Getting Screenplay Feedback

Getting feedback on your script is vital to the screenwriting process. The screenplay marketplace is highly competitive and when you’re presenting your script to the industry, you want to feel confident it’s the best version people are reading.

Even after finishing your script to your personal satisfaction, it’s still a good idea to get feedback from different people — both people you know and industry professionals — and be open to any constructive criticism or notes they have.

Although it’s important to follow your creative instincts and to have a strong voice as a writer, we don’t live in a vacuum: the success of your script will ultimately depend on other people and their reactions to it. You might think a certain joke is funny, but what if it doesn’t land for people? You might find a scene you wrote emotionally moving, but what if it doesn’t resonate with readers in the same way?

This is why it’s helpful to get a general consensus. If you give your script to five people to read and four out of the five have a problem with a certain scene, character, or plot point, chances are others will feel the same. The more feedback you get, the greater the consensus. This is why the major movie studios do test screenings of their films: they’re looking to learn what works for an audience and what doesn’t.

Think of feedback as a test screening for your script, and it can begin at home.

Once you’ve finished your script, one of the first things you can do is give it to a couple of trusted friends, family members, your partner or spouse.

Ideally, you want to pick people who are positive and encouraging of your screenwriting. You’re looking for constructive criticism, not negativity or any feedback that’s going to leave you disillusioned. Also if you can choose people who are movie fans (they don’t need to be full-fledged cinephiles) and who enjoy reading, you’ll likely get more useful feedback. They should have a general idea of your script’s genre and be able to communicate their opinions.

But what if you want to go out of your circle to get feedback? Are there industry professionals who will read your script and give you their thoughts?

There are script coverage services that can help screenwriters get their scripts further “in shape.”

If you want to know how Hollywood is going to react to your screenplay or TV pilot, these script coverage services are a good way to find out and the feedback they provide can help you improve your script and increase your chances of success.

If you want to receive more feedback from industry professionals, you can also enter your script into a screenwriting contest like Final Draft’s Big Break Screenwriting Contest. In addition to numerous prizes (including meetings with top managers, producers and studio execs in the film and television industry), contest winners receive detailed script coverage from Big Break readers. Even if you don’t win, you can request that a reader provide coverage on your script when you enter it. 

After receiving your feedback, you might want to give your script “another pass”’ (i.e. another rewrite). Everyone is going to have their own taste and opinions, so you shouldn’t rethink everything about your script just because some people didn’t like certain aspects of it. However, if several people took issue with the same thing, this might be something to address if you do another rewrite.

It’s only natural to have a knee-jerk reaction when receiving any form of criticism (regardless of how constructive it is), but it’s important for screenwriters to not be discouraged and keep moving forward with their script. Rewriting is one of the primary jobs of a professional screenwriter, so it’s something you should grow comfortable with if you hope to become a working screenwriter.

All of the techniques you’ve learned from our previous lessons can be used when redrafting your script this time around (whether it’s a page one rewrite or merely a polish).

Send your script to a friend for feedback and revise if necessary. After receiving feedback and revising accordingly, you’ll feel confident to “go wide” with your script (i.e., circulate it to as many industry professionals as possible).

You put in the work, you received the notes and you took your script to the next level. Whether or not your script sells, you’ve undergone the full process and have taken a big step toward becoming a professional screenwriter! Now you can go back to Final Draft, go to File > New and start outlining your next project. It all begins with the script.