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04/04/2006: A Guest Asks About Guests


I have a dentist appointment today. Just a cleaning. But I find this stuff very stressful. It's the combination of discomfort and boredom that's so awful, I think. I sit/lie there, with my hands clasped over my tummy, gradually tensing up until I realize that I'm jamming my joined fists downward as if trying to heimlich the hygienist right out of my mouth. Then I effortfully relax and start it all over again. Bleahh. But, it is also my favorite day. Because it's the day that is the farthest apart from the next time I have to go in. Making a problem into a virtue, that's what I'm going for here.

Which, oh so neatly, brings us to another question from a friend of the blog. This is from the charming Tracy Berna again. The question is about a specific show, but I bet a lot of you will find her frustration very recognizable. The problem she's facing is probably one you will face at some point. She is working on a "My Name is Earl" spec and she asks:

"I came up with one possible past sin to have Earl make up for, but
I'm not sure who to make the wronged party, and here's why: 'Earl'
is a show that regularly and liberally employs guest characters. BUT!
You say that you shouldn't use guest characters in specs! So what
rule do I follow? The rule of the show's conventions, or the no-guests-
in-specs rule? Huh? HUH? Answer THAT!"

I will!

First off, let me point out that it's not a "no-guests" rule, but rather a "don't-build-the-whole-spec-around-a-guest" rule. But even so, Tracy has a valid dilemma here. What should she do?

Well, I can tell you what I would do. I would make the wronged person a character the audience already knows. Like, his ex-wife, his brother, his ex-mother-in-law, his ex-wife's new husband, or some other regular or recurring character. Maybe Earl doesn't even know who the wronged party is ,at first. He knows he did something wrong and goes looking for the victim, and the trail leads him right around to home again. Lots of good fodder for karmic thoughts there, all built-in.

Not only does this solution allow you to work solely with voices that you already know, but it also will tend to lead to richer emotional areas. Remember, you're trying to write the Best Earl Ever. Part of that is digging slightly deeper than the show does except in its very best episodes. Dealing with a dynamic that already exists gives you a head start on finding that depth.

A variation on this, is to have the wronged party indeed be a guest character, but one who is connected to an already existing character. Earl knows he wronged a certain woman. He's searching for her. Then he discovers his bother's new girlfriend is that very woman. At this point the woman is almost irrelevant. It's a brother-versus-brother story. Voices we know! A dynamic we care about!

(Forgive me if I'm mangling the show and its relationships, I watch, but not religiously. The larger point is still valid.)

The only other solution I can think of, if you really need to create a brand new character, is to make them "audible" by supplying imaginary casting. "Earl confronts TINA, a sweet little Betty White type older lady." or "Earl finds himself face-to-face with the big, blustering JERRY, think Chris Farley." It's not ideal, but at least the viewers know those voices, those personalities. It's even better if, say, Jerry reminds Earl of his own brother, and the show ends up being about him saying things to Jerry that he wishes he could say to Randy. Now we're back in the relationships we care about again!

A friend of mine once wrote a brilliant Frasier spec in which Daphne started dating a man who was just like Niles. This was a guest-character spec that was acceptable because the guest character's lines were all written in Niles' voice. The only problem with the spec? Right about the time she finished it, the episode of Frasier aired in which Daphne dated a man who was just like Niles. The spec was instantly obsolete, but she had the satisfaction of knowing she was certainly thinking just like the employed writers on the show. I like to think she sat back down to write again with increased confidence.

Problems become virtues. My dentist appointment looms. Soon it will be over.

Lunch: I used spices that were bought for me in Turkey to make a spicy chicken-and-yogurt dish.