Hard at work (or hardly working?) on my new novella, “Journey to the Center of the E-nternet!!!1”, my mind wanders back to an important question I was asked recently regarding my screenwriting choices:
“What do you consider to be good writing critique?”
You see, I am guilty of using the dreaded “opening scene: main character introduced by alarm clock and waking up in bed” cliché in one of my screenplays, and at first glance, this choice appears to be your typical, film-school-novice screenwriting mistake of using a trope that “everyone is bored of” (not my words). However, upon closer inspection of the screenplay’s following pages, it is (I believe) more clear, or at least more evident, that I am using this trope as a literary device in order to, sort of, play with the idea of the viewer not knowing where the sleeping ends and real life begins – while also taking a piss on the trope a little bit too. Because I use this literary device several times in the film, and because the film is about interpreting the work of David Lynch, something vital is lost when this mystery is not blatantly present for the viewer.
Beyond obvious “objectively good critique” of corrected spelling, grammar, and punctuation for our peers, we start to get into the grey (gray?) area of our critiques being really misguided, or even myopic, because we are not “seeing the artist’s vision”. If you’re reading a well made shooting draft screenplay when this happens, then it might be your fault for not seeing that artist’s vision. On the other hand, if you’re reading a story draft screenplay – or anything else that does not convey framing and timing with sound – then you really can’t tell what the final(ish) cut of the film looks like yet or feels like yet, because you have not yet been granted access to that vision, and so you still need to see (at least) some kind of shooting draft to actually tell if you have a dud on your hands, or, if maybe there is something else going on here…some kind of mad genius, transcending the bullshit-box of all the constraints we put on our pure artistic flow – maybe something going on with the framing of the shots, or the timing of the cuts, or the pacing of the movements, or something in the living and breathing scene which seduces you – and you might not even be able to explain why it is so seducing…it just is…and that’s the only thing that ever mattered.
Unfortunately, you only learn this truth after seeing the final cut of the film, and (I believe) that the shooting draft is the only snowflake’s chance in hell you will have of actually getting a glimpse of the artist’s vision before the editing work is already months in, or worse, almost wrapped. Therefore, I think the more important question here does not pertain to the critique itself, but rather:
“What do you consider to be good writing critique?”
Pause. Time-out. Sit down, and shut up.
Good writing is literally anything that takes you to a place or emotion which you crave.
Period. Full stop. That’s it, and that’s all, folks. Any definition of “good writing” more complicated than the above is (I believe) a travesty against the arts, and so, our notions of “providing good critique” needs to be framed within that understanding. Case in point, “There Will Be Blood” is the best film made by human hands (stay with me on this one), and yet some people either do not like this movie, or thought it was only OK, or they have watched it many times and will continue to watch it again and again (guilty as charged). My point is, if PTA couldn’t get the job done with a final cut of “There Will Be Blood”, then the rest of us writers never stood a chance against the typical screenplay review process. Instead, you need to push through anything that attempts to cheapen, or compromise, or normalize your artistic instinct into something more “mainstream” or “typical”. I have found that good critique will feel “right” when you read it, while bad critique will feel “awkward” – like someone else is hijacking your creative notions with their (somehow superior?) creative notions, and it feels that way because that is exactly what is happening.
If I am asked to provide writing critique or feedback, I start with the aforementioned obvious wins: spelling, grammar, and punctuation (and Oxford commas). When I start to get into the “structure” of the work or anything beyond that – like story points or overall meaning – it starts to gets all fuzzy, and I want to second-guess myself constantly, because I know that, ultimately, I am not the original artist, and I can’t be certain if I’m reading a dud, or if I just don’t see the vision yet because I’m not watching the final cut. At that point, I can only provide feedback on what the film does to me, or how it makes me feel, or where it takes me in time or space, or what it reminds me of in terms of other films that I love. And, I’d like to think that is enough, without me hijacking your story and making it (literally) my own.
This necessarily leads to the remaining issue, “what about marketability? Your screenplay won’t get the green light because it doesn’t conform to X, Y, and Z!” I think many people in the film industry forget that all these “industry norm / mainstream market” rules we all come up with are ultimately DE-scriptive instead of being PRE-scriptive, which is to say, a film style or technique becomes known for being a “good industry norm” because several good films were made which all so happened to use some common, good thing(s). And, after these common thing(s) begin to be known as good, it does not suddenly mean that you can necessarily make a great film simply by choosing to use one (or more) of these “good prescriptions”. After all, you might be creating the next industry norm and not even know it yet because your film has not come out yet! Imagine the travesty of deleting good scenes or changing good story elements which came from your artistic flow, simply because of some misinformed or misguided advice you may have received along the writing journey.
Great film feels like great poetry – there is certainly a rhythm to it, and just because you may know what “iambic pentameter” is, does not suddenly mean you know how to write great poetry. You start with the writing of great poetry, and then later, the description of “iambic pentameter” follows logically, as people begin to recognize some thing good about the technique, then start to write about it for the purpose of categorizing it for other people. This might be why so many of our great film directors believe film school is irrelevant, as there is no guru who can teach you how to envision a compelling piece of film. Ultimately, you must be your own film school.
Don’t be afraid to listen to good writing advice, but don’t let it kill your creativity, either.