Screenwriting : How To Tell the Truth To a Writer by Bill Costantini

i keep it totally craft-based. like, "this plot point isn't earned" or "the protagonist's goal isn't clear" or "the stakes need to be a bit higher." (but that's cause i'm not as funny as you :0P a little humor goes a long way...)

I agree with the way you do it Shari

A fire hydrant as protagonist. What a delightful idea! EXT. STREET CORNER - NIGHT NEW YORK, 1972 Street walkers dressed in multi-colored hot pants, tight blouses and feather boas stand around smoking and waiting for business. Various other salty looking characters mill about the run down neighborhood; and at the edge of an alley, several winos partake of Thunderbird and Ripple. On the corner, vigilantly standing his post is HARRY (28), a hard bitten public servant with a faded red coat. His complexion is cracked and he’s as solid as cast iron... Wait, he is cast iron. His fixed expression conveys the look of a guy that’s seen a lot over the years. You might say life has passed him by. A sexy young hooker struts her stuff and Harry whistles at her. The woman acts like she can’t hear him. Sitting only steps from Harry, his best friend BUSTER (26), a proud, old bench where people waiting for a bus can plant their fat posteriors. Across Buster’s chest is a sign advertising the United States Navy. HARRY How you doing Buster? BUSTER Six pigeons crapped on my deck an hour ago. How do you think I’m doing? HARRY Just cause you have a navy tee shirt doesn’t make you a ship. BUSTER And who made you so high and mighty? HARRY I’m calibrated every three months by the FDNY. Buster raises his bench brows. BUSTER Alright you got credentials. I’ll give you that. HARRY Listen, my life’s no picnic either. This morning, some Jack Russell urinated on me without a by your leave. I would have kicked him but I can’t leave my post. Buster roars with LAUGHTER. BUSTER You can’t leave because you’re bolted to cement you idiot. Harry deliberates for a minute. HARRY You got a point.

(Insert name here) we've known each other for several weeks now, and I feel that I know you well enough to be honest with you. Please don't take it wrong but mmmm.... your baby is ugly. NOoo! it's not! IT's beautiful! It's my BABBY!!!! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??? Sorry--it's pretty, ah....hideous, really, ah... NO IT'S NOT!!! HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT!!!! ARE YOU BLIND!????? NO! really-- take a good a good look at it. You see? Oh.....You know you're right? But, I still love it. goo goo goo goo Of course you do, and maybe if you feed it better grammar and take some time to nurture it, and feed some words to it that make a little more sense, then maybe someday, it'll be a little less ugly. And you can maybe take it out in public for a walk, if you cover it up in a burka.. i HATE YOU!!! ' The next day he'll be thanking you for the advice.

Strong 'advice sometimes motivates people to greatness, and sometimes it completely takes the wind out of their sails. When I (we) were just getting our TV script off the ground, a friend of my co-writer ( a former service and FBI guys) gave me something between your first and second examples, Peter, and I went through a broad range of emotions! But, I thanked him (not my first gut instinct-I wanted to tell him off) and I took another look at it. Several months later, I look back and realize that for where we were, we didn't need to be coddled, and he knew that the road we were on needed a level of...I don't know, dedication maybe--but, it did cause me to take nothing for granted and to double down on my efforts. If he had just told me it was great then, we would never have gotten to the point now where it's a lot harder to poke holes into it--my latest professional critiques were closer to 3- which, again has motivated me (us) to look at it closely again. My co writer told me early on that we were going to have to make our script bullet proof- but that doesn't mean that you compromise on the 'vision'-.

True that!

Love it.

Cholent Boy-- "How to Tell the truth to a writer": My takes: 1) Have you ever though of going back to telemarketing? 2) I understand McDonalds is hiring, 3) What's that smell oh my god it's coming from your script. 4)You really think George Clooney would wear a dress? 4) Why do you kill off so many people in the first 10 pages? Who's left? Yours were better I just wanted to have a little fun between my writing and editing and networking for the day. Yeah another cold snowy day on the Isle of Manhattan. Time for a Starbucks run. Later.

Philip Hardy- You got a good one there, maybe too seedy and adult for Pixar. But it has potential. Maybe I liked it because I am a native New Yorker and you painted a NYC street scene perfectly. Good stuff.

What aspect of his screen play is 'off'?- I think with anything there has to be a 'knack.' One can have a 'knack' at one aspect of 'writing'-- such as coming up with a really good premise, ideas, etc., but not be a really good 'writer' as far as ability to craft the words together, and so on. You haven't really given us very good information as to what the heck is wrong with It? Years ago, I tried to write a screen play- it had a really great premise, but, the story got a little out of hand, and ehhh..--so, I put it on the back burner. I graduated from college with a journalism degree, so, I wasn't terrible by any means, but, my writing was just not as 'smooth' as it should have been for a screen play to compete in the 'real world'--it was frustrating. Flash forward to about 10 years ago, when I decided to learn Spanish, and I applied my OCD (no, I don't wash my hands a lot or anything--I just tend to spend massive of amounts of time on whatever I'm into) to the 'project'.; Over the course of about 3 years or so, I had copied and written well over a MILLION words as part of my attempt to learn a new language. I copied the ENTIRE unabridged Spanish/English dictionary-both Spanish and English sides. Copied every definition and word 50 times-- I even copied the appendices, and the Latin roots. Today, I can understand Spanish pretty well, and I can communicate in it if I have to, but, I learned English WAY better than I had known it before! I'm not going to say that I am a good writer, or I'm not, but I guarantee you that I'm f'n better than I was before I did that almost unfathomable task. After I get done with my current project-my TV show; "Eden's Outpost" (Insert shameless promotion here- Hell yer!) , I plan on revisiting that screen play, and this time the words on the page will match the coolness of the crazy story that goes with it. Are you a better writer than he is?