I am baffled.

My first screenplay has been read by three people in the biz. The first two readers liked some things about it but thought I needed to do more showing and less telling. So I wrote a couple of "showing" scenes to replace a couple of "telling" scenes and submitted the script to a group that was interested in my story idea and had requested the script. I then played the game that all writers and aspiring writers know: the waiting game.

Yesterday, I finally received the rejection email. I must admit that my heart sank a bit lower than I had thought it would. This time, the criticism said nothing about how I need to show more and tell less. Instead, it said that my beginning did not grab the reader. It is interesting that the opening scene was considered a strong point by the previous two people who had read the script. Go figure.

Another criticism was that, in spite of a story idea that they liked very much, the story itself never gained any traction. I don't know what that even means, but it obviously is not a good thing.

When I read this script, I really like it. It's no given that I'm going to like something I've written. I've a had a number of times when I've set a document aside and picked it up after awhile only to discover that I now hated it. Not so with this script. In fact, when I read this script, I can imagine it on the big screen. It looks like a movie I would want to see. Consequently, I don't know how to make any more major changes to it. And yet, it would seem that I need to do so.

And so I am baffled. But then I guess I'm not experiencing anything new to the world of writing, am I?