Who here has a blue star script on Triggerstreet?

I don't mean to sound like a jackass, but no, I'm not impressed with the scripts on Triggerstreet. I would suggest reading the complimentary ScriptShark coverage provided to the scripts of the month--not because ScriptShark is the final arbiter of what is good and bad, but because you can get the opinions of at least one professional reader.

About once every four or five months a Triggerstreet script gets a "consider," usually with reservations. The rest of the blue star scripts are (quite justifiably) torn apart.

When I want to get depressed about my writing I read scripts that have been made. The setup and twist in "The Sixth Sense." The writing and restraint in "Chinatown." The dialog and characterization in almost anything by the Coen brothers. You can find many of those scripts online at Drew's script-o-rama or at your local library or university.

I guess what I'm saying is that I would spend more time reading great scripts and studying what makes them great. Perhaps with that perspective your opinions of the Triggerstreet scripts will change--not because you are becoming a snob, but because you're starting to internalize what a screenplay needs to succeed.

Good luck.

I have a blue star from Trigger Street, and I posted a revision recently. The link is on my personal page which is linked here. (And I put the first 5 up in Share Your Work.) Dig in.

MrEarbrass, I agree that having pros review your work is good. You can also have lots of peers review it, and figure out what the consensus is. I consider Trigger Street as well as Share Your Work at AW to be an essential boot camp for anyone who is serious about being a professional writer. And yes both are overrun with poseurs, and amateurs, and the just plain clueless. If you want to find a gem, you dig through dross like anything else in life.

As to not finding the next Chinatown or The Sixth Sense in here, well, what can I say. Hollywood's legacy and the legacy of literature in general is comprised of a few legends, and a few tenacious professionals, and what Chris Rock described as "a whole lotta substitute teachers". If I am deluded in thinking I have talent and insight, and there are plenty of people telling me I am - I can beat up on myself, thank you - then you and everyone in here is deluded too.

Amen, Mario.

Along this topic, there is one thing that I really gets to me.

Granted, there are too many people these days who are fascinated and even obsessed with the idea or wealth and fame, and the glamour that they see radiating off of Hollywood and the movie industry, and so many people are "jumping on the band wagon" and swearing that they will be famous and they've "got what it takes". (Just look at American Idol.) Truth be told; not many of them have what it takes, not many at all. Some of those who believe themselves to be the next Speilburg are, in fact, the clueless ones, though they believe with all their heart that someday, it will work out for them.

So, at places like Triggerstreet and AW, we run into all those different "types" of writers who, incidentally, are the ones who critique us when we share our work.

What bothers me about this is that, though some are the "good writers" who really do know their stuff, too many are actually the "clueless" ones. Tarantino himself could post the first ten pages, and other forum members would rip him apart and tell him that the work just isn't good enough.

This has caused me a lot of problems because there are so many opinions and ideals pulling my writing in so many directions, critiquing it (even though they may not be giving me valuable or even relevant suggestions) and judging it with a not-so-pro opinion that, now, when I sit down to write, all I can think of is how "wrong" everything is going to be.

Bottom line; I think that a writer needs to get the technical information, the how-tos and what-not-to-do's, and just move on. It all goes back to the fact that you CANNOT please everyone, all of the time. No matter how good the work is, no matter how well it could actually do in the hands of Hollywood players, you'd never know as long as you have board users telling you that they think everything about it is wrong/not interesting/blah blah blah.

Thank you, Gopher! It's all about the consensus. When I find readers aren't getting past some kind of issue - e.g. nobody likes the lead character, nobody buys the act 3 twist - it's time for a rewrite. And pointing out grammar mistakes will prompt me to get to proofreading about 80 times, and that leads to thinking more about the structure as you get sick of reading the same scene day after day...

But someone out there will hate your work anyway, and you just can't please everyone. Not only that, you shouldn't try to please everyone, unless they're offering you a sale I know how desperate I am for that sale, but at the end of the day, if you don't have a spine about what you spend your life doing, that's quite sad. And rattling someone's cage is a good thing, sometimes.