If you live in LA you probably have friends in the entertainment industry who can read your material and know what to look for. You may have a writers group or just a random assortment of friends or a film school graduate friend who calls it like he sees it when he reads a script. I'm lucky in that I have a several such people who want to read my material and give me notes.

I imagine those outside this company town probably don't have such access. I know that when I lived in North Carolina I knew one person who'd ever written a screenplay, and it's pretty clear to me now that this person didn't know a damn thing about the business.

So who will read your screenplay and give you honest, informed notes? I've had a ton of people read my scripts over the years, and it's pretty clear that most people do not know how to give notes on a screenplay. So here are three who do:r

1) Scott the Reader. We all know Scott, right? Alligators in a Helicopter, long time scribospherian, $80 notes guy. Every now and then Scott will take a break from his cheap notes to make more money reading for studios, but he's still in the business and there are more than a few people who will vouch for his accuracy. Scott read a short film of mine once and gave me some pretty good suggestions, many of which I was too stubborn to take at the time but realized I needed to take later when it was more difficult to do because I was already in production. Anyway, he's on the up and up.

2) Introducing Script Doctor Eric, who offers notes and a 30 minute phone call for $99. He read Not Dead Yet and had several handy observations and suggestions. I wish I had been able to give Eric the script in its early stages because by the time he saw it the thing was pretty much finished, but he had some good ideas about choices I could have made and pointed out a few confusing scenes.

THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN EDITED:

3) If you have some dollars burning a hole in your pocket, The Script Department is an expensive consultant company. A basic analysis of your script and suggestions for changes, plus a 30 minute phone call is $300. I've never used their services, and their reviews are mixed.


Eric and The Script Department both say they will pass your script onto industry contacts if they deem it worthy, but I wouldn't hire them for that purpose. I know a lot of people see that and think oooooh! I have an in! Don't think that way because chances are good that they will not pass your script on, and even if they do there is no guarantee it will come to anything. These people are here to help you make your script better, not to sell your script. But if you have nobody around who knows what they are doing, these are three options.

ADDED: I've never used his services, but I've heard good things about The Screenplay Mechanic. He posts regularly over at Done Deal.

The best thing you can do, though, is form a group of writers you trust who will give you notes for free.

Here in the land of aspiring screenwriters we are so cynical. So many of us are terrible writers who think we're great, just like those American Idol wannabes who warble at the first round of auditions and then promise we'll see them again someday on a stage surrounded by lights of denial. You can't spit in this town without hitting some jackass with a screenplay that's going to revolutionize Hollywood and show us all how it's really done.

So yesterday when I said I had confidence in my screenplay, I can see why a lot of people hesitated to believe I had the goods to back it up.

I received a lot of requests, both publicly and privately, to send my screenplay to other writers so they could read it.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I interpreted most of those requests as tests. Oh she has confidence, does she? We'll see about that. When I'm done with her, she'll be weeping in the shower and cutting herself.

Now granted, some of these people offered to read my script when I was having problems, but most of them only offered after I said I had a good script.

And that tells me that they aren't looking to help me. They're looking to see if I'm as good as I say I am.

Look, if you want to know if I can back it up, okay. Say so. Email me and say "I'm curious about your script. Can I read it?"

I'll send it. I like the script, I'm proud of it, and it's registered so you go right ahead and read all you like.

I've been working with someone who wishes to stay anonymous, someone who has helped me heaps and piles in improving this script. We have gone back and forth, argued and discussed, read and reread the script for months now. I also have a writers group that has read it and given me notes. I have agonized over all those notes and now I feel like my script is high and tight like Dolly's breasts.

So when people offered to give me notes yesterday I was a little surprised and my initial reaction to some of you was probably not the best one I could have had. I'm just not sure how to take it when I say "I'm finished with my script!" and everybody immediately says "Oh let me give you notes! You're not done until I say you're done!"

Or at least that's how I took it.