What next?

I've just written a short (ten pages) and redrafted it once, changing some lines, cleaning up some dialogue. Adding some description.

Now with my other shorts I've written, I'm not happy after one draft. I'm not usually happy after a couple but this one I have a good feeling about.

So what next? I refuse to believe that it's finished after one redraft. Is it best to show it a few people? Get some fresh eyes on it?

If I take other peoples opinions with a pinch of salt they can only imporve the script right?

If you're happy with it then it's definitely time to show it to other people.

Being such a short script, it may be the case that it is pretty close to being done. But if you can't see much wrong with it, there's really no reason to do another draft. I'd give it to other people and see if you can get some feedback that will allow you to make the script better.

I'm never happy with anything I write until that 'uneasy' feeling goes away and I have no more to contribute to it.

Once I consider my script golden, then I hand it off to friends who tell me I'm full of sh... I mean, friends who will make suggestions.

I take some time away from the script, watch films in the same genre and then I'll revisit the script later.

That's good advice from both of you. Thank you. I'll show a wannabe scriptwriter friend of mine tonight and see what he says.

EDIT - Funny thing happened. I showed it to a friend of mine who writes but I was sure he'd hate it. Anyway he loved it. In fact we were talking about it and having the extra set of eyes on it really helped clean up some of the ideas. A scene was removed, there's a kind of act structure now and we created a further two twists in a film which is alreayd intended to drag the audience through hell and back and totally confuse them if they miss a second.

So it proved an excellent idea.

Give your script to several people - between 5 & 10. That way you can get an idea of what different people think. If everyone has trouble with something, then you know that needs some attention.

- Bill

register the script first...just to be safe.