All right. Time to get all practical again. You're moving along through your outline, turning your little summaries of scenes into actual scenes. Here's what part of your outline might look like (for a hypothetical show):

INT. LIVING ROOM – NIGHT
The big party. Lots of guests, fancy decorations. Helene is playing hostess, but her husband Ralph is undermining her efforts by telling everyone the food is tainted. He sparks a panic that has the party in an uproar. Helene confronts Ralph about his lies, adding to the confusion. During the commotion, Jeremy corners Alice and tells her about his affair with Helene. Alice runs off crying into the arms of the caterer. Now in a towering rage, Ralph fires the caterer.

INT. HIGH SCHOOL GYM – NIGHT
Teddy and Sherman meet to talk about their plan to ruin the prom.


It all looks peachy, so you start writing. And you discover that the big living room party scene, which looked like so much fun in outline form, is clocking in at about 12 pages, or 14, or 17, dear god... It feels endless and is clearly far too long. You should've realized this was going to be a problem when you wrote the outline, but you had no idea that it was going to expand to this degree.

By the way, this phenomenon, the expanding scene, happens all the time. Even on shows where a half-dozen people have read the outline and signed off on it, the writer will often find themselves looking at a scene that simply will not end, and has too many load-bearing walls in it to just cut it all way back.

Don't panic. There's an easy solution. You're probably ahead of me on this, huh? Nest the gymnasium scene inside the living room scene. In fact, you might be able to cut back and forth between the two scenes several times -- this is intercutting. It's like stepping away from the party for some fresh air a couple times.

Now all you have to do is pick the moments of transition between the scenes. This is crucial. It can't be obvious that you're just cutting away from the party because you're afraid everyone is bored to tears by how long it is. You have to pick a significant moment, just as if this was now the end of a scene. Because, all of a sudden, it is. And it would be even better if you picked a moment that resonates with the moment of the scene you're cutting into. For example, if you cut away from the party as Ralph leans in to whisper to a guest that "Helene left the pork out all night." then you can start the Teddy/Sherman scene with Teddy saying something like "The best night ever! That's what this is gonna be!"

Then, of course, you have to find the right moment to cut back into the party to continue the scene. Maybe you go from Sherman saying "If we really can find that many live turkeys, this place is gonna be chaos!" back to the party where the guests are in turmoil. Finding these moments shouldn't seem like a chore. This is a big opportunity for you to be clever, to add humor and pace to your script. One of my favorite things is to take a moment that isn't a joke, and make it a joke via a funny transition.

When scenes are cut together like this, I generally assume that time has elapsed while the chunk of the other scene has been played out. I mean that when we return to the party scene, some time will have passed. I notice that some shows, especially soap operas, don't seem to play it this way, instead returning to the exact moment that you cut away. I don't recommend it. It will feel soapy. But, as in almost all else, you should consult your example produced scripts for guidance.

A huge benefit of the "elapsed time" version of this, of course, is that during the time we are in the gymnasium, you can imply that events escalated at the party, without having to show every little step. You can also eliminate having characters tell each other things that the audience already knows. You cut back into the party scene to see Alice's reaction to the news about Jeremy's affair without having to listen to him say a bunch of stuff the audience knows. Everything gets tighter, sharper, better.

What started out as a problem zone might actually turn into your favorite part of your spec. And the next time you write an outline, you will find yourself looking for these opportunities in advance.

Lunch: salad to which I added more canned garbanzo beans than they ever give you in a restaurant. Satisfying

Jane on 03.31.06 @ 08:28 AM PST [link]

I had a meeting yesterday. A certain building on a certain lot at a certain time. I realized, as I drove through the lot, that I was approaching a building with some very bad memories in it. I kept approaching, thinking maybe my meeting would turn out to be in the building just in front of, or just beyond, the Building of Bad Memories. It wasn't.

I walked into the building and started up the stairs toward our old writers' room. I remembered how my heart used to sink as I climbed these very stairs. Sometimes I would even stop halfway up the stairs, bracing myself to continue. I worked here for a whole season a long time ago, when I was a young comedy writer on an ill-fated sitcom. It was a terrible, terrible job. It's hard to hold onto your sense of your worth as a writer when you are told, every day, that it's possible you're mistaken about that very thing.

