So, I know I've only been back doing this whole blog shebang
for a few weeks now, but I'm becoming a little apprehensive of cultivating a
reputation as a bit of a Negative Nancy. Even the name "Anti-Scriptwriting" does give off a
bit of a "militantly opposed to things" vibe, which, I admit, is laced
with a thin icing of truth, but I don't want to be bound by that. Therefore,
I'm going to do my utmost to be resoundingly... *gulp* happy throughout the duration of this article, focusing on all the...
*bigger gulp* good aspects of script
reading I've come to appreciate over the last year. Kind of like an early
scriptie Thanksgiving, minus the obscene gluttony.
1) You Can Still Have
A Life.
OK, so maybe it wasn't the best idea to kick this article
off by essentially saying that one of the best things about script reading is
the times when you don't have to do any script reading (happy thoughts, James...). What I mean to say is that reading
permits a certain amount of flexibility, depending on how much you choose to
take on. You could spend the rest of your time writing, holding down another
job, learning a valuable life skill or even just staring at your TV screen,
patiently counting down the weeks until someone gets crowned the winner of some
drawn-out competition format, before moving on to the next, ever-so-slightly
different 12 week long cavalcade of gradual eliminations and meaningless
controversies (side note - loving The
Apprentice this year. Top work, Lord Sugar). Either way, you get to make
that choice, in spite of your reading, because it's not work that you have to
totally commit your existence to.
2) It Enhances Your
Analytical Mind.
James' Number One Most Used Word of October, or my NOMUWOO,
has been "redundant", which, whilst born out of reading scripts that
bashed me around the head with characters and scenes they didn't need, has
actually permeated into my day-to-day existence. I find I'm much more direct
and capable of identifying when actions, questions or people are just straight
up unnecessary, to a point where I may actually be developing a cold,
disconnect from reality. But my objective perceptions of life itself are by the
by - what matters is that I can call
people out. Moreover, I can express my thoughts in a more concise, analytical
fashion, utilising terms like "moreover" to legitimise my opinions in
the same way a toddler who has just learnt the word "no" is suddenly offended
by everything around them. Bottom line, I always loved the phrase "bottom
line" (it's my NOMUPOO), but now I deploy it for reasons beyond the fact
it makes me picture a Bum covered in marker pen.
3) You're
Legitimately Helping People.
Whether or not you believe in karma, I definitely think the
amount of sage advice I've provided to budding writers around the world should
entitle me to at least some sort of reward (yeah, I do get paid, but it's the
thought that counts). Either way, script reading is nothing if not a noble
profession. There aren't many other creative industries where the first line of
entry consists of people who actually want to help you join that industry. And
while the stereotype of a reader being a thankless, bitter intern, locked in a
back room surrounded by piles of verbal diarrhoea may contain a minute kernel
of truth, no matter how angry that reader gets, they're still fundamentally
constructing valuable feedback for those who need it. We literally exist solely
to try and help people get better at writing. Although, after reading 20
absolute stinkers in a row, if number 21 doesn't quite reach the heights of Citizen Kane, it is possible that our
objectivity may become a little... compromised.
4) Learning New
Techniques.
The cynical part of me desperately wanted to call this
section "Stealing People's Ideas", but, seeing as I've had to throw
him into my mind basement, alongside the virtues of our current government and
Furbies, I'm spinning this in a way that doesn't make me look like a bit of an
arsehole. Reading the work of other people, no matter how great or... not great they happen to be, can be a
fantastic catalyst for setting your own creative juices into motion. I've
already learned the majority of the tricks of the trade through my time at
University, but now, every once in a while, some clever bugger will stick something
into their script, whether it be story-related, character-related, or even just
a change in formatting, that just sticks with me (for the right reasons). Some
sort of genius way of presenting a moment that you kick yourself for not
thinking of, but simultaneously can't wait to apply to your own work. Again, not stealing. Repurposing. *Ahem*
5) Great Scripts
Actually Make You Giddy.
It's true - you really don't know how good you've got it
until you're forced to endure the bad for days on end. Coming across a great
script is akin to the burst of pure pleasure when you discover an Invincibility
Star on a particularly taxing level of Super Mario Bros. You blitz through it,
breathless, laughing to yourself like an utter maniac, right up until the very
end when you're almost saddened to see it go. When I first started reading, I was
warned upfront about the ratio of good scripts to bad (the rumour of it being
around 1 in 30 genuinely holds up), but I naively refused to believe there
could possibly be so much objectively bad writing out there. That wide-eyed
innocence has since been replaced be a level of world-weariness typically
reserved for the bleakest of Film Noir, which will, on lucky occasions, explode
into a candy-coated, magical dreamland, where you can slide down rainbows into fountains
of liquid happiness and everyone's dancing the conga.
6) Money.
If you're good enough, and/or
lucky, you can make money from reading scripts. People are always prepared to
pay for a service that they can't do for themselves. As far as entry level jobs
go, it can be surprisingly paradoxical to get into - most places will either
demand you have several years of experience (not sure anyone wants to commit to
doing it for that long) or that you
work for free for at least a trial period. This is a load of total- WAIT. HAPPY
THOUGHTS. SORRY. Money is great, and you can use it for paying for whatever you
desire! Bagels, washing up liquid, crippling student loans - you name it! As
previously mentioned, if you can sustain regular reading work outside of
another job, you can actually permit yourself a pretty comfortable living
arrangement. You're hardly going to be able to afford that shiny new Lamborghini,
but you can at least settle for its more economically priced cousin, the Land
Rover.
7) You Come to Love
Writing For Yourself.
And finally, the big one... If you're living a normal day-to-day
existence whilst trying to write something substantial on occasion, it can often
feel like a chore to do so. What script reading does is make writing feel like
a proper treat. As if you've earned
yourself this reprieve from wading through the muck and mire. You get excited
about finally being able to execute your own ideas, brewed in the background
whilst you told people off for not knowing how to use Capital Letters. Honestly,
I genuinely believe that my year of reading has made a significantly better
writer, if only in identifying what does and doesn't work in my storytelling. So,
if you're currently struggling to put pen to paper, or fingers to keys more
likely, do yourself a favour - get out there, and get yourself some reading
work. Even if you have to break into a library just to read classic film
scripts and tear them apart (not literally, the cleaners won't like that), you
owe it to your writing to have the guts to do that.
James Cottle, a
Scriptwriting Mega-Scholar™, is now a real world Freelance Writer, in between
intense bouts of Script Reading. Follow him on Twitter @Jxmxsc, "like"
the Anti-Scriptwriting page on Facebook, and share this blog if you want his
opinions on your work to be completely unbiased.
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