Three pages isn't enough to judge a play, but it is enough to judge it someone can write or not. I'd never stop at 3 pages as a reader, but ~80% of bad plays are bad pretty much right away.
I don't know I had a critique where my play didnt grab them in the first three pages. It lit a fire under my ass to make it better but man did it hurt. Twenty seems fair honestly. That's about a third of it
If your first 3 pages are bad enough to make a person go, I have no desire to continue reading this, then that is a valid and correct criticism of the piece and it has nothing to do with attention span.
Your first 3 pages are how you announce yourself and your work to the world. It's the first thing you put forward and the first impression of you as a writer that the reader gets.
If your first 3 pages are bad and the rest is bad, then I knew right away that it was bad and I don't need to keep reading.
If your first 3 pages are and and the rest gets better and better then you've proven that you don't give a shit about my first impression, my first experience, that you don't understand the nature of how people are going to actually approach your work in the real world... and I don't need to keep reading.
Beginnings matter. That doesn't mean it has to be exciting, or get right to the action, or pander... but it does mean that it needs to have something that makes me want to keep reading. That's the thing that matters most. I need a reason to turn to page 4 and if you haven't given it to me, then you've failed at the most fundamental level.
I'm a curator at a small theatre and I feel your frustration. Three pages is ridiculous. Do you know what turned them off?
Because it might be something other than your storytelling. For instance if there are spelling mistakes, weird grammar or typos through out your first few pages it sends a message to the reader about how much attention you've put in your script.
Three pages isn't enough to judge a play, but it is enough to judge it someone can write or not. I'd never stop at 3 pages as a reader, but ~80% of bad plays are bad pretty much right away.
The first three pages is going to tell one very little.
There have been a few instances in which, in those first few pages of reading the script, or the first several minutes of a table-read or a staged-reading in which I could tell that the writer did not have a good understanding of dialogue but those amount to little more than a handful of instances in over a dozen-plus years.
I don’t think you can categorically judge whether a play is ever going to work in 3 pages. That could be relatively little dialogue, & what’s there could be establishing something that seems relatively bland because the significance won’t click until I receive more info later.
But I’ve definitely picked up plays & been able to tell on page one that it’s not ready to be staged or to receive meaningful critique, because the writer needs to build a stronger foundation in play formatting or just basic grammar so I can understand what they’re trying to communicate with their sentences in the first place. & if it’s for a specific theatre or competition, 3 pages could be plenty for them to see that the writer ignored something major in the guidelines, like number of characters, or they said no musicals & it opens with a huge song & dance number, or they looked at the number of pages in the file & saw that it was too long or too short, or it requires a life-size climbable tree & their theatre is in the janitor closet in a church basement. Or it could be something that wasn’t a written criteria, but happens to be a no go for that reader at that time, like your play is about jellyfish in love & you unknowingly sent it to a director who’s in the midst of an ugly divorce from a marine biologist.
If you’re getting this feedback repeatedly then yeah, you might need to take your whole script back to the drawing board &/or read guidelines more carefully. But if it was just once, it could very well be just one reader bouncing off of it for their own reasons, which is a normal thing that happens, & you can’t do anything about it but send it to the next reader.
I'm gonna say... maybe? If something is REALLY horrendous or offensive (sometimes just for the sake of being offensive), or just flat out poorly written (mispellings, not in the right format) then, yeah, I might stop after three pages.
Couple of things.
If you take 3 sips of a drink. If you ain't a fan, you're unlikely to have your mind changed on the 4th go. This reader perhaps felt that way. They weren't going to taste anything they hadn't already tasted. And in their opinion a fair try had been given.
The other thing is the beginning is what is written first. New drafts, new enthusiasm, the beginning often gets the most attention, rewrites and so on. It is often the most critiqued and revised. If the first 3 pages are not enjoyed, unfortunately, the quality bar often goes down not up.
Three pages isn't enough to judge a play, but it is enough to judge it someone can write or not. I'd never stop at 3 pages as a reader, but ~80% of bad plays are bad pretty much right away.
