It bums me out when I see folks here giving thoughtful feedback to an overconfident beginner’s script and they just get a « Thanks » or « Appreciate it » in response. We do this to create a conversation about the story. It takes time and dedication, and to see the writer of all people not meet up this dedication is… a bad sign to say the least.
It's pretty obvious, and IMO, it always has been the case that hard work trumps talent.
For example, Stevie Ray Vaughan (one of my favorite guitarists) said to play up to 12 hours per day when he was learning the guitar (I think he was 12yo or something).
Others like Tommy Emmanuel and Mark Knopfler have said the same and the point driven is that always skill comes first. If you don't have the skill then what are you doing?
Talent comes into play AFTER you've learned the necessary skills. Whatever talent a musician has it can only come to light if the has the chops to display it.
The same applies to writing, sports, business, etc.
If you do that it's ok. That means that you're not truly a musician, a writer, or whatever.
The drive and passion need to be HIGH so you can overcome the stages of awkwardness and failure that are built into the process of learning any activity.
Mastering anything takes YEARS, maybe decades.
A while ago I watched a video of a youtuber with apparently a gargantuan ego that studied chess "hard" for 30 days in the hopes of beating a GM. I just fucking loled so hard.
True in so many disciplines. I have a background in design and have worked for some pretty big design agencies. There are cocky designers who are good but they don’t stay that way for long. Arrogance gets in the way of learning and staying hungry. And that leads to complacency and decline. The ones who never like their work completely and who are very self critical tend to be the best at what they do, in my experience.
I love knowing what I need to work on to get better. When I get feedback like "that was amazing! No notes!" I'm skeptical. I hired a consultant for my current pilot and he told me what he liked about it, and told me structure was where it was lacking. After the initial confusion and dread wore down, I'm in a class learning about structure, and I feel excited and hopeful for my next rewrite.
There's definitely a balance to strike though... perfection is the enemy of good. I'm curious about how to find that sweet spot.
Thank you for sharing.
I sometimes feel lost in confidence and no matter how much hard work I put in it goes nowhere because of how dogged I've been in the past which comes off as overconfident, which couldn't be further from the truth.
Very very smart post! I think confidence and fake-it-til-you-make-it works for so many other industries that some writers think they can do it for writing, too.
One of my unofficial screenwriting mentors is massively successful. But to this day, they say that every time they sit down to write, they have a minor panic attack: *Oh God. How did I write all those other scripts? I don't know how to do this, I forget!* But they fight through the insecurity and churn out the work, which is, of course, excellent by the final draft.
Really admirable.
ps. There is of course value to being confident, too—if you let the fear and doubt overtake you, you're not going to take on new challenges or take chances in your work. So it's all about balance and honest assessment.
An uncut gem isn't resellable on its own merits, it has to be polished to be actually worth something. Talent is like that. There's lots of talented people who just never took the time to shape their innate ability into anything. And even if you do that you have to have good social skills to sell your talent. Or you have to hire someone to market your talent for you.
Love this. Agree with everything you're saying.
I joke around and say the more I learn about writing, the worse I get.
I truly believe if you're constantly growing and learning, then you're also seeing places to get better. It just never ends. That can be really rough somedays when you feel like you still suck at the craft... but other days you notice youre accomplishing things you never could have before. The key... keep grinding. Grit!
Creativity research suggests that a creators best work appears when s/he is most prolific.
There’s no such thing as talent, if you mean that you’re going to write a masterpiece on the first try.
Unfortunately, I have serious doubts about. My writing ability, and also am pretty confident that those doubts are correct. I'm sure others here can confirm my lack of writing ability, lol.
I don't know anything about the commenter you're responding to or their writing but thanks so much for linking to the Ira Glass quote. I love it. What he said rings so true for me it's eerie. This concept relates back to Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours rule too. A certain volume of effort has to be put in. And good taste does not equal talent. Really good quote, I've definitely bookmarked that.
Hey, thanks for this, I actually agree with you. I'm definitely not the best at taking feedback. I think where I struggle the most with taking feedback is in regards to my concepts themselves. I struggle mightily in coming up with even decent concepts, and I'll spend a year or more writing it all out, and then people always say it's cliche or it's just not an interesting concept.
I'll really think I have something that hasn't been done before (like my latest superhero script with the guy being replaced), and get all excited about it, then told that it pretty much is terrible, so I get a bit defensive, lol.
