You need to learn to evaluate scripts if you want to be a professional screenwriter. Here's how.

How can you hope to accurately and adequately evaluate your own script if you don't even know the first thing about evaluating someone else's?

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Otherwise, keep reading for my insights on how to learn how to evaluate screenplays.

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I have been working as a Script Consultant since 2017.

Screenwriters now pay me hundreds of dollars per script read, and I consistently get glowing reviews on my feedback. By now, I’ve read thousands of scripts.

But I wasn’t this knowledgeable or this helpful when I first started.

Writers have told me that I have a “natural born gift” or a “genius eye” for story.

I am so flattered when I hear this, but to agree with them would go against my fundamental principle of being a growth mindset creative. I developed this skill through consistent practice. Now, I know that not every screenwriter wants to be a Script Consultant or a development executive or a producer.

You might not be interested in working as an assistant, a reader, or an intern.

But you still need to learn how to evaluate scripts.

Why?

Just because you can evaluate someone else’s script doesn’t mean you’re going to be good at evaluating your own. Those are totally separate skills. However, how can you hope to accurately and adequately evaluate your own script if you don’t even know the first thing about evaluating someone else’s?

Photo by Felicia Buitenwerf on Unsplash

The tricky part about notes is that it’s impossible to tell if they’re accurate or not.

Once you can evaluate scripts, you still won’t be able to separate the correct from the incorrect notes with 100% accuracy.

Sometimes you just need to try something out before writing it off as the wrong solution. But it’s important to hone your instincts as a writer. You need to know which hills to die on, and you need to be able to tell when someone has pointed out a really important and helpful piece of feedback.

And you need to be able to take that feedback and incorporate it into your next draft without going in the complete wrong direction.

Being a great screenwriter means understanding story structure.

And understanding story structure means you can apply what you know to any script that you read. You can identify what is and isn’t working, why it isn’t working, and you can offer potential ideas for how to fix it.

Those last two points are the difference makers here.

There are 5 layers to evaluating a movie: