Update on my book project: getting feedback.

When it comes to my book writing project, it has to be said that it has taken a lot of work to make the story work. It hasn't been easy to make the story good enough so that I could feel comfortable about sharing it with others.

After all, if your draft isn't good enough, it becomes so difficult to let others check the quality of your writings. It's not easy to give them a chance to read the script and give feedback when there are too many problems with the story and how it's told.

Nevertheless, once I felt that my draft for the book was decent enough, I gave my reader a chance to take a look at it. I gave her (my manager) a chance to read the story, so that she could give me feedback on how to make it better.

So when it comes to the feedback that I got from her, I have to say that her feedback was really well thought out. She managed to find out different problems and noted whether these issues were really important or just minor issues that should likely be fixed.

In any case, when it comes to those 'less than critical issues', she noted that I needed to fix stuff like making sure that the characters sounded their age. I hadn't managed to polish the script so that the characters would always sound as believable as possible. 

The reason for this is that when you have a nine year old female protagonist in your story, you have to be careful with the language and the descriptions that you use. Kids don't understand all the things that we adults are able grasp when it comes to life.

In her 'token' feedback, there was also some other fairly minor, mostly language stuff that I needed to fix. These issues had to do with finding better words or sayings for situations that I had somewhat overlooked earlier in the process.

The good thing about all these 'less than critical' problems is that they aren't really that difficult to fix. Once you become aware of them, you can correct these mistakes pretty quickly without having to worry or stress about them that much.

However, the most important feedback that she gave me had to do with a thing that wasn't really that easy to fix. I hadn't thought about the plausibility of one of the scenes that was really crucial in the way the story was constructed.

By that I mean that there was a scene in the script - as it stood - that wasn't plausible (social service legal stuff). I needed to create a workaround for the problem, so that the scene would be plausible enough in real life too.

Not surprisingly, at first I wasn't feeling that confident about the situation that I found myself in. I wasn't that confident that I would be able to find a solution for the problem easily, since I felt that I would have to rewrite the scene almost completely.

After all, had I needed to scrub the scene entirely, I would have been in really big trouble. Since the scene in question happened to be a setup for another storyline, without the existing scene, I would have to come up with tons of new stuff for the story.

Fortunately, when it comes to fixing the problem and the plausibility issues, it didn't turn out to be that difficult to come up with a solution than I had thought at first. It wasn't impossible, even though I did have my doubts and even though I did have to work hard.

After all, as long as I managed to address all the points that my reader had brought up in her notes, I was okay. I just needed to come up with a solid workaround that made the scene plausible and that wasn't too out of character for my protagonist.

In that sense, now that I've gotten reader feedback and have written a new draft, it cannot be emphasized enough how important it is to go through this part of the writing process. It's crucial that you let others read your script and get that feedback at some point.

After all, even though it isn't necessarily easy to let others read your script, giving them an opportunity to evaluate your writings pays off. It will make it so much easier to see the problems in the story (character, language, structure, plausibility etc.).

In the end, that is what being a solid, professional writer really is about. It's about taking that chance and giving your readers the opportunity to take a look at what you've managed to do with your project and not chicken out.

After all, even though they might not be professional readers, that's not a reason to ignore them. You shouldn't be thinking that they're not good enough and that you need to have some kind of a 'guru' to review your script instead.

On the contrary, even though they might not know everything about writing, they still very likely know whether your story works. They know enough to tell whether you're on the right track and what are the things that you still need to improve.

In that sense, not giving them a chance will only lead to you hurting yourself in the process. Not giving them a chance to read will only hurt you and will make it much less likely that you'll create a story that has value and that is eventually going to be worth publishing.

How to prepare for those *bad* days as a writer?

When it comes to being a writer, probably everyone has moments when you can't stand your own writing. No matter who you are, there are moments when you just lose it and feel that you can't manage to get anything right.

This is especially true when it comes to projects that are demanding and time consuming. When you're dealing with projects that take months to complete, it's almost guaranteed that you'll have moments when everything seems to fall apart. 

