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YOU HAVE BEFORE YOU the pages. Pen in hand, you mull over the title, turn the cover and read "FADE IN" aloud and, during the next hour, hour and a half, commit yourself to the task of reading the screenplay another has written, evaluating its merit, and noting between its margins passages and aberrations which deflect your ability to reach the phrase that signals the end of your tour: FADE TO BLACK. What is at issue here is the mindset of the one doing the critiquing.

There are many out there who, when faced with critiquing a script, feel obligated to find fault in its contents. It becomes their Prime Directive and it titillates them. The prospect of espousing their views, regardless of how sound or not, often results in copious scribbles sweeping through every page in what amounts to nothing more than a pompous effort to inflate in others the delusion that they themselves possess of being some kind of expert in the genre. In a workshop environment that offers feedback from a number of peers, it is easier to dismiss these kinds of critiques. Besides, the louder someone talks the less likely they are to be heard.

What it comes down to is what you should be looking for when you critique a script. There's a lot of room for subjectivity during this process. And too easy is the temptation to find fault with what's written merely because you would have written it differently. But the fact is, you didn't write this script and it's not your job to rewrite it.

Keeping this in mind, here then is a summary of how I approach script critique. Let me say first that I read to enjoy. To be swept inside a story of provocative characters confronted by combustible circumstances. The only thing I'm looking to do during the course of the ride is excise any element that tests my patience to do that. Any sentence that even remotely confuses me, I question. Any action description that breaks up the natural cadence of characters conversing, I either scratch or move. Every parenthetical buried in dialogue I ponder whether its omission would be noticed by the reader and, if not, cut it. Otherwise, I try to move it to action. I listen as much with my eyes as do my ears to the sound of dialogue, and whether the characters are talking to each other or at each other. Each time the scene shifts to another denoted by a slugline, I mentally note the smoothness of the transition and determine if the previous scene played out completely or droned beyond purpose. Every time an atmosphere or action description rambles past the gist of which is already pictured in my mind, I circle the key words or phrases that convey what's needed by the reader and cut all the rest. When action description moves beyond an overview and into a play-by-play recitation of movements, I cut it. If the hero is described as "handsome," I cut it. If the heroine is described as "beautiful," I cut it. If dialogue repeats facts during the same scene without good reason, I cut it. If the best lines are buried in the action description and not where they should be for the audience to savor it, I cut it out and move to the mouths of the characters. If I've heard a line too many times in too many movies before, I cut it. If a secondary character is identified as a stereotype but serves no purpose as such, I cut the reference. If a scene offers me nothing new, no fresh information, confrontation or challenge for the characters, I cut it.

There's more, I'm sure, but because of space limitations I cut it. Point is, after trimming all this fat you've left the author with the meat. A well run workshop, like a good trainer, will tone the muscles needed to carry the story.

Unfortunately, as far as the best structure for running a screenplay read & critique workshop, even here the approaches conflict. Some workshop leaders require the authors to read script pages aloud then open the group up for discussion. Some require anybody other than the author to read the pages aloud. Some assign character roles from the script to different members of the group to then "perform" the script. Some require the author to bring copies of pages for all to read at home, then discuss them during workshop. What all share, however, is that the workshop itself will assume the mood and character of its leader.

The mood of my workshop, for instance, is that of a benevolent dictatorship. Everybody takes 15 to 20 pages home from each script, reads them, critiques them, then brings them in to dissect them. I do the talking. I have my say and if I feel anybody has anything substantive to add, I let them know. If I omit something pertinent an astute member of the workshop will recognize the error of my ways and raise the issue for discussion. What remains tantamount to the successful workshop is not that we find fault, but that we instead fix it. We knock our heads together to fill the holes in the story. We eliminate surplus to construct more solid scenes. We explore the motives of the characters and give them individuality through dialogue and conduct. We ensure that not one passage of a single page will prompt another reader to consider not reading forward. In short, we pop the hood and troubleshoot what's broken.

During this process, unless asked a direct question, the author of the script is to shut-up. Period. There is no excuse for defending work that fails to communicate to the reader precisely what the author had intended. The author's responsibility is to listen, then go home and digest the reams of scribbling and all that's been said and fix it.

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