Comprehending a Reader

When it comes to readers who read a writer's work, be it a screenplay, a novel or any other form of literary piece of work, one thing is certain and well accepted: Readers can help you make your work better or can simply destroy your chances of successfully competing against other, more established writers in the business. However, not all of them are written into the industry equally (pun intended).

I have conducted a little experiment to determine how great or how awefull these readers are, and from little to no surprise, I have discovered that just like trades people and the entertainment industry, it is really like the wild, wild west out there - and not the Will Smith kind.

THE EXPERIMENT:

What I did was I sent over a sample script with all the required pieces of information that a reader could possibly ask or look for in a screenplay as well as making sure things made sense in one way or another.

THE RESULTING NOTES:

Normally, notes received by the writer should be aiming to help the writer improve his story or his work. Even though one of the qualities of being a writer is to have thicker skin so that he/she will improve on his writing and welcome criticism of any kind. Upon analyzing the readers' notes, I found that their reading and comprehension skills are either poor or non existent, with a high probability of not properly reading through the script that I had sent them. This should be concerning and does definitely answers the question about why film is at its worst these days. It should also be noted that there are readers in the bunch who read my script were complaining that certain elements or parts of my script didn't make any sense while not explaining why they didn't make any sense to them.

Upon research into the matter, I found that the 'making sense' part is completely subjective and is not universal across the industry. Trust me if everything were to make sense, the films that get produced will be super boring and will extremely lack creativity. We will end up with only mediocre films if writers tried to satisfy every individual that commented about something in the story not making any sense to them.

There's a reason why people go see movies that make them go: "What the hell just happened?"  or "Wow. That was amazing." or "That was fantastic" or "Breathtaking." Unfortunately, today's readers use the 'not making any sense' excuse to stifle the freedom to create. For instance, if you are to create a world that is captivating and interesting that defies all logic and common sense to us humans, then this can be ruined by an completely unintelligent reader saying it didn't make any sense.

Also, it is very important that the reader understands the genre of the writer's work that he/she is reading. It won't be of any help to the writer if his/her work is being read by a reader who normally reads work produced in the drama category, reads work submitted by the writer who writes SCI-FI category.

As far as I am concerned, if I were to hire a reader, he or she must possess the following qualifications:

1. Excellent reading and comprehension skills,
2. Have a complete understanding or familiarity with all genres (elements included) of storytelling,
3. Go beyond what would make logical sense by humans,
4. Understand the different forms of creativity,
5. Have a sense of humor,
6. Ignore political correctness, and
7. Understand the overall message of the writer's work.

THE VERDICT:

I don't know what the schools are teaching these individuals, but it is clearly evident that there are holes in the system when it comes to reading and comprehension - including the attitude these individuals have towards creative pieces of literary works. 

What needs to happen is having a system where the writers have a say and provide feedback as to how good or bad the reader is or how helpful or unhelpful the reader has been. The name of the reader doesn't need to be revealed, thereby respecting the current process of anonymity and privacy of said readers. That's right, right now as it stands in the industry, the reader's identity is concealed, so that the writer doesn't have direct communication with that reader or retaliate against said reader.

It may or may not give the readers an incentive to do better, but will certainly allow prospective producers or employers to choose their readers wisely.

PS: There are professional readers that charge an arm and a leg if you'd like them to read your work, but they generally cater to the more established writers in the business. They perform much better and offer more helpfulness when it comes to offering value for the money you are spending. This article is all about the el-cheapo type readers or the readers who volunteer their services to a producer or employer to gain more experience in the industry. There is nothing wrong with this approach or style of employing readers, but the expectations have been set pretty low for the readers so that their expectations of the writer can be set super high.