So when it comes to these 'meltdown' moments - that might even lead to throwing away your script -  you should be prepared for them. Even though you can't prevent these bad days from happening, you can certainly be prepared for them. 

Below are the most important tips for those who tend to have these really awful days as a writer. Following these simple tips will help you and will likely prevent you from doing anything too stupid during your writing projects.

1) Make sure you have a writing schedule that isn't too tight.

If it's only possible, make sure that you reserve enough time for your writing projects. You should have a writing schedule that allows you to make mistakes and that leaves you enough time to get everything (at least most of the things) figured out.

After all, everyone - no matter how talented or experienced you are - makes mistakes as a writer. No one is able to everything right in their first draft, no matter how hard you might be willing to work on your precious project.

In my case, even though I have a pretty tight writing routine, I try to give myself enough time to figure things out. I reserve at least two days for my articles, at least two weeks for my television scripts and a month / several months for movie / book writing projects.

2) Don't write or read your script when you're too tired.

This point should be fairly obvious, but in reality cannot be emphasized enough. If you're too stressed and tired from other things in life, you shouldn't be forcing yourself to write or read demanding stuff if it looks like things won't go your way.

After all, if you're too tired, there's a good chance that you'll freak out and start 'panic editing' your script - especially during a rewrite phase. In these cases you'll make horrible editing choices, and will make your script worse.

In my case, especially if I have had to speak in front of an audience during the day (I'm an introvert) and have had other exhausting tasks, I try not to write much that day. I try to take it easy and work on something else so that things won't get out of control.

3) Know the difference between big and small mistakes.

Even though no one likes making mistakes, you should be able to differentiate big mistakes from relatively small ones. There's clearly a difference between making a big structural mistake and making a simple typo in your screenplay.

After all, no matter how surprised you might be that missed a tiny typo, there's no point in freaking out over these mistakes. 99% of the time, they don't really lessen the value of your script, even though you might be thinking that at first.

In my case, I have tried not to get too bothered about small mistakes anymore. I know that they are easy to fix and even if I don't manage to notice them, those who read my script later won't care about them that much either.

4) Know how to use writing tools / writing software.

One of the things that I have only learned lately is that writing programs have pretty sophisticated 'undo' buttons. It's possible to go back all the way to your first edit of your current session, which can turn out to be really useful.

After all, there are times when you spend hours rewriting stuff without making your script any better. In these cases simply clicking the 'undo'-button will fairly quickly get you back to your earlier draft and you can take another shot at your project.

In my case, especially with my never ending book project, this undo-button has been a real life saver. It has allowed me go back to an earlier version of a draft / paragraph when I haven't managed to improve my draft during a writing session.

5) Remember to take enough copies of your script.

Furthermore, now that pretty much everyone uses a personal computer, saving and taking copies of your script has never been easier. You don't need to use a typewriter and a printer to get extra copies of your manuscript anymore.

The reason to have multiple copies of your scripts on different platforms is to prevent any 'accidents' from happening. If something happens to your copy of the script - laptop breaks down or you'll have an emotional breakdown - you'll have your backups.

In my case, I have multiple copies of my script on both my desktop and my laptop. I upload drafts of my screenplays to my email account and to my google drive, in case something unexpected would happen to my pc or to myself.

6) Understand that you can't always control everything.

In the end, when you put it all together, it's really important that you know that you can't always control things as a writer. Your mind will sometimes pull all kinds of tricks on you and you can't always rely on your brain to work.

After all, there are days when your brain simply won't agree to co-operate with you - no matter how good things might seem at first. There are going to be days when you won't write good stuff regardless of how 'prepared' you might be.

In that sense, the faster you notice that you need to take a break, the better. The faster you understand that you won't able to get things done that day, the easier it is to walk away from the situation and do something else instead.

'Incredibles 2' was a pretty disappointing movie.

When it comes to watching movies, I don't usually have high expectations for most films that are out there. In most cases I tend to keep my expectations relatively low, so that I wouldn't get too disappointed when I see these movies. 

