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07/13/2007: Can You Find the Hidden Star Trek Reference in This Post?


Adam in West Hollywood has a good question for the blog. He wants to know if his portfolio of sample scripts should be designed to show focus, or diversity. In other words, should you write a bunch of the thing you're most drawn to, or should you spread the love around with a comedy script, a drama script, an action script, etc?

Well, I'm a huge fan of infinite diversity in all its infinite combinations. My personal recommendation would be to write everything, and then let an agent or manager provide input on how they can best market you -- if they know of a demand for action writers, they'll be able to steer you in that direction.

Flexibility is a plus. For example, you might really feel you were born to write multi-camera comedy. But there's so little of that right now that you'd find your options pretty limited if you only wrote that. So try new things. You might just discover new talents, too. I was startled to find I could write scenes that were interesting despite being jokeless. If I hadn't been pushed to try something new, I might never have known.

However, remember that passion for what you're writing is part of what makes it good. If you hate romantic comedies or action movies or low-brow comedies, you probably won't be successful writing them. Since most of us probably watch and enjoy a whole range of different kinds of shows or movies, even someone with a pretty fierce dislike of a specific tone or genre can probably still find a pretty big stretch of the buffet to get their fingers into.

Lunch: tangerine, donut

P.S. Adam also asks a Buffy-related question about Xander. Sorry, Adam, I don't have an answer for that one!