Tweetstorm: Melissa Hilfers on dealing with ego, pride, and script notes

“Pride needs to be balanced with humility. You may know what you want to say, but sometimes others have a helpful perspective that can make the project better. Yes, they can help you be you, better.”

Twitter can be a gold mine for writers. Case in point, when pro writers generate a tweetstorm about the craft. Recently Melissa Hilfers uploaded a series of tweets about a critical aspect of a screenwriter’s life: Handling script notes. Reprinted here by permission.

Melissa makes an important point. A major reason a screenwriter gets hired is for their voice. You are not expected to lie down and blindly agree to all script notes. That said, filmmaking is, as Melissa notes, a “collaborate business,” so it is imperative for a screenwriter to be able to check their ego and pride at the door. And yes, sometimes feedback can result in a better script.

“It’s hard but you can do it.”

This advice from Melissa who is by her own admission a “recovering lawyer.” In July, it was announced that she would be writing the remake of the movie Jagged Edge, a legal thriller. Via Deadline:

Hilfers sold her spec Unfit to Amazon Studios as a potential vehicle for Dakota Johnson, a fact-based tale about Carrie Buck, a young Virginia woman who became a lightning rod for the movement to eliminate the “unfit” from our country and was forced to fight singlehandedly against it for the one thing she desperately wanted — to be a mother. Hilfers also sold Undone, a legal thriller compared to Gone Girl meets Primal Fear, to Parkes + MacDonald and Black Bear.

She seems a strong fit for Jagged Edge, given that she was a litigation lawyer for Cravath, Swaine & Moore before she switched to screenwriting. Hilfers also is writing Fusion Boy for Chernin Entertainment and Fox.

You may follow Melissa on Twitter: @melissahilfers.

For more screenwriter tweetstorms, go here.