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Looking for tips and tricks to the art of writing for television? Welcome to the blog of experienced television writer Jane Espenson. Check it out regularly to learn about spec scripts, writing dos and don'ts, and what Jane had for lunch! (RSS: )
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Home » Archives » September 2007 » Adding by Subtracting
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09/23/2007: Adding by Subtracting
Are you working on a lightly-humorous hour-long spec pilot? Are you finding yourself getting bogged down in plot moves and client-story elements that fail to even capture your own attention? Are you longing to bring the focus back to the main characters? Here's a crazy thought: maybe your show isn't an hour. Maybe it's a (single camera) half-hour.
This won't work for all shows, of course. If you've got a cop or lawyer show that hangs on dense plotting, or if it's dark drama, it clearly won't feel at all like a half-hour. But if it's got a light tone, some funny, and doesn't necessarily hang on lots of plot moves and suspense-filled act breaks, then it might work well as a half-hour.
Imagine that you were given the job of going through a stack of "Ugly Betty" scripts and cutting them down to a half-hour length. What would you lose? You'd probably cut all the arc elements, the running mystery stuff. You'd simplify the A-story too, reducing plot complications while trying to keep all the funny character moments. "Ugly Betty" obviously works well as an hour, but I suggest that if it were a spec script, that a half-hour version of it would have definite appeal as a little gem of characterization: funny, fast, and short.
[CLARIFICATION: I am not suggesting writing spec Ugly Betty scripts as half-hours. I was unclear here. What I meant was that if Ugly Betty had been a spec pilot, it would have worked well as a half-hour spec pilot.]
It's not a prescription, but it's an option.
Lunch: Vietnamese pho, this time with tripe in it. Yum! Tripe's fantastic!
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