So after getting two sets of feedback within about a week of each other, I was just…wow!
This was a lot to process. There were definitely positives that both competitions had noted. As well as areas of improvement. Even though I had gotten feedback from Finish Line first, because the phone call with Page Turners was coming up first, their analysis was what I chose to focus on.
Although both had offered several pages of constructive feedback, I was so excited when I got the feedback from Page Turners. Finish Line was good as well, and pointed me in a direction of what to focus on, but there was something different about the notes Page Turners.
It wasn’t that I agreed with everything in the notes. In fact, I was ready to argue one of the first points they made, about revising the title. It’s always a pet peeve of mine on behalf of the writer when I see in the credits that it’s based on a book or story of a different name. To me, there was obviously something that attracted someone to adapt this into a movie, and aside from extreme examples where the author’s original title wouldn’t have made for a marketable movie title (some Philip K. Dick stories come to mind), or where the story is good, but obscure, possibly because of the title, I always would rather see an adaptation is based on a story with an eponymous name.
Despite that and some other small points where I was ready to stand my ground, I think what stood out to me was the level of feedback I was getting from Page Turners. This wasn’t so much that it was in depth, critiquing every little thing in the script. It was more that the focus wasn’t on surface level things. Finish Line had gone beyond grammar and punctuation in their notes, bringing up points of the story that I should address better.
This analysis was going beyond that. It felt like it was delving into the inner workings of the story, to weed out any deficiencies and mold it into the best version of itself.
The best example of this was the instructions of the different levels that each character was operating off of: taking the external stakes they’re addressing, and then delving deeper to the internal and philosophical stakes that shape them and their actions, as well as the secret they harbor. This note, which spanned several of the pages of feedback, had me critically analyzing my own characters, to make sure I could answer these questions, not just to the judge, but also to myself.
What’s more, I felt that if I tackled this feedback first, this would help me out with the feedback from Finish Line as well, in part because some of the notes echoed each other (this was something I was looking for after all, areas to improve that were common in multiple notes). I also felt that by attaining this higher level and bringing it out in revisions, my submission to Finish Line would be all the more stronger.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited to be told I needed to improve my work.