The writers' room is a disused conference room now, the space near the walls stacked with boxes of printer paper. But there was still a table (the same table?). I sat down and thought about how far I've come. I actively treasured the sensation of sitting in that room without feeling sick and scared.

I remember wondering, that year, if it would ever get any better. I couldn't know for sure that it would. But I never seriously thought about quitting the job or quitting the business. I really do heart TV and I just sensed that someday it would heart me back.

But if that job had been my FIRST job, I wouldn't've made it. The first writers room in which I participated (other than Trek, at which I was just pitching), was at Dinosaurs, while I was still in the Disney Fellowship. Bob Young ran that room. He was relaxed, encouraging, hilarious and efficient. There was no sense of panic or blame. He trusted and respected his writers. Perhaps it helped that the show had already been cancelled and we were simply writing and shooting the last few episodes, but I don't think that was it. I just think some show runners are better than others at creating an environment where writers do their best work.

If you get hired on a show, and discover you're in Hell, take heart. There are other shows. They're better. And, as much as possible, try to fill your free time with activities that remind you of how good you are. Join a writers' group where others will read and praise you. Surround yourself with friends. (I sometimes think my friends Kim and Michelle pulled me through that year with the sheer strength of their personalities. Thanks, guys.) And write a sparkling new spec that'll help get you that better job next season.

All right, this has been a long break from the nuts-and-bolts of spec writing. Next post will be all about what to do when your outline leads you astray. Real practical stuff.

Lunch: Assorted sushi. A spicy tuna hand roll was particularly wonderful.


Jane on 03.30.06 @ 10:37 AM PST [link]

Hi, everyone! I'm back from my trip to New York City. Wow, that's a fun town! I saw three Broadway plays, how cool is that? If you want to see how to create lovable, strange and sympathetic characters with great economy, check out The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Funny and sad and funny again. So many characters drawn so precisely, wonderful little oddballs and overacheivers. You get who they are instantly... and then you learn more. And it has audience participation that doesn't make you cringe. I loved it.

Something else I did in New York: I took the NBC Studio tour. I wonder if I'm the only working writer/producer out there who still loves to do this kind of thing. I took the Burbank NBC tour again a few years ago, too. It's the strangest thing; I still love to peek backstage. If I'm early for a meeting on a studio lot, I'm not above wandering past the soundstages for shows I admire, angling for a glimpse of the set. When I took the Burbank tour as a kid, I got to see the original Hollywood Squares grid and the set of CPO Sharkey-- that kind of thing sticks with you. Years later, I was kicked off the Frasier set on the Paramount lot by a security guard who didn't understand that I was writing a Frasier spec and needed to check out how the living room felt. (I can't recommend this procedure. If you tried this today, you'd be arrested and raise the national security alert level. Back then, I was politely asked to leave the set.)

Anyway, the New York NBC tour is short but rewarding -- the SNL stage, the Conan O'Brien stage, the Dateline sets and thank you very much. But what you do see is pretty darn neat. The Conan stage is laughably small. I work in TV and I was shocked. Really, I had high school classrooms that were bigger. Even studio 8H, where SNL lives, is smaller than you expect. The audience sits in a sort of gallery for this one, like spectators in congress. I looked down on the stage, thinking: "Gilda was here, Gilda was here..."

It was great. The tiny little studios were built for radio shows! Studio 8H was built for Arturo Toscanini and the NBC symphony orchestra. Milton Berle! Bob Hope!

Love television!

Lunch: the $4 "snack box" on the airplane home. Surprisingly good. Cookies and cheese and crackers and raisins. It was like a tiny gift basket!
Jane on 03.29.06 @ 09:01 AM PST [link]

Hi all. Greetings from New York! Sorry for the lack of posting, but I've been trotting around town seeing Broadway shows and eating cart-knishes and freezing my butt off. Fun!

I saw Doubt last night -- a beautifully written play. My agent tells me that plays work very well as specs, although I've never written one myself. For those of you who want to try this, I'm afraid I have no advice other than the pathetically obvious suggestion of seeing and reading as many as you can.

