So you didn’t really write the screenplay, then?
An author whose short film I accompanied once told a friend that he had brought in a script doctor to work on his short. He wasn’t expecting his friend’s reaction: “So you didn’t really write the screenplay, then?”
I didn’t write his screenplay. Not one single word. And yet, I understand where that comment comes from and where the misunderstanding lies.
In the United States, a script doctor will take over and rewrite a screenplay to a greater or lesser extent, working independently and without necessarily receiving a screen credit. In Europe, the same term refers to a different profession: generally, a professional who analyses and diagnoses a screenplay and suggests avenues for rewriting, while being (far too) rarely credited. This is what Americans would call a script consultant. And, to make things even more complicated, on this side of the Atlantic, both script doctor and script consultant are used to describe essentially the same profession.
But beyond words that have travelled badly, there is also sometimes a lack of understanding of what a script doctor / script consultant can bring to a writer, without ever taking the writer’s place.
The writer who heard “So you didn’t really write it, then?”, and whom I accompanied, had contacted me because he wanted to see a screenplay through to the end and then direct it. He had too many ideas that were being thrown away too quickly, a need to start AND finish something, and the ambition to write a screenplay he could genuinely be proud of and ultimately direct.
He came with a strong universe, precise references and scattered ideas. From one session to the next — each lasting half a day, to allow for in-depth listening, discussion and brainstorming — we refined his universe, the story he actually wanted to tell, and how best to serve it. The bin did fill, but only to give space for better ideas and refined versions.
He learned that an idea isn’t necessarily a good one in its first draft. Or its second, for that matter. Through experience, he learned that writing is 80% rewriting.
Before each session, he would first send me his new ideas, then a treatment followed by further versions, and eventually a full dialogue draft and its subsequent rewrites, so that I could make notes to bring into our next session.
He never simply applied my comments and suggestions — thankfully. He bounced off them during and after our sessions, gradually refining his intentions, his universe, his story, his characters, his structure and his world. He fed off the process, just as I fed off what he sent me and told me. And that is precisely the point.
My main role was to understand what he was looking for, question the weak points, pull on certain threads that deserved to be explored, while suggesting that others be cut when they no longer belonged in the screenplay he was writing.
We were partners, but the screenplay is 100% his, “despite” my suggestions. All I did was bring out what was already there. Because a script doctor is not a co-writer. They should not turn the whole table upside down, whereas the writer can.
The script doctor digs, unearths, and sifts through the soil the writer has assigned to them.
They need to be able to get inside the writer’s head, understand what they are trying to achieve while retaining enough distance to see what the screenplay needs — and what it can do without — pushing the writer to improve it, refine it and strengthen it all the way to the final draft.
They must respect the writer’s universe, intentions and direction. And ultimately, the writer always makes the decisions, guiding the script doctor’s comments and suggestions through their own reactions to them.
A script doctor must be both ruthless, leaving nothing unexamined, and supportive, understanding that the work is still in progress. They are the editor of the story, in the sense that they are a partner to the writer and the production, just as an editor is a partner to the director: in the service of the story, they are its first professional viewer, shaping the film from the footage that exists, based on the screenplay and on what emerged during the shoot.
I didn’t write a single word of his screenplay, but I helped him become a better writer.
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Déborah Braun / 90pages
Script consultant
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