Tweetstorm: Daniel Kunka on dealing with ‘bad’ script notes

Last week screenwriter Daniel Kunka (@unikunka) posted a series of tweets about handling script notes a writer may feel are… well… shitty. Reprinted by permission:

I concur with this. In fact, you can read this Business of Screenwriting post in which I got fired off my own project Alaska because I refused to make a script change. To this day, I still think it was a shitty note and the movie suffered for it. But hey, I just got residual check for the movie in yesterday’s mail, so I got that going for me.

In addition to Daniel’s wise words, there are a few other possibilities when you receive what you think is a bad note:

• They forget they gave you the note. You just kinda conveniently forget that note in the next pass and see if they remember it or not. Obviously if it’s a big note, that’s not going to happen. But if it’s one of a lot of notes and it’s not that significant, and you hate the idea, it’s worth a shot.
• You may discover an alternate way that incorporates the spirit of what their note is that actually improves the script. You may have to do a bit of explaining your logic, but as long as (A) it does make the script better and (B) the legacy of their note is still present, that can be a a double bonus.
• And then there’s this: What you thought was a shitty note could turn out to be a decent, even good one. This is why in a notes meeting, you never say ‘no’, you always give them something like, “Yeah, let’s see what I can do with that”. That way you’re not only acting like a team player, you’re also giving yourself time to see if the dumb idea might actually be a damn good one. Rare, but it does happen.

About Daniel Kunka: In 2011, Daniel Kunka sold the spec script “Agent Ox”, in 2013 he sold the spec script “Bermuda Triangle”, in 2014 he sold the spec script “Yellowstone Park”, and in 2015 he sold the spec script “Battle of New Orleans” both of which went on to make the Black List. He sold a script to NBC for a mini-series called “The Ark”. This year, Daniel sold yet another spec script: “Space Race”.

To read my June 2013 interview with Daniel, go here.

Twitter: @unikunka.

To read all of the screenwriting tweetstorms I’ve aggregated on GITS, go here.