One of the things that Doubt illustrates really well, is how to work flashes of humor into the darkest subject matter without making characters automatically unlikable, or making the work as a whole trivialize what's going on. When this works best is when the humor comes from a particularly well-observed quirk of character instead of the subject matter. When the nun at the center of Doubt starts her answer to a simple question with "In ancient Sparta...," the audience laughs. That laugh is a laugh of recognition. We've known people like this. For some reason, humans laugh at things they recognize. This is what keeps stand-up comedians in business. Whether you're writing a play or an episode of Two and a Half Men, look for the humor that comes from character quirks. You'll get more milage out of it than out of the characters commenting on the crazy events you've got swirling around them.

In contrast, characters' expressions of surprise at the actual events around them usually feel flat anyway, since a reader can't help but be aware that you, the writer, contrived those events exactly in order to get that reaction. I think this is more the case in reading a script than in seeing a produced version, so, as a spec writer, you have to be extra careful. Go for the character-based jokes instead.

Lunch: A hot knish off a cart, slit open with a meat-stained knife and filled with spicy mustard. Hot. Smooth. Redolent with the smoke of a hundred hotdogs. My my.


Jane on 03.26.06 @ 09:32 AM PST [link]

I love Scrabble. Love it! Best game ever invented except it has too many "i"s. Nine? That's outrageous. Seriously. Nine "i"s. It's like a bad joke. Nine.

I even loved Scrabble when I was a little kid and was terrible at it. I'd beg my parents to play, and they'd win by ludicrous margins, and I'd want to play again immediately. My one frustration was that they, trying to help me improve, would sometimes point out possible plays for me. "But now I can't play THAT one!" I would howl. It was illegitimate because I hadn't thought of it myself.

This attitude of self-defeating independence stuck with me. I couldn't title an essay, or name a pet, if someone else came up with the brainstorm. I even suspect this is one reason I don't like ordering the same entree as someone else at the table.

This trait hurt me, early in my career. If friends suggested lines in scripts I was writing, or even if co-workers pitched jokes to me informally, I couldn't use them. It felt like cheating. (In the rewrite room of course, jokes come from everywhere, but that's understood.)

If you share this trait, you will do well to get over it. Writing is collaborative. Even spec writing. Have your friends read what you're writing. If they suggest the perfect line, then take it. Take it and run. Consider it another skill, the skill of being able to RECOGNIZE the right line.

Lunch: Enchildas Verduras from Mexicali, on Ventura up in Studio City. I have spoken to you before of their sauce.

NOTE: I'm headed to New York City tomorrow morning! I will be back on Wednesday. I may not be able to blog while I'm gone. Talk to you soon!

Jane on 03.22.06 @ 06:08 PM PST [link]

Suppose you walked into a room and found me in the middle of a conversation with someone else. You didn't hear what he just said, but you heard my reply. You heard me say:

What? He fired you? When?
or
Well, I think you're the one who's cheap!
or
I'm not going to steal for you even if we are still married!
or
Mom said I could have some!
or
I don't know what you have, but that's not a mosquito bite.

In each case, you have a very good idea of what the other person in the room just said. You know something about both characters and the nature of their interaction, with one line. A scene that starts with a line like these -- a reaction line -- catches your interest fast and plunks you down in the middle of the relationship. Sure, you could start the scene with "I think I have a mosquito bite." Or you could get all the same info in half the time.

I use this all the time. All the time. I don't even think about it and wasn't consciously aware of it until I started looking for it. Here's one from a recent script. The scene starts with this line:

SHADY GUY
I promised you a half-ton of frozen fish. That’s a half-ton of frozen fish.

When we hear that, we know that the previous line was some kind of protest about whether or not Shady Guy met his end of the bargain. We've established the attitude of both characters by the end of line.

As you look through your own writing, you may very well discover that you've been doing this automatically, too. If not, try knocking off a few opening lines, see if it doesn't jump-start the scene!

Lunch: Leftover Thai food. Garlic noodles are better the second day.
Jane on 03.21.06 @ 05:01 PM PST [link]

There's a funny book called "Artistic Differences" by Charlie Hauck, which is a novelized account of working as a television comedy writer. I read it years ago and I remember enjoying it a great deal. It spins out into fantasy toward the end, but the stuff early on is gripping in its truthfulness.

I don't seem to own a copy any more, and I can't find excerpts on line, but I seem to remember a certain list in the book. It was a list of signs that you're working on a bad sitcom. I might have this quote slightly wrong, but I remember that the gist of one of the listed signs was "You're on a bad sitcom if characters use the word 'bingo' to mean 'yes.'"