The only exception to this 'rule' is when we're talking about animated films. In these cases I know that most of the time I'm going to see a fairly solid, well made movie that is going to entertain me and keep me happy. 

So naturally, when I was about to watch an animated film called 'Incredibles 2' last week, I knew there was a good chance that I was going to like it. The movie had gotten great reviews and the first one in the franchise had been pretty okay too.

Unfortunately, when it comes to this second film, I have to say that I did not like it that much. Even though most critics gave the film a positive review (94% at rottentomatoes.com), I had a really hard time enjoying the movie.

The biggest reason that I didn't like 'Incredibles 2' had to do with the film's story. The screenplay for the movie was really weak and didn't warrant its almost two hour running time (2 hours and 5 minutes with credits).

By that I mean that there simply wasn't much of a story in the movie. The main storyline, in which the mother character becomes a reality star in order to 'save' the heroes and make them legal, was just too weak and didn't go anywhere.

In reality, pretty much all the story beats in the movie were severely lacking. Especially then ones that happened after the film's catalyst - when the family moves in to the producer's house - were genuinely terrible and awful.

For example, the subplot in which the father - 2nd act's 'fun & games' beat - parenting their kids was super tired and even sexist. There was no fun at all in this storyline, which didn't really seem to have any point whatsoever.

The other pretty terrible arc in the movie had to do with the scenes involving their daughter. The subplot with the daughter and her 'boyfriend' felt really half baked and was just badly written (especially the 'Men in Black' stuff).

Still, the weakest part of the movie had to do with the main storyline involving the family mother trying to catch the 'hypnotizer' villain. This was merely a collection of haphazard sequences, where we tried to find out who the bad guy was.

What was especially bad about this storyline was the identity of the villain. The mandatory villain being the producer's sister made so little sense that I more or less wanted to throw random objects at my television screen.

After all, even after the villainess gave a long monologue to the mother about her 'motive' (she hated super heroes), the stuff made no sense at all. It was simply shocking how amateurishly the story arc was written in the film.

In that sense, when you think about the movie as a whole, it's unfortunate that this was the best that the writers of the film were able to do. This was the best that they were able to come up with fourteen years after the first film premiered.

After all, as far as I can remember, the first 'Incredibles' movie was a rather well made animated film. The first one was a solid depiction of a family trying to balance their lives between being a normal family and a family of super heroes.

On the other hand, when it comes to this new movie, 'Incredibles 2' turned out to be a pretty big disappointment. It didn't manage to bring anything new to the table that would have made me care about the film or its characters.

On the contrary, pretty much all this film did was recycle tired ideas that we've all seen before. It put out half-baked story ideas that weren't good enough and that didn't have enough energy to keep us interested in what was going on.

In that sense, if you haven't yet seen 'Incredibles 2' yet, you might not want to see it. At the very least you shouldn't be getting your hopes up and think that this is going to be an awesome movie that is going to keep you entertained.

After all, despite the film's critical praise, there were too many flaws in the film. These flaws, like the movie being too long and the focus being all over the place, were mistakes that were too serious and that at least in my case, prevented me from enjoying the film.

'Bohemian Rhapsody' is a really good movie.

A couple of days ago me and my friend had a chance to watch 'Bohemian Rhapsody', a biographical movie about the band 'Queen' and its singer, Freddie Mercury. We saw the movie after getting tickets to the film's premiere last Saturday.

The reason that we decided to watch the film wasn't actually that obvious. I didn't feel that excited about watching the biopic, since a lot of the movie critics hadn't liked the movie that much (only 59% fresh on Rottentomatoes.com).

Nevertheless, having now seen 'Bohemian Rhapsody', it has to be said that the film was much better than I expected. It was so good that I don't really understand why critics thought that the movie was somehow lacking and wasn't good enough.

After all, critics - for some weird reason - have complained that movie isn't all that great as a whole. The story in the film is supposedly too 'formulaic',  it doesn't show enough of Freddie's 'dark side' and doesn't make him 'gay enough' either.

