Live To Write Another Day

you will automatically begin to collate the useable notes in your mind and incorporate them into the tuning process, even if you’re not entirely sure how you’ll apply them.
On the other hand, if you don’t think a note is valuable, then don’t spend any time on it. Let it go. Immediately. Whatever you do, don’t get into a discussion as to why a note is an affront to you or your story. Being defensive about anything during this conversation is a complete waste of time. If you determine that a note doesn’t work for you, just forget it and move on. It’s not important. There’s too much gold in them thar hills.
 The Note Beneath the Note
Sometimes even the most experienced note givers aren’t always conscious of the note they’re actually giving you. They point out a problem and make a genuine effort to give you a possible solution, but they just can’t quite articulate it. Or the note is only marginally valid—or even worse, completely off base—and they haven’t got a clue. Either way, it isn’t helpful. But you can tell from their sincerity that what they’re saying isn’t entirely trivial either. So the real question is:
What’s their intuition trying to tell you? What is the note beneath the note?
Very often I find the key to this little riddle doesn’t quite reveal itself until I’ve received a few sets of notes from multiple people. At that point, the same note (or several notes that are similar) will have probably appeared over and over again, which eventually unmasks the underlying issue and makes it fairly obvious. But more often than not there’s something else that all this feedback triggers, a more subliminal, organic answer to a deeper problem that I knew was there all along but couldn’t quite solve or articulate on my own.
It’s not unusual for this note beneath the note to end up being the most valuable of all. So instead of dismissing that weird moment in the conversation when both you and your note giver seem to be a little lost, pay extra close attention. That moment might turn out to be far more helpful and instructive than you think.
 Choose Your Note Givers Wisely
One of the first jobs I had after I got out of film school was working for a very successful television producer by the name of Mort Lachman. Mort was about seventy-two years old at the time and was the sweetest guy in the world. He had started out his career as a joke writer for Bob Hope, then after years of doing USO shows and TV specials in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, went on to produce sitcoms for Norman Lear in the ’70s and ’80s: All In The Family, Kate and Allie, Gimme A Break, among many others.
I used to pick Mort up at his house every morning and drive him to the studio, so I got to know him pretty well, which was a true gift. Between all the fun stories and anecdotes he would tell me, he also gave me lots of sage advice, the greatest piece of which came after I finally worked up the nerve to ask him to read one of my scripts.
“I’d be happy to,” he said. “As long as you understand that my opinion doesn’t mean a damn thing.”
I was of course quite confused by this.
“The only opinion that matters,” he then said with that characteristic twinkle in his eye, “is the opinion of the person who’s saying ‘yes.’ ”
Translation: If someone wants to buy your script, what difference does it make what anyone else thinks? The buyer is ultimately the only one you have to please.
This is very true, and the more I’ve written over the years, the more I’ve realized this principle actually speaks to an even broader question:
How invested in your success is this person giving you notes?
In the case where the note giver is paying you actual cash money the answer is obviously “very invested.” But there are also other degrees of investment to consider. Is the note giver a producer you’re working with who is putting their own time into helping you develop the script so they can be attached to produce it? Does the note giver work for the publisher you’re trying to get a book deal with or an agent who represents you? In all these cases, there’s obviously a potential financial reward for the other party in return for their investment.
Is the note giver another writer? If so, are they a close friend, someone who truly wants to see you succeed, or are they just an acquaintance who may not care that much? Do they take the note-giving process as seriously as you do? If they do, then you’ve found a valuable relationship to cultivate. If not, it won’t take you long to find out.
There’s also the “casting” of your note givers. In other words, does this person’s sensibility match the material that you want them to read? As close as you are with your buddy the horror writer, you really don’t want to ask him to critique your sitcom, unless he’s an equally talented comedy writer. This may be even more important when it comes to non-writing note givers, because unlike those of us with the writer gene, their taste in material tends to influence their opinions a little more than the nuts-and-bolts mechanics of the writing. Not that any given note giver, writer, or non-writer can’t be effective across a wide range of genres. As discussed in the previous chapter, all note givers have their strengths and their weaknesses.
The important point here is that it’s smart to establish a wide variety of note givers you can draw on, who are well-suited to read your work, and to tap into those various resources to get a nice spectrum of feedback on each and every piece you write.
 Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Important as it is for the note giver to trust the writer to digest the big picture