Home » Archives » October 2007 » Who Cans Worms, Anyway?
[Previous entry: "Look Alive"] [Next entry: "Tough Talk About The Deficit"]

10/24/2007: Who Cans Worms, Anyway?


Sometimes, someone will read your script and point out a problem you had never noticed. "Hmm... they go to all that trouble breaking into the bank when it's been established on the show that one of the secondary characters has a mom who works as a teller." Or "Wait-- if they'd just set their time-travel pod to take them far enough back in the first scene, they could've avoided all the problems!"

Sometimes, you have to acknowledge the note and fix the problem. Sometimes, the problem isn't fixable and your script blows up. But SOMETIMES, you can just say "can of worms!" and run away.

If a bunch of people have read your script and enjoyed it, and only one guy noticed the problem, you are sometimes totally justified in ignoring the note. Lots of good stories have threads that can be pulled if you look for them, characters who take an illogical action at a crucial moment, for example, or a super-weapon from a previous episode that suddenly seems to be unavailable. If it the problem is small enough and you feel the dramatic payoff is big enough, you have my permission to just go with it.

Just because a thread is there, doesn't mean it has to be pulled. Sometimes you can just tuck it under and no one will even notice.

Lunch: butternut squash ravioli, baked potato, double-chocolate pistachio cranberry square