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04/18/2006: All that Monty Python Study Going to Waste


Have you read "A Martian Wouldn't Say That"? It's a hilarious collection of memos from television executives to television writers, and some responses going the other direction, too. Many of these, obviously, are from the earlier years of television, in which these communications presumably actually involved "memos." Anyway, it is sooo funny. Trust me. You will actually fall over laughing, so consider a helmet.

One of the great exchanges in the book has to do with an executive's surprise that there is no clue in a character's dialogue that that character is black. The writer replies that this was an intentional choice. The exec's reply: "Well then, how will the audience know?"

I'm reminded of this exchange sometimes when I read scripts that attempt to capture the voice of a character with a particular background... ethnic, national or even, say, vocational. The spec script versions of Spike or Giles (from Buffy) are sometimes positively stuffed full of "bint"s and "bloke"s. And every word out of a soldier's mouth is an acronym or a "yessir." And the Southerner spouts folksy sayings about grits and drops "y'all"s like magnolia leaves. It's as if the writer is asking "how will the audience know?" Well, they know Giles is English because he sounds English. No matter what he's saying. That's how an accent works. You don't have to try very hard to convince your reader that he sounds English.

You have to, to this extent anyway, trust your readers to know the voices of the characters that you're specing. Let them do the work of "hearing" the character's background; don't try to do it for them. If you push it, you'll end up with a sort of parody of their speech that'll pull the reader right out of the script.

As in most things, follow the lead of the produced scripts. Use any specialized vocab no more often than the show does.

Sometimes I really think the trick of the spec script is to show off without looking like you're showing off. Sometimes I really think the trick of success in general is the same.

Lunch: a very nice "Buffalo Chicken Salad" from the Cheesecake Factory. Actual pieces of fried chicken in the salad kept it from being too healthy.