Something you need to prepare for in screenwriting is getting notes on your script from a whole bunch of people.  The trick being to sift the useful feedback from what isn’t so helpful.  That works when it’s a project you’re in control of, but when you’re a hired hand the situation can be very different.

I’ve had that experience working for Doctors, and had the pleasure of working with intelligent and likeable script editors who presented me with a whittled down version of the notes they gathered from speaking to several sources, that we worked on so as to shape the scripts to a better next draft.  Likewise, when I wrote a trial script for The Bill, I was dealing with an astute script editor who knew the characters and world of the series better than I did, and helped me sharpen my work to better match the expectations of the series.

In film though, things are different.  There’s an urgency to get the right draft finalised just so, without the need for a prolonged development process that has to be paid for and means that production can’t start just yet.  And notes can come at you from all sides, a contradictory blur that you have to synthesise into a next draft that is as much concerned with keeping peoples’ egos in check as anything related to writing a quality script.

This reaches whole new levels of nonsense when you come across some of the people who purport to be producers and want to have an input into the development of what was once your brainchild.  Case in point: The Young Victoria.  Which reaches our screens thanks in part to HRH Sarah Ferguson.  Well, you could argue that she has regal credentials, if only by association.  And as the author of the Budgie the Helicopter books, it’s possible she knows something about stories.  Isn’t it?

What got me alarmed at the prospect of the former Duchess of York’s involvement in the world of film was this comment in today’s Mail on Sunday (a journal I follow scrupulously to keep up with former minor royals):

“(Victoria and Albert) loved each other totally, and uncovering that really was revelatory to me.  I couldn’t believe the love was so similar to my love for Andrew.  The love they had, I had.  I took the idea of making a film about this to Hollywood 15 years ago.  A group of people did pick it up and we went to script on it.  But when I saw the script I knew it was wrong.  It was very Hollywood and rather inappropriate. So, I said ‘No’.  I tore up the script.”

Imagine.  You slave away on a screenplay about the life of the young Victoria before she becomes queen.  And it’s ripped up by your producer because it doesn’t remind her of her own relationship with a royal.  Puts my anecdote about Jean Claude Van Damme turning down my cagefighting movie because his character dies in the third act into perspective. Presumably the version of the Victoria story that’s been brought to our screens gives life to Fergie’s penetrating insights, such as that the princess “loved to play charades”.

It has to be said that The Young Victoria is not at the top of my list of films to see.  Certainly not while there’s still Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino to be viewed, plus Bolt in 3D, and — albeit with many reservations — Watchmen.  And there’s something about Sarah Ferguson milking her royal connections that brings out the republican in me.  Which doubtless means I can scratch her off the list of potential producers for the projects I’m developing at the moment.  But at least my way I get to be retained as writer.