Notes on Notes, pt 1: How to receive notes.

Recently I’ve been both giving and receiving a lot of notes (as part of workshops, and exchanging them with writer friends). I’ve also been in a few workshops and talks where the subject of receiving notes was discussed, and the fact that has emerged from all the advice given by seasoned pros is this: how you receive notes can be much more of a career-maker or career-breaker than anything having to do with creative vision, talent, or skill in your craft (whether you’re a writer, director, editor, VFX artist — you name it).

If you are passionate about your work, receiving notes can be very difficult and emotional, even when they are delivered in the nicest possibly way by someone you trust. It is even more trying if the other person isn’t particularly professional about it. But each person is responsible for themselves, not for changing others. The only thing you can control is how you respond to the notes, regardless of how they’re delivered to you.

Receive Notes You Hate In A Maximum Zenlike State

Zenlike — not sullen. Be as calm and detached from the process of receiving notes you hate as you possibly can without seeming to brood or distance yourself from the notegiver(s). Don’t get defensive, and certainly don’t get angry. If someone bothered to give you notes at all, they bothered to read your work. They also bothered to care — maybe more about the project than about you, but at least 90% of all notes are given in the spirit of someone trying to make things better.

Multiple people have suggested receiving all notes with some variation of the the following response: “These are all really interesting ideas. I’ll think them through, figure out how they impact the rest of the story, and see where they lead.”

Ask Questions First, Shoot Later

Don’t start trying to consider and accept, modify, or refute difficult or unpleasant notes right there in the room. You should ask clarifying questions, if you have any that aren’t confrontational, but otherwise it is incumbent upon you to keep things positive and moving forward until the notes session is over. Don’t let the session bog down in long discussions (or, worst of all, arguments) about controversial notes. Let people have their say, convince them you’ll think about their issues and address them, and move on. Get through everything they need to say, then get the heck out of there. Leave the room on a positive note, and make sure to thank all present.

Once you’re out of the room and have had some time to stop potentially taking the notes personally (and even seasoned pros sometimes do), then you can start to really analyze them and see what the notes are really trying to tell you. It’s likely to not be what they say on the surface, because often people’s “bad” notes are just an indicator that they see something wrong but have no better idea how to fix it than you initially did when you wrote it in the first place.

Receive Notes You Love With Enthusiasm

Unless you’re unusually stubborn you’re unlikely to hate all the notes you get, especially on early drafts / edits. When someone says something you really strongly agree with, let them know. Get excited. Thank them. If you show someone you value their input, they are more likely to also value your input. When you’ve received some of a person’s notes with enthusiasm, if you ultimately come back to them with a contrary idea for some of the notes you asked to think about, they’re more likely to agree that you’re right — because you haven’t just been rejecting their notes offhand, and have instead even gone so far as to openly appreciate some of what they’ve said.

Bring the passion and enthusiasm you’re supposed to bring to a pitch or general meeting to receiving “good” notes as well. A friend once told me that in all his Hollywood experiences, generally the most (positively) passionate person “wins” the moment. Use that to your advantage to focus the energy in the notes session on things you actually do want to do, and let the other stuff go with a mere “quite interesting, I’ll consider these ideas”.

Genuinely Consider All The Notes

When you say you’ll think about someone’s notes, actually think them through. Especially the notes you hate the most. Sometimes the notes you hate the most are the most useful (and sometimes they’re not). You may discover you hate them because either you wish you’d thought of them yourself and are ashamed you didn’t, or because you did think of them yourself and discarded them because you knew it would be painful to make the necessary changes and now you’re faced with verification that you must do precisely that. Shooting the messenger in those cases will only make problems where they never existed in the first place.

If you find yourself still disagreeing with the note, set it aside. And if you never come back to it, it wasn’t the right note. But if multiple people give you the same “bad” note, no matter how much you disagree it’s time to think it through again. Maybe the notes are “bad” because the suggested corrections are way off — but then you need to find the core of what it is that multiple people are bumping on and solve it your own “good” way instead. There is a problem if the same general issue is raised by many independent notes (i.e. notes not given in the same room or by people who are in regular discussions about the project).

Know When To Hold ‘Em, Know When To Walk Way, Know When To Run

Once you’ve really considered a note and still disagree with it, if the notegiver insists on bringing it up again in future notes sessions rather than letting you quietly ignore it, attempt to gently persuade the person that your idea is really what they wanted all along. Shane Black, at the Austin Film Festival, said basically this about “bad” notes in a couple different panels: “Writing is about persuading people. So persuade them you’re right.” You want to be passionate in your persuasion, but not confrontational.

You also don’t want to persuade someone out of all their notes. They want to feel they have contributed something to the process, and that you value them as you expect them to value you. A producer friend once told me a story about a writer they sent around town who came back excited that they’d persuaded everyone they met with that their notes were wrong. This writer was not impolite, but even so within two weeks nobody would agree to meet with him anymore, and a career ended before it could even begin.

In the rare case someone is genuinely trying to merely come off as clever or derail a project they detest, you need to figure out a polite and professional way to deal with the issue. If notegiver isn’t a stakeholder in the project, simply stop asking that person for feedback. If they are, either find a way to bring that person over to your side, learn to armor yourself against that person’s attacks, or — if the situation is utterly intractable and you’ve got some other opportunities to move on to (and you almost always do) — politely quit the project. But getting angry will just gird the other person for battle and make things worse, so it’s better for you to win with kindness and persuasion.

Address The Notes (And Have Good Reasons For The Ones You Don’t)

Once you’ve analyzed all the notes, and their impact on the story, your job is then to change the project in such a way that it addresses all the valid notes (and/or their underlying causes) in the way you determine is most advantageous to the story. Whatever notes you do decide are not valid, you need a good reason for it (one that shows you thought the note through thoroughly — “it’s just not going to work” is not a good reason). Even if nobody ever brings up a particular note ever again, you want a good reason for any notes you don’t address so you can convince yourself that your reasons for ignoring the note are valid. Your job is to make the best possible project you can, and that means hard work, including sometimes unpleasant hard work like thinking through notes you detest.

Work At It

If you care deeply about what you’re writing, directing, editing, etc., it may not be the easiest thing in the world to follow this advice. It certainly isn’t always so for me. But maintaining a positive attitude during notes sessions is something that can, and must, be learned. Review yourself after each notes session, and let yourself know what you need to improve on. Focus on paying attention to what you’re doing in the room. Force yourself to think before you speak. If you find yourself getting caught up in the moment, do something that forces you to take a moment to calm down (writing down the note that’s getting me riled up, but rephrasing it in the most inoffensive possible manner often works for me).

Practice getting notes from people you really know well and trust, who will tolerate your initial amateurish, overly emotional responses to notes — and then let them critique how you received their notes. And if you do screw up in a room with someone, apologize, and make sure you learn from your mistakes. Becoming someone that giving notes to is a pleasant experience can mean the difference between a stellar career and no career at all.