How much pages can a person place of their unfinished script on the My Works In Progress thread? I attempted to put 6pgs of the beginning section, but an error popped up and said that it was too much.

Gabe

I don't think tthe MWiP board is meant for posting partial scripts, especially when it's just to get people's opinion of them.  It's more to get answers to questions and problems.

But I could be wrong....


Phil

Thanks Phil for the response. I'll probably go in that angle.

Gabe

Quoted from What the board says Discuss what you are working on.  Post the first few pages of your script.  Share your treatment.

Technically, you are not breaking any rules by posting pages.  But yes, posting pages has become frowned upon.

What kind of feedback do you possibly hope to get?

If you want feedback on the story, give us the story.  A scenes or two gives us nothing.  Sometimes less than nothing.  A recent example:

http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-workinprogress/m-1173795963/

A couple of us have asked Don to change this comment about posting pages, but he either forgot, is too busy, doesn't really think it's a problem, or thinks posting pages is a fine idea.  Any of these options is equally likely.

Quoted from Wesley 1. Use the screenplays title in the topic, if it has no title say Untitled (genre of script) if not it will be locked and reported. 2. Don't post scripts that aren't at least halfway done.

So for now, Wesley has laid out just two rules.  Pretty simple.

"My Screenplay" -- or worse -- "My Idea" -- are not acceptable titles for threads.

And posting ideas -- which are a dime a dozen -- just makes you look silly.  Don't ask for feedback on something that occurred to you 15 minutes ago.  People hate that.  They might even make fun of you.

If you want to post pages, post pages.  Most people ignore them, and any comments that you get will likely be taken out of context, or silly, or snide, and in any instance, probably not helpful to you.

And, if the pages are not truly compelling reading, you have also killed interest in your feature.  Something to think about.

I wouldn't post pages at all. Ever.

Ironically, you can learn more from a one sentence synopsis than you can from several pages of an incomplete. For example, if it's an opening scene you've got, you might not neccesarily be revealing anything about the plot. You'd be garnering more questions than answers from people. Sure, some might get curious but if that be the case, your script better be nothing short of phenomenal. People don't want to read part of a script and have to wait months for the rest. By posting pages, you're more likely to irritate than garner interest. At the very least, people will be annoyed they have to read so much just to find out what your idea is.

Better to just get straight to the point and sum up your WIP in a paragraph or so.

Some other screenwriting forums have "script pages" were you can post up to 5 pages at the time for input. This might be part of why some people do the same here. However if everyone read the rules this wouldn't be a problem.

I believe the initial question here though was what the maximum amount of characters is allowed in a post. :-)

Thanks Bert, James and Pia for an enlightening discussion. I learned something new. Thanks again guys.

:)

Gabe

Technically, you are not breaking any rules by posting pages.  But yes, posting pages has become frowned upon.

What kind of feedback do you possibly hope to get?

If you want feedback on the story, give us the story.  A scenes or two gives us nothing.  Sometimes less than nothing.  A recent example:

http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-workinprogress/m-1173795963/


Ya, sorry everyone that was me, Im going to wait till i finish the whole thing before i  post anymore of it.