Feedback

Yes, I know, I disappeared.

But there were very good reasons for that. Writing reasons.

So, we've got our script out to about 10 very carefully handpicked individuals, and the comments are starting to come in.

When you start getting real feedback (and by real feedback, I mean specific examples of what did and did not work from your readers; "great job!" is not real feedback), it's important to collect it and sit on it for a little while before you start making changes willy nilly.

Realize that you will never please everyone 100 percent of the time. It just won't happen. Every person's opinion is just that.

But what you're really looking for is patterns within the feedback.

Part of your job is to figure out which comments are great and which comments are crap. You also have to realize that what people say may not elucidate the problem. You have to read between the lines.

Here are some examples of feedback you might get, and what you might want to do about it. I'll start with three, but I'll make other posts on this topic in the future.

1. Everybody says something different about the ending.

This is an example where you think there isn't a pattern, but there actually is. Your ending probably isn't clear enough if everybody has a different idea about it. That's actually a pattern, even if the feedback seems inconsistent. The same rule applies about any part of your script -- if everybody is talking about the same section of it in some way, then you've probably got a problem spot there.

2. People mention that a certain character is boring, or flat.

Boring can mean a lot of things. It could be that the character isn't fleshed out well, in a way that audiences can relate to. If it's the protagonist, it could mean that he or she doesn't have a whole lot of character outside of the main plot. It could even mean that the character's arc just isn't all that strong.

3. People mention that they "just didn't believe" something.

There are a number of reasons that someone might make this comment -- and there are any number of fixes for it. It could mean that your set-up wasn't convincing enough for a certain action. It could mean that motivations were explained, but just not clearly enough. It could also mean that the character is behaving out of character in some way.

I think that's a pretty good start for now. Learning to accept and sift through feedback is very difficult, but it's worth it to learn as much as you can from it.