MOST COMMON NOTES FROM SCRIPT FEEDBACK
Through my script consultancy, over 18 years, I have now fed back on over 2300 different projects (screenplays, radio plays, stage plays, outlines, treatments, etc).
I often find myself giving the same notes. And I thought it might be helpful to share with you some of the notes I give most frequently so that you can consider these questions when you’re working on your own project.
‘I don’t understand what this means.’
Perhaps I’m particularly dim but this happens SO frequently – it’s about a lack of clarity in the storytelling – and / or the presentation. Often it’s about something that is clear in your mind’s eye – but isn’t being communicated clearly on the page. At a certain point, it’s so important to try and achieve some emotional distance from your script and try to read it objectively – to imagine it from the POV of someone coming to it fresh with no foreknowledge.
‘The presentation is not a strength of the script.’
‘Typo / formatting error.’ (SO many of these!) Sometimes the script is so good that this seems unimportant. But more often it’s a symptom of the script needing more work (in many different ways – if you are struggling to format the script correctly, chances are you will also be struggling to tell your story as well as you could.)
‘I don’t think you need the selective capitals in the directions.’
A particular bugbear – in which CERTAIN words in the DIRECTIONS are capitalised with no discernible rationale for why.
‘You need to read as many professional screenplays as possible to get a stronger sense of how to most effectively communicate your story on the page.’
Would you write a novel if you’d never read a novel? And yet I do sometimes get scripts from writers who have clearly never read a script. I can give you my multitude of opinions about how best to present your story on the page (both in terms of clarity of presentation and effectiveness of storytelling) but there is no substitute for reading a shedload of scripts – good and bad – and coming to your own conclusions about what works best in the way you present your story on the page.
‘Cut unfilmable directions / writer’s commentary.’
ie don’t tell the reader things that won’t be accessible to the audience – as readers, we want to imagine this as a film. As writer, you need to make the experience of reading the script as close as possible to how it will feel to watch the film (or TV show). This is what screenwriting software is designed to enable.
‘At times I think the dialogue feels over-written… Some of these dialogue scenes would work better if they were much shorter – and this would help drive the pace and momentum of the story.’
I read so many scenes that would be vastly improved by cutting 75% of the dialogue. Economy is an under-rated quality.
‘The way you tell the story and paint this world feels more generic than distinctive.’
Too many scripts read like too many other scripts – rather than being absolutely their own thing. It’s a tricky balance between writing something original and distinctive on the one hand – but that on the other hand also acknowledges and recognises what is possible within the context of the contemporary TV and film landscape. Often effective research is the key to being specific / distinctive rather than generic.
‘Overall, I think you may just have too many characters. It’s hard to do justice to so many characters within a single feature film – the story material is spread too thinly between so many different people.’
I often suggest writers conduct a major character cull – either cutting or conflating – so that every single character has a clear role, their own story. Too often, writers have more characters than they can possibly do story justice to.
‘You introduce a lot of characters in the first ten pages – and I find it hard to identify each of them and distinguish between them all.’
In terms of identifying and distinguishing between characters, reading a script is a lot harder than watching the film. You need to factor this into the way you introduce characters. Every character’s entrance needs to make an impact; and every single introduction / description of a character needs to help the reader visualise the character in question. An introduction like – ‘Tom, Ben, Martin, Alex and Steve (all M, 20’s) enter.’ – demoralises me as a reader.
‘Too much of the dialogue involves straightforward discussion. It’s very hard to make ‘discussion’ and ‘conversation’ compelling unless there’s a strong narrative subtext.’
‘…the way you tell the story is too heavily predicated on expositional dialogue, not enough on action and visual storytelling.’
These two above are similar – dialogue needs to be about more than information / exposition. Dialogue needs a subtext, exposition needs to be disguised and dramatized.
In conclusion – professional readers like me – and like every industry gatekeeper who will read your work – become disproportionately over-sensitive to the more predictable things that don’t work in a script, as with all the above listed. Think hard about the way you tell your story and present your script. The more work and thought you put into it, the better it’s going to be. Good luck!
I hope this is helpful and doesn’t feel like an extended whinge. I wouldn’t have read and fed back on this many scripts if it wasn’t a genuine pleasure. I love reading scripts and stories and trying to help you figure out a way to elevate and improve them.
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CREATIVITY FOR SCRIPTWRITERS
I will be running this course in central London on Saturday June 13th. A day spent doing a series of fun creative exercises that will help re-energise your writing, arm you with new ideas, characters and stories – in a warm, supportive, non-judgemental setting. This day is always a lot of fun – and many brilliant story ideas have come out of it. (Several of which are referenced in my screenwriting book!)
Guest speaker for the day is playwright / novelist / screenwriter / political activist, the brilliant ANDERS LUSTGARTEN.
https://script-consultant.co.uk/creativity-for-scriptwriters/
The next newsletter will be out on Friday June 12th.
Best wishes
Phil
PHILIP SHELLEY
Friday May 29th 2026