on. My advice to the other novices like me that have joined the site within the last year - forget the tone of the critique and focus on the specific objective advice given. You'll improve much faster.

The above is relatively simple stuff. What follows is a bit more complicated (or inane depending on your point of view).

From time to time there are remarks that I see that I cringe at, not because they are rude, but  rather because they reach a too broad based conclusion for the amount of material read. Admittedly, I am still a rookie at this - but I do believe there is both a Craft (format, grammar, voice, etc) and an Art (dialogue, story, character, conflict, etc) aspect to screenwriting.  If I read a few pages of a script I have no problem on commenting on the objective problems I see related to the craft (scene heading  errors, typos, etc.). I have no problem reaching a conclusion about their craftsmanship and letting them know there are things they should learn.  What I am not comfortable with (nor do I think others should be) as drawing a conclusion from those limited pages that deals with the author or script in total. It could be that there is a great story, great characters and great dialogue there that I did not bother to read.  I have no obligation to read it (it really is the writer's job to interest me to). That being said, I should not reach a conclusion related to their entire script of the level of their Art a writer possesses based on a few pages.

Now, it should be known that I am bias so therefore this opinion is as well. My bias is that I believe that the Art aspect is a far more difficult task to master than the Craft aspect of screenwriting. I have read scripts on this site and other sites that were so good I didn't notice the typos, format errors et al because I was engrossed in the story. I want to see those movies. Conversely I have read scripts that were perfectly formatted, clean and crisp that - and, while I learned a ton - I hated the script as a whole because the story, characters or dialogue sucked. I don;t want to see those movies.

A very long winded way of saying - I really don't think that being rude or polite is the most important issue. I think that would be the breadth of the conclusion one offers based on a narrow read of an author's work.

NOTE: This is a very long and rambling note. There is a reason. I am working on a feature and I have absolute f---king writer's block at the moment and am frustrated to the point if I didn't type some crap somewhere soon, I would delete every version of the script I'm working on and bury my computer in my back yard and piss all over it in case I got the urge to dig it up.  --- Whew, that felt good.