Well, yes. No one is going to laugh, hearing someone say "bingo" instead of "yes," or "you got it." It's not a joke. And it doesn't help define a character except to suggest a certain flippancy which most sitcom characters have built-in anyway. And it's not novel. We've all heard it before. AND YET…

I'm not sure I've ever worked on a sitcom in which someone HASN'T used "bingo" in exactly this way, at least in some stage of some draft.

Here's how that happens. When a roomful of writers is punching up a script, they're looking for any way to put a comedic twist on every line they can. And the little humorless "yes" is unlikely to escape untwisted. We all know it's not a big laugh, but the "bingo" seems to add… hmm… flavor, you know? And ever since I read that list, I've cringed when I've seen it make its way into the script. It feels so cheap now. So limp and exhausted and "written."

As you're going through your own spec script, watch out for these little temptations. Bingo and its friends. A room full of exhausted writers trying to wring every chuckle out of tomorrow's run-through may end up with "bingo." And I don't blame them one bit. But if you find yourself putting in tired old twists like this, dig a little deeper, see if you can find something new. Your spec is a sparkly thing, treat it well.

Lunch: Mm. Thai food. Sticky rice and pad thai and tofu salad and basil chicken and thai ice tea. Now that everyone has peanut allergies, should we worry about the future of Thai food? I wonder.
Jane on 03.20.06 @ 06:56 PM PST [link]

Remember earlier this year on Project Runway when the contestants were asked to design something for Banana Republic? There was this distinct vibe from some of them, like they were above designing clothes that might show up in a display case at a mall. On the runway, when the final product was criticized, you had the feeling some of them were all, yeah, well, it's crap. That’s what you wanted, right? And others (Santino) presented totally non-Banana clothes with the attitude, I love this and this is what Banana Republic SHOULD be doing. Neither approach was entirely successful.

There's a completely analogous situation that you might find yourself facing about now. What do you do if the show that you're specing has things about it that you don't respect? In general, of course, you should only write specs for shows that you love, but this isn't always possible. And even your favorite show might have some qualities that you don't care for. Maybe the women are generally portrayed as decorative obstacles, or the dialogue is clunky, or the stories make logical jumps. What do you do, as the writer of a spec episode? Faithfully recreate crap, demonstrating your skills as chameleon? Or make it better, at the cost of no longer "sounding like the show"?

Take the second path, the Santino path, but walk it carefully. The truth is that chameleonship is an important skill, but it’s only one skill and there will be plenty of opportunities to show it off throughout your spec. The ability to create a great story with sparkling dialogue – that’s at least two skills that you desperately need to demonstrate, and you can’t forgo any chance of making that happen.

There have been a number of times when I’ve read the spec of a young writer as a favor. Often, I’m reading a spec of a show I don’t know terribly well. Then, when I criticize some element of the script, I’m told “but that’s how they do it on the show.” Okay, but if the show-runner / agent / fellowship judge doesn’t know the show any better than I do, they’re going to have the same problem.

Note that I’m not saying to make your script an editorial comment on the show; don’t make it all about correcting a problem. Avoiding the issue is smarter than confronting it, usually. If you don’t like one of the characters, simply minimize his or her involvement in the story. If the dialogue is clunky, make it slightly more natural, but don’t take it so far that you’ve created completely new voices. It’s a difficult line to walk, of course, and it’s all entirely subjective, but do your best. Ideally you should still "sound like the show," but better. Like the episode they'd do on their very best day.

Of course the beautiful irony is that once you’re actually hired on a show, the other path is usually the wiser one!

Lunch: Noodles in an asian sauce that I improvised with hot-and-sour soup mix, soy sauce, lemon juice and siracha sauce. Ooh!
Jane on 03.19.06 @ 12:22 PM PST [link]

I did the most interesting thing yesterday. I've been trying to research a fact about the history of the MGM lot. Internet searching revealed nothing, so I set out to find where that kind of information could be found. I ended up at the Margaret Herrick library at the Motion Picture Academy.

