What People Are Saying When They Say They Like Your Script
Not all positive responses are created equal.
A positive response is always a great thing, but not all positive responses are created equal. Different people can mean different things. Fortunately, you can be pretty sure what they’re really saying, thanks to this handy guide:
Agent: I can sell this.
Manager: I can sell this.
Producer: I can sell this.
Network: We can sell this.
Writer friend: I wish I had written this.
Childhood friend: This thing is like 96 pages! Wow! That’s so many pages!
Actor friend: If this gets made, please cast me.
Finance friend: Your life is so interesting compared to mine. If you weren’t so poor, I’d die of envy.
Partner: My boo is the best boo! Clever boo!
Mom: I told the moms at the school gate that my baby was cleverer than theirs.
Dad: I still wish you were a lawyer, but if you had to choose this, at least you don’t suck.
Rich cousin: Now that’s out of your system, doubtless you’ll be off to law school in the fall.
Poor cousin: I could’ve been a writer too! Read this script I’ve been working on since 1976.
Neighbor: So that’s why you’re always at home during the day.
Day job colleague: Aw. Look at you with your little “script”.
Day job boss: Better than dicking around on social media all day like my other peons, I guess.
Ex: This villain is definitely not me. It’s coincidence we have the same car. And name.
Guy you rejected in high school: The romantic lead is totally me. I knew, on some level, you felt it too.
Dog: This tastes even better than your last script!
Zoe Samuel is a British-born writer for page, stage, and screen. She lives on a plane between New York, Los Angeles, and London. Work has been on stages and screens in these cities and others, as well as on physical pages, and those floating in the cloud. More at zoesamuel.com and https://twitter.com/zoe_samuel.