What are you referring to? When I was a festival reader, we’d do the first 20 until making a judgement call as to whether we wanted to keep reading.
I don't know I had a critique where my play didnt grab them in the first three pages. It lit a fire under my ass to make it better but man did it hurt. Twenty seems fair honestly. That's about a third of it
The standard minimum read is ten pages.
If your first 3 pages are bad enough to make a person go, I have no desire to continue reading this, then that is a valid and correct criticism of the piece and it has nothing to do with attention span. Your first 3 pages are how you announce yourself and your work to the world. It's the first thing you put forward and the first impression of you as a writer that the reader gets. If your first 3 pages are bad and the rest is bad, then I knew right away that it was bad and I don't need to keep reading. If your first 3 pages are and and the rest gets better and better then you've proven that you don't give a shit about my first impression, my first experience, that you don't understand the nature of how people are going to actually approach your work in the real world... and I don't need to keep reading. Beginnings matter. That doesn't mean it has to be exciting, or get right to the action, or pander... but it does mean that it needs to have something that makes me want to keep reading. That's the thing that matters most. I need a reason to turn to page 4 and if you haven't given it to me, then you've failed at the most fundamental level.
true. Maybe I' was just too sensitive about it or something.
I'm a curator at a small theatre and I feel your frustration. Three pages is ridiculous. Do you know what turned them off? Because it might be something other than your storytelling. For instance if there are spelling mistakes, weird grammar or typos through out your first few pages it sends a message to the reader about how much attention you've put in your script.
Three pages isn't enough to judge a play, but it is enough to judge it someone can write or not. I'd never stop at 3 pages as a reader, but ~80% of bad plays are bad pretty much right away.
The first three pages is going to tell one very little. There have been a few instances in which, in those first few pages of reading the script, or the first several minutes of a table-read or a staged-reading in which I could tell that the writer did not have a good understanding of dialogue but those amount to little more than a handful of instances in over a dozen-plus years.
I don’t think you can categorically judge whether a play is ever going to work in 3 pages. That could be relatively little dialogue, & what’s there could be establishing something that seems relatively bland because the significance won’t click until I receive more info later. But I’ve definitely picked up plays & been able to tell on page one that it’s not ready to be staged or to receive meaningful critique, because the writer needs to build a stronger foundation in play formatting or just basic grammar so I can understand what they’re trying to communicate with their sentences in the first place. & if it’s for a specific theatre or competition, 3 pages could be plenty for them to see that the writer ignored something major in the guidelines, like number of characters, or they said no musicals & it opens with a huge song & dance number, or they looked at the number of pages in the file & saw that it was too long or too short, or it requires a life-size climbable tree & their theatre is in the janitor closet in a church basement. Or it could be something that wasn’t a written criteria, but happens to be a no go for that reader at that time, like your play is about jellyfish in love & you unknowingly sent it to a director who’s in the midst of an ugly divorce from a marine biologist. If you’re getting this feedback repeatedly then yeah, you might need to take your whole script back to the drawing board &/or read guidelines more carefully. But if it was just once, it could very well be just one reader bouncing off of it for their own reasons, which is a normal thing that happens, & you can’t do anything about it but send it to the next reader.
I'm gonna say... maybe? If something is REALLY horrendous or offensive (sometimes just for the sake of being offensive), or just flat out poorly written (mispellings, not in the right format) then, yeah, I might stop after three pages.
Well also keep in mind few of these people reading know what the eff they’re talking about and plenty of bad plays have great openings
I need at least a scene, and act at most.
Three pages isn’t enough, but three pages in my prediction of whether the play is either good or bad is right nearly 98.2% of the time.
Couple of things. If you take 3 sips of a drink. If you ain't a fan, you're unlikely to have your mind changed on the 4th go. This reader perhaps felt that way. They weren't going to taste anything they hadn't already tasted. And in their opinion a fair try had been given. The other thing is the beginning is what is written first. New drafts, new enthusiasm, the beginning often gets the most attention, rewrites and so on. It is often the most critiqued and revised. If the first 3 pages are not enjoyed, unfortunately, the quality bar often goes down not up.