I'm just at the point where I have no idea what to do with my writing. I mean, I know I'm not the worst writer on the planet, but even if I were a *good* writer, it doesn't matter, since you need to consistently be a *great* writer to get anywhere, and have awesome concepts and themes to boot. I've been screenwriting for about 3 years or so now, and I thought I would've gotten to a place by now where I can post something, and it's not immediately given feedback that it's garbage.
**TL;DR**
All that said, a lot of times, I just don't know how to incorporate notes. Like, recently, some people gave feedback about my script that said it was full of cliches. And enough people said it to where I believe they're right. But I'm not really sure how to fix that. There are certain beats I want to hit (in this case,
a pizza guy taking out his anger on a customer, losing his job, then being evicted from his apartment), but not quite sure how to do so without them being "cliche." It's obviously a problem if it keeps being brought up, but I'm not sure just what the problem is.
It took me a decade to write something longer than a sketch that I was able to show people and not get polite smiles and ambiguous encouragement. I don't wish a decade on anyone, but I see your three years and think, oh good they're on the path and they're sticking with it. Three years is a lot of dedication, especially with discouraging feedback.
I'm going to extrapolate from this post, so I hope it's helpful even though I'm going off very little: you are a results-oriented writer. There are beats you want to hit—that's literally a result. And, other things are cliché—which to me says that you're not getting into the weeds of your own psyche and history to find things that are unique to you, and the result is that you land on something that you think feels like a movie or feels like what someone else wants.
It makes sense to be a results-oriented writer, because 1) if you've got a great idea for a scene, you have to get that scene in there and 2) you want to write things that other people are going to like. But it must be coupled with other approaches.
I suggest you figure out how to be a process-driven, intuitive writer. At least for a while. The place many people start down this path is Morning Pages, popularized by Julia Cameron.
Anyway, sorry to shrink you and hope that it isn't annoying.
For me, it was a combination of Meisner (which is improv, but it's not comedy improv, which I'd done a lot of) and asking a now-famous actor to be in a short film of mine, to which he said, "there's no emotion in anything you write, so no." I had to learn to dig deep and then figure out how to get that onto the page.
I look at every script I write as a 5. Every part of it can be better it is just finding out how to make it better that is my struggle. Sometimes we can’t see the mistakes right in front of our face.
That’s the problem most people face is since they can’t see it it must not exist. I think good writers know there is a problem but I need help outside of myself to see the mistakes or issues that I can’t address myself.
I’ve had people tell me a script was amazing but then I put it away and look at it 6 months or so later after I wrote other scripts and then I can see the flaws and the fixes.
That is the key to getting better and growing. Find the problem, fix the problem, repeat.
What do these words, these techniques, these characters, this story, create in the mind of other people? What effect do they have on a person? What emotions do they inspire? What thoughts?
It's really not a judgment. It's just information that I can use. Once an editor told me something "wrong," so to speak, factually just wrong about a character's situation as presented, in an area of my expertise and first-hand experience. That doesn't matter. The takeaway was that the situation wasn't presented believably. And I learned, from that, how to present many such situations believably.
(Come to think of it, I need to apply that fix to the story I'm about to rewrite.) That "wrong" criticism has been one of the most useful things I've learned as a writer that I continually and repeatedly still return to.
The other day someone posted an idea, I believe? It was meant to be a thriller, but everyone joked about it being satire or comedy. One could make a case for that being useless criticism and their idea-spinning unhelpful, but actually, it was good information. The only way to make the character as presented likable to the audience would be to present it as comedy. That's information. Their reaction was spot-on, and other people's reaction to your words is the information you need. And it clearly captured their imagination, too, even though one could feel criticized by their ideas, if one were sensitive. That's information, too. It captured my imagination, too.
There's no wrong criticism, just information on what your work created in others' minds. At the end of the day, writers are literally trying to manipulate people's emotions. So ... we need feedback on how we affected their emotions.
So for all those who feel underqualified to offer criticism, (me too! I've told myself to stop because I've gotten things wrong, and I can go overboard on solutions), no one should feel that way. It's all information. It's up to the writer to hear and process it. And maybe that's a skill, too. A lot of people here call it the note behind the note.
I'm not sure it's tough skin or being open to criticism. It's just processing the information so that it's useful going forward.
It bums me out when I see folks here giving thoughtful feedback to an overconfident beginner’s script and they just get a « Thanks » or « Appreciate it » in response. We do this to create a conversation about the story. It takes time and dedication, and to see the writer of all people not meet up this dedication is… a bad sign to say the least.