The biggest problem that I have with these kind of critiques is that they - in my opinion - miss the point of the film completely. 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was not produced so that it could be as dramatic or as serious (depressing) as possible.

In reality, the film was made so that it could be as entertaining as possible and that it could make people feel good about themselves. It wasn't going to be another 'Freddie's got Aids' movie that the critics were hoping for.

So when it comes to the story in the movie, even though the film is genuinely dramatic in parts and depicts Freddie (Rami Malek) as a gay man (or bisexual), that's not all there is to it. The focus is a lot more on the band and how it became so successful.

Indeed, this decision to pay attention to all the characters works really well. The movie concentrating on the group dynamics of the band and their creative process works much better than just focusing on Freddie's private life.

After all, throughout the movie there's a really nice balance between the cast members and it manages to keep the dramatic and the comedic elements balanced. This harmony in the story gives the movie its much needed energy and its uplifting tone.

In that sense, I can't help but to think that had the film been about Freddie and had it been too serious, it probably wouldn't have worked. The filmmakers wouldn't have managed to capture what made the band work so well together.

After all, had the critics had gotten their way, we probably would have gotten a miserable 'art' film instead. We would have gotten a movie about all the bad moments in Freddie Mercury's life, that would have only been liked by the critics.

In the end, thankfully 'Bohemian Rhapsody's' turned out to be as good as it did. We are lucky that we got a film that is so full of positive energy and that didn't take its audience for granted when it comes to entertaining us.

After all, especially when it comes to scenes where the band performs songs (like in 'Live Aid'), those moments were absolutely incredible. The energetic songs fit in perfectly with the rest of the movie and made the film what it is.

In that sense, if you haven't seen the movie yet, you should see it. You should see the film, because even though critics didn't like 'Bohemian Rhapsody' that much, at least in my view, the film was superbly made and managed to exceed all my expectations.

Your movie's story needs to be consistent.

When it comes to the craft of storytelling, it's not exactly a secret that writing good screenplays isn't easy. Writing a story that makes sense and works from start to finish isn't something that can be done if you don't take your craft seriously.

After all, there are so many mistakes that you can make with your screenplays. If you don't manage to keep your script plausible and consistent, you won't be able to come up with a story that keeps your audience entertained throughout its length.

So when it comes to an actual movie that has a lot of these consistency problems, let's look at Roland Emmerich's film 'White House Down'. This is a movie (released in 2013) that has a lot of  problems when it comes to its focus and plausibility.

In essence, the movie is about U.S Capitol Police Officer (Channing Tatum) and his daughter (Joey King). These two find themselves in the middle of a hostage situation when terrorists manage to invade and take control of the White House.

So when it comes to the story in the film, it has to be said that the first act of the movie (first 35 minutes or so) is actually rather well written. This is when the story feels plausible and you're interested in what's going on.

By that I mean that the movie - for once - doesn't rush things and takes its time in introducing us to the characters. The divorced cop (an underdog) and his smart-ass daughter are in a situation that most of us are able to relate to.

So when things finally escalate in the story, you feel that the movie has potential to be something solid. When a bomb goes off at the capitol hill and the white house gets invaded - the main protagonists are there on a tour - the movie makes sense.

However, the big problems in the film begin when it becomes apparent that the story is not that much about our protagonists. At roughly 40 minute mark, the focus of the film changes pretty drastically - and not in a good way.

After all, this is when it's revealed that this is not a simple hostage movie. It is revealed that the evil 'mastermind' of the movie is not the head of the terrorist group - but the head of the secret service detail (James Woods).

Unfortunately, from that moment on, the movie gets increasingly more convoluted and more implausible. It keeps introducing tons of new - fairly ridiculous - characters to the story that aren't needed and that make the film lose its focus.

Especially when it comes to the hacker (villain), the innocent wife of the mastermind (who agrees with the plot!) and the speaker of the house (part of the plot too), the movie falls apart. It loses its focus and isn't about the father and the girl anymore.

