"Hey, Can You Read This for Me?"

The beginnings, maybe, of an etiquette primer.

Apologies that I’m posting this a little later in the day than usual.  I just got down to New Orleans to visit my parents and forgot to finalize it before leaving…

Q.

Hi George,

Hope everything is nice in your vacation thinking about life after death!

One of my friends who is writing screenplays has made a habit of giving me his screenplays to read, for feedback.  I like it; it gives me much joy in having the sensation that my feedback is helping the guy and also starts a conversation about writing for the cinema.

So, all is nice.

But…

His requests are many. Sometimes he wants me to read rewrites for a 5^th or 6^th time.

I have done so and found out that after 3, max 4, reads I have nothing more to say.

I am not his editor nor his co-writer, I feel the need to mention.

In a way I feel sorry because I've told him, the max I can read is 3, but in a way I am also thinking about what expectation should I have from my own friends that I seek for feedback.

How many times should we expect that friends/family/people we trust can read a piece of our writing and actually be able to give us feedback? Aren't we unloading on them too much pressure of coming up with something if we give them too many drafts? 

Are we giving too many drafts because we are anxious to get confirmation that "yes, yes, this is good!"?

Are there "good manners" in this situation?

I think many times before giving somebody something to read from my own scripts, because I feel their feedback is important, but finite. But I don't know exactly when the time is right.

Thank you so much,

A.

Well, first, let me say that you sound like a very generous friend. 😊

We all recognize the impulse, of course: a friend of ours reads a manuscript for us, likes it but has some notes.  After the rewrite, it’s natural for us to want to go back to that friend, for confirmation, that it’s finally “perfect.”

It’s a very subjective line of work we’re in, and we’re always hungry for something that looks like progress, as judged by some fixed, objective judge.

Your friend must be getting some good insights from your notes, and so I expect you are quite a good reader of his work.

However, I suppose the simple answer is: if you’ve said three reads is your limit, your friend should respect that (and you should enforce it). 

What would happen if you were to politely decline to read again? 

Well, one of two things, I bet: 1) he would then have to rely on his own feelings about the story (a good thing) or 2) he would now have to find another reader (also, potentially, a good thing).

Regarding the first possibility…

Your friend is, in a certain sense, counting on you to finish his story (i.e., by finally having no notes).  But that is, of course, his work.  He’s the only one who can really finish it.

This is a problem I sometimes see in workshops.  We get addicted to the consensus mind and lose track of our own vision.  Or, trying to get the big “OK!” from the group, we forget that what the world really wants from us is our own form of realized excess.  It wants us to accomplish what shouldn’t have been possible, and only came into being because of our maniacal insistence on searching for it, by our own lights, for all of those lonely months in the wilderness.

My approach has always been to work in solitude as long as I can.  That is: as long as the story keeps talking to me (keeps telling me ways in which it could be improved), I don’t want to show it to anybody.  As soon as someone weighs in, I feel that much less free – if they praise the story, it freezes; if they hate it, it wilts.

I think it’s a good thing to learn to live with that (very natural) feeling of badly wanting to show it to someone.  To train ourselves in feeling this way: “This is getting so good, and I really want to share it with someone, BUT I know that if I don’t share it just now, it will get even better.”

I get a lot of requests to read people’s work and I am generally very firm about (mostly) declining. 

The reason is three-fold:       

First, I’ve found that I have a very limited bandwidth when it comes to reading fiction with the intent of critiquing – and I have to save this for my Syracuse students.  (And for my own work, of course).

Second, I’ve found that my notes aren’t particularly helpful on a one-time basis.  (It’s a bit like somebody going to a doctor for one visit only.)  It’s important for me to get to know the writer and her work, and to have seen how she responds to notes and how she revises.  It’s hard to give useful advice, in other words, apart from an understanding of who that particular writer is.

Third (and this may touch a bit on your case, dear questioner): I’m a big believer in the idea that, at some point, the work has to go out into the big bad world. 

In the land of the short story, for example, a story has to be read by an actual editor, who’s being asked, by the writer, to consider putting the story into his magazine.  I see this as a form of “eliminating the middleman.” 

With screenplays, as in your friend’s case, it’s harder, I’m guessing – an “acceptance” is rarer, in part because to make a movie takes a lot of money and so on.  And, from what I understand, it’s harder to get a read from someone inside the industry if you…aren’t in it. 

But still: at some point, we have to reckon with the idea that a work of art wants to go out into the world alongside a lot of others and be judged accordingly.

Maybe your friend has, or is seeking, an agent?  That’s another group of people who get paid to have an opinion and, of course, as is the case with editors, their opinions are refined, world-tested – that editor or agent is reading a lot of manuscripts and will be comparing your friend’s manuscript to a huge pool of other aspirants: a valuable thing, in my opinion.

And you could just say to your friend, “You know, I think I’ve taken this about as far as I can.  Maybe it’s time to try to sell it?”

Now, you also asked this question for yourself, wondering whether it’s polite to ask this favor of your friends and family and, if so, how often.  That, of course, is beyond my ability to answer.  Depends on your friends and family, for sure. 

But I think it’s good to ask ourselves what we hope to get from a read by an outside party.  Does this person have a good sense of the form?  Have their notes actually proved helpful in the past?  Anyone who reads a manuscript will have a reaction; is their reaction one you want and need? 

In other words, I think we want to wean ourselves from the idea that “any read is a good read.”

Here, too, I’d say: be very judicious about asking someone else to read something of yours.  Maybe wait until you’ve done everything you can and feel that the work is really done.  Or, maybe you’ve run into a genuine wall and really don’t know what else to do. 

We wouldn’t want there to be too much low-hanging fruit for our reader to discover – we should have done that work already.  Likewise, make sure the format and syntax and spelling are all above reproach (this is a particular fetish of mine – it kind of irritates me if I find these “easy” errors in a work someone has asked me to review).

We’re asking our friend for a significant investment of time and attention.  Let’s give her something worthy of her time, on which we’ve done everything we can.

Finally, it occurs to me to turn this over to all of you, and especially to ask you to weigh in on these three questions:

1. When you give someone a manuscript of yours, what do you want back?  That is, what helps you the most?  What helps the least?

2. When someone gives you a manuscript, how do you approach it?  What of value, in particular, are you able to offer?

3. How often do you ask others to read for you?  What etiquette, if any, do you observe?