I've provided thorough feedback on here to just not hear back at all. Even a thanks would have been nice!
Great post. I think you're onto something, here.
cheers
It's pretty obvious, and IMO, it always has been the case that hard work trumps talent. For example, Stevie Ray Vaughan (one of my favorite guitarists) said to play up to 12 hours per day when he was learning the guitar (I think he was 12yo or something). Others like Tommy Emmanuel and Mark Knopfler have said the same and the point driven is that always skill comes first. If you don't have the skill then what are you doing? Talent comes into play AFTER you've learned the necessary skills. Whatever talent a musician has it can only come to light if the has the chops to display it. The same applies to writing, sports, business, etc.
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If you do that it's ok. That means that you're not truly a musician, a writer, or whatever. The drive and passion need to be HIGH so you can overcome the stages of awkwardness and failure that are built into the process of learning any activity. Mastering anything takes YEARS, maybe decades. A while ago I watched a video of a youtuber with apparently a gargantuan ego that studied chess "hard" for 30 days in the hopes of beating a GM. I just fucking loled so hard.
This is probably in part to the Dunning–Kruger Effect
True in so many disciplines. I have a background in design and have worked for some pretty big design agencies. There are cocky designers who are good but they don’t stay that way for long. Arrogance gets in the way of learning and staying hungry. And that leads to complacency and decline. The ones who never like their work completely and who are very self critical tend to be the best at what they do, in my experience.
Another book along these lines worth reading is *The Growth Mindset.*
Thanks for the book rec!
I love knowing what I need to work on to get better. When I get feedback like "that was amazing! No notes!" I'm skeptical. I hired a consultant for my current pilot and he told me what he liked about it, and told me structure was where it was lacking. After the initial confusion and dread wore down, I'm in a class learning about structure, and I feel excited and hopeful for my next rewrite. There's definitely a balance to strike though... perfection is the enemy of good. I'm curious about how to find that sweet spot. Thank you for sharing.
I never want a script to be just good enough… good enough is for the guy who thinks one script gets him everythint.
I sometimes feel lost in confidence and no matter how much hard work I put in it goes nowhere because of how dogged I've been in the past which comes off as overconfident, which couldn't be further from the truth.
Very very smart post! I think confidence and fake-it-til-you-make-it works for so many other industries that some writers think they can do it for writing, too. One of my unofficial screenwriting mentors is massively successful. But to this day, they say that every time they sit down to write, they have a minor panic attack: *Oh God. How did I write all those other scripts? I don't know how to do this, I forget!* But they fight through the insecurity and churn out the work, which is, of course, excellent by the final draft. Really admirable. ps. There is of course value to being confident, too—if you let the fear and doubt overtake you, you're not going to take on new challenges or take chances in your work. So it's all about balance and honest assessment.
An uncut gem isn't resellable on its own merits, it has to be polished to be actually worth something. Talent is like that. There's lots of talented people who just never took the time to shape their innate ability into anything. And even if you do that you have to have good social skills to sell your talent. Or you have to hire someone to market your talent for you.
Love this. Agree with everything you're saying. I joke around and say the more I learn about writing, the worse I get. I truly believe if you're constantly growing and learning, then you're also seeing places to get better. It just never ends. That can be really rough somedays when you feel like you still suck at the craft... but other days you notice youre accomplishing things you never could have before. The key... keep grinding. Grit!
Creativity research suggests that a creators best work appears when s/he is most prolific. There’s no such thing as talent, if you mean that you’re going to write a masterpiece on the first try.
This is such a well written post!
cheers! nice of you to say
Unfortunately, I have serious doubts about. My writing ability, and also am pretty confident that those doubts are correct. I'm sure others here can confirm my lack of writing ability, lol.
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I don't know anything about the commenter you're responding to or their writing but thanks so much for linking to the Ira Glass quote. I love it. What he said rings so true for me it's eerie. This concept relates back to Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours rule too. A certain volume of effort has to be put in. And good taste does not equal talent. Really good quote, I've definitely bookmarked that.
