available at writersconference.com

THE SCREENWRITING WORKSHOP. What's it worth? How's it run? How much it cost? Who runs it? And what's in it for me? These are the questions you should be asking yourself if you're out there wrestling a first script on your own, isolated from those who have an understanding, appreciation, and genuine interest in the art form. Because it's too easy to turn your precious pages over to someone near or acquainted with you who is, at best, an undisciplined reader.

I don't want to get into the old rehash about your MCI circle not wanting to hurt your feelings by saying they don't like your work. Real friends and caring family would have the consideration to alleviate the burden of suspicious knowing we carry of them, their wickedly deceitful, "kind" remarks, and tell us strait out what they really think--that this script sucks! Or that character blows! But they don't. And if they do, what do they know, anyway? They never supported you. Now you've got something to show for your time and they're just jealous. They never believed in your dream. Just a pipedream, they quipped. A phase. Something you fiddled with in your spare time. You'd never actually finish it.

But ya did finish it, Blanche, ya did, and what you need to know now is simply what's wrong with it. Why won't somebody cut you a check for it. Though maybe there are those around you who can tell you what's wrong with it in a round-about way, "I don't like the hero," what you really want to know is what specifically about the hero isn't likable? More important, you want to know how specifically you might fix it?

This is where a screenwriting workshop can be valuable. I stress can because in my experience too many screenwriting workshop/seminar leaders/teachers fail to adequately address and satiate the single most important motivation for a writer to participate in their "class." For the real writer, the writer actively working to craft a commercially viable, professionally written screenplay for which complete strangers will be induced to conspire and buy, the motivation is simply to obtain insightful feedback that pinpoints specific problematic scenes, characters, situations or structure that exist in his or her script, then provide possible remedies.

It sounds selfish, I know, but at our core we're all narcissistic opportunists deluded by the assumption we have something valuable to say to a nameless public who should jump at the opportunity to part with hard-earned money to hear it. But all this talk of tightly spun paradigms and the post mortem of "classic movie structures" is so vague and malleable that you can apply it to almost any story, regardless of genre, and it still won't fix your script. Everybody's always talking about structure because supposedly it's the secret to success. You want to know what structure is? Structure is a Beginning that leads to a Middle which concludes with an End. Tada! So why doesn't anybody like my hero?

What you need, want and should expect to get out of a workshop is direct feedback on your script. And for this information you should be prepared to give the same feedback to your peers that you yourself hope to receive. I'm not talking about "attaboys," unless they're due. I'm talking well thought-out critiques of areas where credibility was jeopardized, continuity lapsed, interest waned, structure jarred or dialogue stilted, then specific reasons as to why. When possible, every effort should be made to provide suggestions on how your colleagues can best approach fixing it. Because that's what you want, isn't it? A quick fix. You're still going to have to sit down and do the work.

Assuming that you can find or form a workshop that affords equal opportunity to the tortuous analysis of your script, the key to all this feedback actually working is your mindset. If you're unwilling to listen to negative comments, chances are you're script isn't ready for presentation. If you have to make excuses and viscerally defend aspects of your script that fail to communicate during the initial read the things that you wish communicated, then you are not ready to be considered professionally. Weeding out comments of substance from the drivel some like to think of as sound and constructive criticism is the challenge. Next issue, we'll bite into the meat of effective screenwriting read & critique.

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