A friend of mine who’s been in the business a long time gave me some invaluable feedback on my script. She liked it but asked a lot of questions about the subtext and characters’ reactions to events. I think what came out of our phone conversation was that I didn’t know my story world well enough. This is definitely true. When I write a short there’s a voice in the back of my mind saying, “Don’t worry - it’s just a short. Wing it!” I’ll try not to listen to that voice again. Of course it makes perfect sense that any time spent on the backstory is an investment towards creating a well-rounded and meaningful screenplay. So it’s back to the drawing board again…

Anna took a look at the script and liked it. I asked her about a couple of plot points in partiular, and she confirmed that they were a little confusing. As she’s particularly astute at picking up plot cues and has pretty much predicted the endings of all the films we’ve ever watched together (!), I knew that I had to write more overtly. When you write a line that the audience has to grasp in order for the story to make sense to them, you obviously have to give them a cue. In a subtle - but not too subtle - way you have to say, “Listen up.  If you don’t get this, you won’t get the ending.” I failed to signal that cue. It just came across as an irrelevant throwaway line - something the audience wouldn’t bother to take in.  Thank you Anna! As well as being the sunshine of my life, you are the most accurate predictor of film endings I have ever had the (dis)pleasure of watching movies with.