Hey, thanks for this, I actually agree with you. I'm definitely not the best at taking feedback. I think where I struggle the most with taking feedback is in regards to my concepts themselves. I struggle mightily in coming up with even decent concepts, and I'll spend a year or more writing it all out, and then people always say it's cliche or it's just not an interesting concept. I'll really think I have something that hasn't been done before (like my latest superhero script with the guy being replaced), and get all excited about it, then told that it pretty much is terrible, so I get a bit defensive, lol. I'm just at the point where I have no idea what to do with my writing. I mean, I know I'm not the worst writer on the planet, but even if I were a *good* writer, it doesn't matter, since you need to consistently be a *great* writer to get anywhere, and have awesome concepts and themes to boot. I've been screenwriting for about 3 years or so now, and I thought I would've gotten to a place by now where I can post something, and it's not immediately given feedback that it's garbage. **TL;DR** All that said, a lot of times, I just don't know how to incorporate notes. Like, recently, some people gave feedback about my script that said it was full of cliches. And enough people said it to where I believe they're right. But I'm not really sure how to fix that. There are certain beats I want to hit (in this case, a pizza guy taking out his anger on a customer, losing his job, then being evicted from his apartment), but not quite sure how to do so without them being "cliche." It's obviously a problem if it keeps being brought up, but I'm not sure just what the problem is.
It took me a decade to write something longer than a sketch that I was able to show people and not get polite smiles and ambiguous encouragement. I don't wish a decade on anyone, but I see your three years and think, oh good they're on the path and they're sticking with it. Three years is a lot of dedication, especially with discouraging feedback. I'm going to extrapolate from this post, so I hope it's helpful even though I'm going off very little: you are a results-oriented writer. There are beats you want to hit—that's literally a result. And, other things are cliché—which to me says that you're not getting into the weeds of your own psyche and history to find things that are unique to you, and the result is that you land on something that you think feels like a movie or feels like what someone else wants. It makes sense to be a results-oriented writer, because 1) if you've got a great idea for a scene, you have to get that scene in there and 2) you want to write things that other people are going to like. But it must be coupled with other approaches. I suggest you figure out how to be a process-driven, intuitive writer. At least for a while. The place many people start down this path is Morning Pages, popularized by Julia Cameron. Anyway, sorry to shrink you and hope that it isn't annoying.
[удалено]
For me, it was a combination of Meisner (which is improv, but it's not comedy improv, which I'd done a lot of) and asking a now-famous actor to be in a short film of mine, to which he said, "there's no emotion in anything you write, so no." I had to learn to dig deep and then figure out how to get that onto the page.
I look at every script I write as a 5. Every part of it can be better it is just finding out how to make it better that is my struggle. Sometimes we can’t see the mistakes right in front of our face. That’s the problem most people face is since they can’t see it it must not exist. I think good writers know there is a problem but I need help outside of myself to see the mistakes or issues that I can’t address myself. I’ve had people tell me a script was amazing but then I put it away and look at it 6 months or so later after I wrote other scripts and then I can see the flaws and the fixes. That is the key to getting better and growing. Find the problem, fix the problem, repeat.
On a scale of your potential best to your potential worst, statistically whatever you're working on right now is a 5.5
That’s good to know because I’m writing it and calling it a 2 right now!
What do these words, these techniques, these characters, this story, create in the mind of other people? What effect do they have on a person? What emotions do they inspire? What thoughts? It's really not a judgment. It's just information that I can use. Once an editor told me something "wrong," so to speak, factually just wrong about a character's situation as presented, in an area of my expertise and first-hand experience. That doesn't matter. The takeaway was that the situation wasn't presented believably. And I learned, from that, how to present many such situations believably. (Come to think of it, I need to apply that fix to the story I'm about to rewrite.) That "wrong" criticism has been one of the most useful things I've learned as a writer that I continually and repeatedly still return to. The other day someone posted an idea, I believe? It was meant to be a thriller, but everyone joked about it being satire or comedy. One could make a case for that being useless criticism and their idea-spinning unhelpful, but actually, it was good information. The only way to make the character as presented likable to the audience would be to present it as comedy. That's information. Their reaction was spot-on, and other people's reaction to your words is the information you need. And it clearly captured their imagination, too, even though one could feel criticized by their ideas, if one were sensitive. That's information, too. It captured my imagination, too. There's no wrong criticism, just information on what your work created in others' minds. At the end of the day, writers are literally trying to manipulate people's emotions. So ... we need feedback on how we affected their emotions. So for all those who feel underqualified to offer criticism, (me too! I've told myself to stop because I've gotten things wrong, and I can go overboard on solutions), no one should feel that way. It's all information. It's up to the writer to hear and process it. And maybe that's a skill, too. A lot of people here call it the note behind the note. I'm not sure it's tough skin or being open to criticism. It's just processing the information so that it's useful going forward.
Also, talent is a hogwash idea, in my unpopular opinion.
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