The post published before this one generated a swell of interest – both from those who agreed and those who didn’t. You can see who a few reactions to the post here, but it’s the negative feedback I’d like to focus on.

While it’s easy to get discouraged when someone criticizes your work, it’s even more important how you react to it. The negative feedback I received for the last post reminded me of the importance of being able to take criticism and learn from it.

As a screenwriter, it’s crucial that you maintain confidence and follow your dreams no matter what others say – if you start believing you’re not good enough to cut it, you won’t be. Negative criticism comes from all directions, including other screenwriters, producers, readers, so called “story coaches,” and even professors.

Ask yourself these 5 questions when you receive negative feedback:

1. Am I happy with my work?

If you’re like me, the answer is probably somewhere between no and yes. As writers, we’re never really finished with our work – not completely anyway … there’s always room for improvement. However, this isn’t the best way to look at the question – consider the question an evaluation of your effort behind the work. In other words, did I give it my best?

2. Will it help improve my screenplay?

Another point to consider while receiving negative feedback is whether or not the points made will help improve your work. You should always be open to anything that will help improve your screenplay – especially when coming from outside sources. Don’t make the mistake of taking ownership of the screenplay – rather, consider yourself the person hired to help share the story.

3. Is it personal or professional?

As a business powered by people and relationships, screenwriters can often face both professional and personal attacks by those dishing negative feedback. Sometimes it’s helpful, sometimes it’s not. Be careful not to misinterpret professional criticism for a personal attack – instead, try to consider what seems like personal criticism to grow as a writer. If you find yourself being criticized on a personal level, simply ignore it and move on – remember to follow your dreams, and let nothing stop you.

4. Do the majority agree?

If you’re coming across the same negative feedback regarding your screenplay, characters, theme work, or literally anything else involved in your script, then perhaps you should consider the idea that maybe they’re right. Sometimes writers tend to become too attached to their work to see the full picture – or anything other than their original vision. This can be both a pro and a con – while it’s good to stick to your original inspiration and vision as an artist, it’s something the professional world doesn’t appreciate as much. Failure to adapt to new ideas or look include other external ideas often leads to the hiring of other writers.

5. How can I implement this feedback?

Any feedback is good feedback. If the feedback has merit, evaluate whether or not you can implement the feedback into your screenplay – or at least your future work. Your goal as a writer should be to tell the stories you find interesting and grow as a writer in the process – this requires you to learn as you go … one way to do this is to actually try implementing your feedback into your work. Think of how and where you can implement new ideas. You might find that you can adjust your title, description, overall theme work, formatting, or even style.

Hone, hone, hone. Hone your craft as you grow as a writer and you’ll be on your way to a professional career.

Remember, there are those out there who simply enjoy tearing down good things – don’t give them your time or attention, there’s far too much to do for that bullshit.

Subscribe to ScriptXRay for daily posts