The League recently had its second meeting. By the time our unofficial deadline for submitting stuff for feedback rolled around, I was done with the first act of a new screenplay I'm working on. So, I was faced with a decision--did I want to email my act out to everyone for notes or not?
Ultimately, I decided not to. For a few reasons. First of all, Captain Undead remarked that it's often difficult for him to give accurate feedback if he doesn't know where the rest of a script is going. If I only sent out my first act, I would have had to include a pretty coherent outline of the rest of the story, which I didn't have written at that point. Some of the other leaguers felt the same way that the Captain did, so that was one reason I opted not to show my work yet.
But also, I knew that there were really two other reasons, or two sides of the same coin, which deterred me. On the one hand, I knew that if I got great feedback, and everyone seemed to love what I was writing, I would preoccupy myself with making sure that the rest of the project was just as good, to the point that I would either get a swelled head or worry that I was faltering, and wouldn't be able to just write the thing. On the other hand, I knew, too, that a lot of negative feedback or indication that I was severely missing my mark would send me back to the drawing board, revisiting all of act one without progressing and just getting that first draft written.
No, the League will see my draft when it is complete, all three acts, with the end credits closing out the last page. Until then, it's just for me to see.
