Screenwriting: First lot of feedback!

This evening my friend Coops came round with feedback on my film ‘If We Aren’t Married.’ I was pretty nervous about it and even managed to muck up making mug cakes in the process (I forgot to add the flour.)

But once he started giving feedback it wasn’t that bad and there were even some positives that came from it.

So what are the main areas that I need to improve on? Well for one I need to brush up on writing a synopsis. I gave a paragraph explaining what the screenplay was about and that was it. When I did Journalism at uni I was so used to writing the basic details in as few words as possible, then writing in more detail takes some practice.   

The other area is parenthetical description and it’s an area I was pretty clueless about to begin with, so I still need practice.

With regards to the plot itself there were a few points that were covered. The first one being that the whole idea of the plan of if a couple of friends aren’t married by a certain age then they should marry each other doesn’t really get covered, and Coops points out it’s a concept that hasn’t really been covered before. So I need to explore that in more detail and I’ve got an idea of how already.

I knew from the get go that having three strands of narrative would be tough to write, and ultimately one would be weaker than the rest. And so it was suggested that the Halla and Olly plot would be lifted. I can see where Coops is coming from on that front as the character of Olly, although developed in character development, on the page it just doesn’t show through.

There are pros and cons with dropping a narrative strand, it means that it free’s up more time to develop the other characters and create scenes where you can start to like the characters and see their personalities. I think when you reading screenwriting books, there’s so much focus on the plot and moving it forward with every line that you forget that you need time to grow to actually like the characters.

But then I do like the character of Halla and her backstory. The point was made that she could still be in the screenplay, just as a soundboard character instead of one of the main characters. And although Coops said one of factors as to how the film ends was a bit convenient, I do like how emotional I got writing it, so I’ll take that as a positive even if I go with changing it slightly.

So what happens now? Well Coops really wants to read a second draft and with doing 2 jobs at the moment at work it doesn’t leave me much time for much else at the moment. So he’s given me a deadline of his birthday which is the 8^th September for a second draft to be completed by.

In the meantime I want to get one more viewpoint on the screenplay before starting the rewrite. Any takers?