In that sense, when you think about this movie and screenwriting in general, it's clear that quality writing is not about making your script too convoluted. It's not a good idea to write stuff that is all over the place and that doesn't know what it's about.

After all, if you decide to come up with stupid ideas like adding completely implausible plot twists - like the convoluted plot concerning the speaker of the house - things won't work. There are clearly limits to what you're allowed to do in your scripts.

In the end, that was the reason that 'White House Down' didn't work. The writers - as unfortunate as it is - didn't trust their premise or characters and kept adding stuff that didn't make sense and that didn't raise the stakes believably.

After all, instead of the movie concentrating on the father / daughter relationship and keeping the script tighter, it did the total opposite. The film more or less went from a solid, tight movie to a ridiculous 'nukem all' mess.

In that sense, it's really unfortunate that 'White House Down' didn't have a better script. It's too bad that its script was that bad, because had the writers paid more attention to the basics, this could actually have been a fairly solid movie.

I managed to watch some movies again.

Over the last few weeks, me and my friend have managed to watch some movies together again. We managed to watch some of the recently released films that we were hoping would turn out to be worth our time and worth watching.

After all, we didn't really have that high expectations for most of these movies. We were just hoping that some of these films would keep us entertained and that they would not be completely awful and horrible as movies.

In any case, below are my short reviews and opinions on the three films that we watched. We managed to see 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom', an action/sci-fi 'B'-movie called 'Upgrade' and 'Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation'.

So the first film that we managed to watch is 'Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom'. This is a movie that we decided to watch, even though we didn't have our hopes up - since we had already seen the first one (Jurassic World).

After all, 'Jurassic World' (2015), in all honesty, was a horribly weak and unnecessary remake itself. It had none of the good qualities that had made the original 'Jurassic Park' (1993) watchable and a well made movie.

Not surprisingly, even though we had tiny hopes that this new movie would be even remotely watchable or entertaining, it wasn't that. This sequel did not offer anything that would have made it better than the first remake.

On the contrary, 'Fallen Kingdom's' story was so awful that every aspect of the story reeked of desperation and the writers running out of ideas. There was nothing original or plausible in the story that was completely ridiculous.

Especially when it came to the 'plot' of the film (stealing & black market selling the dinos), I was only able to shake my head and wonder how idiotic the writers and the producers were. The movie really made no sense at all.

The second movie that we watched is 'Upgrade', a sci-fi movie about a paralyzed man who gets his life back when a microchip is inserted to his body. This microchip contains a program (and a 'master') that allows the protagonist to use his limbs again. 

When it comes to this movie, I have to say that 'Upgrade' wasn't actually a bad film per se. There are certainly positive aspects of the film that make it fairly interesting and watchable (my friend liked it a bit more than I did). 

For example, there's no question that the film has an interesting premise. The movie is well acted, its action scenes are pretty well made - considering the movie's low budget - and parts of the film even managed to be humorous. 

At the same time, 'Upgrade' suffers from a screenplay that isn't that well thought out. Especially when it comes to the movie's third act and finale, the story gets entirely too convoluted and doesn't have a clear point of view.

By that I mean that once the 'artificial intelligence' takes control of the protagonist, that stuff pretty much comes out of nowhere. The stuff doesn't fit in with the rest of the movie and I felt like I was watching an episode of 'The Outer Limits' instead.

Still, that doesn't mean that for those who like action films, this is a no-go movie. Even though the screenplay for the film isn't 'A'-grade and the movie is probably too violent, 'Upgrade' is still a film that you likely should watch at some point.

The third and final movie that we watched is the animated film 'Hotel Transylvania 3'. The series is about a Vampire family (father, daughter and her human husband) that keeps a hotel in Transylvania for its numerous guests.

The reason that we watched the film is because we had enjoyed the first two instalment of the series. The first two movies were pretty well made and you couldn't help but to like the characters and the uplifting tone that they had.

When it comes to the third 'Hotel Transylvania', it has to be said that the story in the third one is not as good as in the previous two instalments. The premise of the 'whole gang going on a holiday on a love boat' isn't that strong.

