Alejandro at 2014-04-18 22:42:24:

Scott: Thanks for answering my question and for the great suggestions. I recently read the book "How to Tell a Story: Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Scriptwriting Workshop [2003, originally published 1995}" and got a nice example of a workshop - the book is the transcript of Garcia Marquez's workshop sessions. The downside of the book is that it doesn't include the screenplays they're talking about, so sometimes you feel kind of lost about a couple of things they're discussing. But it's a good book. I've recently joined The Black Board and I'm still getting to know other writers. I also joined a local writer group and I'm still learning how to handle feedback but that leads me to another question: how to give good and useful feedback to others?

Aarthi Ramanathan at 2014-04-19 06:05:49:

Scott, excellent advice and all those suggestions hit home for me. A writer's group certainly helps a ton (and the Blackboard which is great!) - and I am the sort of writer who takes every bit of feedback given to me (aka absorbing feedback that is also wrong on many levels), now I am trying to scale back and maintain my voice in my scripts and being careful what edits I implement because that's certainly one of the flaws in my approach to rewriting that's pushed me back with getting my projects done. Also the part about maintaining one voice, trusting our guts and also being careful who you give it to - SO important! This question is very very timely for me. Thanks for this!

chatterton at 2014-04-19 11:55:30:

I find writer's groups to be useful for four reasons: 1. Getting feedback on my work. 2. Honing the ability to analyse other's work in a meaningful way. 3. Encouragement and comaradery. 4. A plausible excuse for getting out of the house. You do have to walk a fine line regarding feedback: You have to differentiate between useful and useless feedback. You'll get both. The useful feedback has definitely helped me tighten up scripts and find weak points that need improving. So learn to listen. A general rule of thumb I've found is that if something doesn't work for an entire table of writers, it doesn't work at all. The biggest benefit I've received from writer's groups involves comedy scripts: You find out which jokes work. Laughter is involuntary, so if an entire table laughs at a joke, you know it works. This is invaluable information. I've had what I considered throwaway jokes send an entire table into convulsions. I was lucky to find out these jokes worked before I excised them from subsequent drafts. The Marx Brothers actually used to perform their movies before live audiences before filming to find out what worked. They even timed the amount of space needed for laughter this way. Their best movies used this approach. So if you're writing comedy specs, join a writer's group.