GITS birthday suggestion #4: A Script Reader Speaks
Only 2 more days until GITS has its 1-year birthday. I’ve been using the occasion to remind long-time readers and some of the newer ones about the many resources available here to help learn the craft of screenwriting. In the past few days, we’ve talked about the nearly 100 interviews with notable screenwriters this site links to. We’ve considered the 14 Days of Screenplays challenge, an exercise in immersing oneself in reading scripts. We’ve discussed “How They Write a Script” and “How I Write a Script.” Today we hit upon one of the most valuable assets at this site: An extensive Q&A with D.C. Mar, who has been reading scripts professionally and served as a story analyst for over a decade.
Here’s the thing about script readers: They are Hwood’s threshold guardians. No one gets past them. No reads a script without coverage. In other words, script readers are the people for whom you are writing your script.
Let me repeat that:
Script readers are the people for whom you are writing your script.
Have you ever thought about your situation quite like that?
Whether you choose to embrace that fact or not, the fact remains the same:
The first and likely most important person to read your screenplay is the script reader.
So doesn’t it make sense to, er… I don’t know…
UNDERSTAND THEIR MINDSET?!?!?!?!
Which brings us back to D.C. Mar again.
Several months ago, I lobbed D.C. a series of questions.
And she responded with an amazing document.
I broke up that doc into six parts, each segment full of insight into the mind of a script reader.
My advice?
Get thee hither and read!
To do so, go here.
By the way, I know there are more than a few GITS trackers who either do read scripts in some professional capacity or used to do so. Allow me to toss out a few questions here and if you’d be kind enough to answer, that would be great.
How did you go about becoming a script reader?
What is your process when you sit down to read a script (i.e., look at the title page to see who’s written the script and who represents it, flip to the back to see how many pages the script is, flip through the pages to get a sense of how the writer approached scene description/balance of SD and dialogue, etc.)
If you had to rank in importance these three elements — great story concept, strong characters, distinctive writing style — which is the most important and why?
What are the common mistakes screenwriters make that drive you crazy?
Thanks!
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