the results are in…

A big thanks to all of you who read the script and sent back the questionnaire. I find whenever I finish a draft I have a total lack of perspective on what I’ve written. Finding out how people are reacting to the script makes a huge difference for me as I go into a rewrite. I can approach the material with a clear sense of the strengths and weaknesses.
Of the ten readers 3 were straight males, 1 gay male, and six were straight women. The six women and 1 gay male gave the script a cumulative B- grade. The three straight males gave it an F. Bit of a gender gap there but a fairly standard reaction to a female driven story in my experience. We had almost the same reaction to Saved when we showed it to test audiences. It’s like me and football. I’ll never see in a football game what my straight male friends see. To me it’s a big pile of boredom and "who cares?" To them, it’s the world. The biggest complaint from my straight male readers was a lack of believability. Most often they cited the plot. This was not the case with my other readers. I think what the men were reacting to was un-clear emotional grounding in the story. Any plot is believable if the characters have solid and understandable emotional stories. From Lord of the Rings to Tropic Thunder, the plots are completely impossible or larger than life. The plot isn’t the issue, it’s the believability of the characters. They have to be recognizable as human beings. I know what the emotional story is in the script, the issue now is making it clearer. The second most cited complaint was the depiction of Paolo as a weak and spineless guy.  I agree that much work has to be done to make him more sympathetic. Mainly because if he is not a worthy counterpart to the main character she looks bad for chasing after him.
Of the seven fair to positive responses, the majority picked "the raid on the villa" and the "jumping out of the plane/ending" as their favorite moments. Morrone scored high as the favorite character. B- is not a bad place to be at this stage but I know that the script can’t go out until it’s a solid A, A+ in ranking.

On the plus side, I had a friend at Paramount read the script for general feedback. She wants me to come back to her exclusively after the next draft is done. So who knows? A little nibble’s better than no nibble.