From the Mailbag

Happy weekend ahead, Wavers. Don't forget, today is the last day to vote for the best short scene for the Out-of-Towners competition. It is my birthday weekend so I'll be throwing myself a party and then going to Palm Springs for a couple of days so the RW will go on vacation until Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Depends. In the meantime, here is a great question the Wave-inatrix received in the RW mailbag:

What do script readers mean when they talk about "character work"? Does this mean that your characters were depicted as real/complex and that the reader identified with the ones the writer intended for him or her to identify with?
-Goran in Aus

Dear Goran:

In a nutshell, you are correct. This is a good question. Actually, at The Script Department, “character work” is indeed one of the categories in our evaluation grid but most production companies and corporat- type script coverage services simply call this “character”. Same thing.

As a refresher, these are the categories used on most grids:

Premise
Storyline
Character
Dialogue

At the Script Department, we use these categories:

Idea
Overall execution
Narrative/Structure
Characters/dialogue
Effective Scene Work
Professional Appearance
Commercial Potential
Readiness for Market

Mind you, our grid has a different bent; our aim is not to simply tick off why the script would be a PASS but to expand on the normal grid to give our clients a more specific sense of what is or is not working.

So here are the definitions for your average prodco grid:

Premise – is the idea fresh and original? Is it a movie?

Storyline – pacing and narrative; does it move at a good pace, does it have complications?

Character – are the characters organic, unique and believable?

Dialogue – is the dialogue natural, clever and memorable?

And again, using The Script Department grid:

Idea – is the premise or concept fresh and unique?

Overall execution – an overview of the level of execution of all elements

Narrative/Structure – are the act breaks effective, is the pacing spot-on, does the script have that rollercoaster shape?

Characters/dialogue – are the characters and their dialogue organic, clever, unique and well written?*

Effective Scene Work – Do the scenes have beginning, middle and end? Do they move the story forward? Does the writer jump in late and get out early? Are scenes landing?

Professional Appearance – how is the writer’s grasp of language usage and grammar? Are there typos and malaprops?

Commercial Potential – relative to the market, is this script going to appeal to audiences?

Readiness for Market – is this script ready to send out quite yet?

*We combine character and dialogue because honest to god, I have never ever read a script with good characters and bad dialogue or bad characters with good dialogue. To separate these two completely interwoven and connected elements seems very odd to me but I suppose there's some kind of logic to it. Somewhere.

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