At the same time, just because the story is a bit laggy, that doesn't mean that I wasn't able to enjoy the film as a whole. I'm not saying that the weak parts (weak catalyst etc.) were able to outweigh the good parts in it.

On the contrary, especially when it comes to the dance scenes in the third act and the film's 'love' angle in the latter half of the second act, those parts made the movie. They were well executed and made me feel pretty happy.

In that sense, even though 'Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation' could have been a better film, it's still a solid movie. It's a solid movie that you should watch, even though its screenplay could have been more plausible and better written.

Why are most screenwriting books so bad?

Over the last ten or so years, I've spent a lot of time trying to learn movie writing. I've spent countless hours reading and re-reading books that are supposed to give you insight on the basics of storytelling and how to become a better screenwriter.

After all, since writing screenplays is fairly difficult, I thought that it wouldn't hurt to get these books and read them. I thought that there was a good chance that reading these books would help me and would make it easier to write a screenplay om my own.

Unfortunately, having now read almost all of the popular 'how-to' books that are out there, it has to be said that almost all of them are horrible. Almost all of these books are awful and are written by authors who don't know much about movie writing.

In order to show why most of the screenwriting books are so useless, let's look at Robert McKee's 'Story'. This is a screenwriting book that supposedly teaches you 'Award-Winning' methods about the craft and is one of the best 'how-to' guides out there.

So when it comes to this book, the biggest problem with 'Story' is that its advice isn't simple to understand at all. Instead of the book giving you practical advice that you could use, the author is much more interested in confusing the reader as much as possible.

For example, when it comes to those fundamental aspects of storytelling like story beats and story structure, there's very little useful material in the book. I just couldn't get a clear picture of what was going on, no matter how many times I read it.

In hindsight, the reason that the book is so confusing is that before it starts to talk about crucial stuff like the premise or the film's protagonist, we're already one third into the book. This is not good at all and in most cases will turn the reader off.

In reality, the story always starts with the premise of the film and what your main character(s) is going to be like. This is the most important part of the story, yet the author doesn't bring it up before we've reached page one hundred in the book.

Still, the most confusing thing about 'Story' has to do with its diagrams that are supposed to illustrate story structure. These illustrations (see below) that look like electrical circuit diagrams, are confusing and even contain 'false' information.

For example, even though McKee keeps repeating throughout the book how important it is that your scenes alternate between positive and negative (emotionally speaking), as a writer I have never paid any attention to this supposed 'fact'.

On the contrary, I'm pretty sure that paying attention to these ups and downs is redundant and will only make your scripts worse. I just don't see why anyone should worry about this stuff that seems to have 'voodoo science' written all over it.

That same way, I would also be cautious about (again the pic above) overanalysing the characters' desires or their conflicts. I don't see why one should get too obsessed with these different levels of conflicts, because storytelling isn't really that complicated.

After all, even though you obviously need to have characters that are interesting, them having  direction, energy and purpose (a goal) is what counts the most. Writing movies is not about creating characters that are too complicated and too confused.

In that sense, when I think about books like Robert McKee's 'Story', it's clear that reading them is likely going to make you feel confused about the craft. These are not books for those who want to learn the fundamentals of storytelling and story structure.

After all, paying too much attention to books like McKee's (& John Truby's etc.) will only make you less confident. Worrying about stuff like those diagrams will only make you postpone your own projects and make you think that you don't have it in you as a writer.

In the end, I can only be grateful that in my case - after first reading the bad books - I found stuff that was actually helpful and easy to understand. Solid books like Blake Snyder's 'Save The Cat' series gave me hope and helped me to write my own screenplay.

After all, unlike those other books, 'Save The Cat' didn't try to make the process any harder than it is. Instead of confusing the reader, it gave me a simple 'story formula' that felt natural and wasn't too restrictive in its approach to story structure.

In that sense, if you want to become a screenwriter, you should read those good books instead of the bad ones. You should read the good ones, because they are the ones that can help you and that can give you the chance to understand what storytelling really is about.