How can screenwriters protect their reputation when their work is rewritten?
Advice from a screenwriter
Is it reasonable to be concerned about your writing reputation when someone turns your good work into crap?
This is a great question, and I have two big things want to say about it.
The Dunning Kruger Effect
First, inherent in this question is the presumption that the rewrite is going to make the script worse, not better. In my opinion, the difference between an experienced writers and an inexperienced writers often comes down to this:
Inexperienced writers think their drafts have handed down from God on clay tablets. Their vision is precious and should be protected at all costs.
Experienced writers, on the other hand, recognize that the work can always be improved.
The Dunning Kruger Effect refers to the cognitive bias where people with limited knowledge or skill in an area tend to overestimate their abilities and believe they are more competent than they actually are.
Contrastingly, experts in the field underestimate their skill because they recognize how difficult it is.
Experienced writers understand how crucial rewriting is to the process. This is why rewrite time is built into the production schedule. For example, on a multi-camera sitcom, we have five days of rehearsal from the table read to the day we shoot the episode. This time isn’t just for the actors to learn their lines. It’s also for the writers to rewrite the scenes as necessary.
Even if someone turns in their writer’s draft, and it’s an A, we won’t take the next five days off. We’ll use that time to try to turn the A into an A+. The work can always be better.
In my book, A Paper Orchestra, several stories have surprise endings. Endings like this are tricky because if they come out of the blue, they won’t feel satisfying. Clues have to be carefully laid in, so that the ending feels earned. But if the clues are too obvious, the ending won’t be a surprise. So I had to rewrite those stories appropriately based on the feedback I received from early readers.
But more importantly is this question:
What Reputation are you Protecting?
As writers, it’s natural to want to protect the quality of our work. None of us want to be perceived as “hacks.”