If you know LA, the building I'm talking about is the big one on the corner of Olympic and La Cienaga. I think it looks like a Morman Temple, but I'm told I'm wrong -- it is, apparently, "Italianate." Whatever, it's big and beige and churchy. The library is inside, open to anyone with an ID. It's full of silent people in cotton gloves, looking through old publicity stills. And others, without the gloves, studying old files of clippings or massive books containing collections of old issues of Variety and Hollywood Reporter. I spent a delightful afternoon looking at, among other sources, 1947 issues of "The Lion's Roar," the internal newsletter of the MGM studio. The librarians are eager to help, and know everything about everything. The one who helped me, was cited in the acknowledgments of one of the books she helped me locate.

What's striking is how little the business has changed. I was looking through Hollywood Reporter issues from 1950. It was certainly a snippier little publication than it is today, full of snide little gossip bites. (Reconstructed from memory: "Could it be that a long-legged bird is circling the house of a certain movie star? A house where the sound of recent wedding bells is still echoing?" Oooh.) But the general issues remain the same. Who's making money? What's winning awards? What's the newest threat to the industry?

There were delightful and distracting nuggets. Overhead shots of the old MGM studio revealed a sprawling and ornate backlot where homes and businesses lie now. The ridiculously young Ricardo Mantalban, fresh off starring performances at Fairfax High School, was being predicted as the newest Latin hearththrob. Lassie was listed as one of MGM's major stars; Elizabeth Taylor, as one of its minor ones. The growing impact of television on every aspect of Hollywood life was debated, including its impact on the babysitting business, as more couples stayed home at night. Lucille Ball's mother weighed in with memories of her daughter's childhood. Fantastic stuff!

If you live near LA or if you're going to visit, this is worth a trip. I never found what I was looking for, but I found a dozen things that made me happy I'd come. Check it out!

Lunch: One of those Turkey-Pesto sandwiches from Starbucks. These are strangely good. I think the secret might be loads of mayonnaise.
Jane on 03.18.06 @ 01:08 PM PST [link]

Hey there! I was talking with an executive this week who told me about the best spec pilot she had ever read. After you've written some specs for existing shows, you may want to write a spec for a show of your invention, so that you can show off your own original voice. Well, this particular spec pilot that she described was called "Depressed Roomies," and was written by a writer named Charlie Kaufman who has subsequently shown himself to have a VERY original voice.

I was so intruiged by what she told me that I did a little looking, and instantly found the script online. Here. Take a look, just as a treat for yourself. It's funny, totally original; it MOVES; it has jokes; it has distinct and funny and sympathetic characters. I felt like I was learning about pilot writing just by reading it. I suspect you will too!

Lunch: An avocado and heirloom-tomato on rye sandwich. Summer-y and nice.
Jane on 03.17.06 @ 05:56 PM PST [link]

Have you noticed the change in the air, that certain feeling that a new season is upon us? That's right. It's Pilot Season! Table reads are busting out all over!

A table read is a pre-filming exercise in which the actors sit around a table and read the entire script out loud. Writers and executives listen and use what they have heard to improve the script. When a table read is held before a pilot, it's usually the first time that the actors have all assembled together, so you're also looking for how they mesh together as an ensemble.

These events aren't just called "table reads" out of tradition. There really is a big table at the center of the room. Usually just the actors, director and executive producers are actually seated the table. A wider circle of chairs surrounds the table. Everyone else, including non-exec-prod writers, sit in these chairs. This means that when you become a staff writer, you will spend some time looking directly at the backsides of a cast of actors. This often means you are privileged to an array of thong underpants. Try to stay focused.

Comedies always have table reads. Dramas sometimes do. (Gilmore Girls does. Buffy didn't.) What I'm going to talk about applies to comedies and the funniest of the dramas. If you're writing a 24, you don't have to worry too much about this.

There's an interesting thing that happens when an episode goes from being an script to being an oral performance: subtler aspects become clear. A joke that seemed hilarious on the page can feel heavy-handed when performed, while a subtler moment that just sort of sat there when read silently, can get a big laugh at the table. This effect gets even more pronounced when the actors get up on their feet on the stage. At Gilmore Girls and at Ellen, those two shows in particular, I was struck by how a subtle actress could take a simple observational moment and make it the biggest laugh at the table or at a run-through, with a tone of voice or a facial expression. When you're working on a show, it's worthwhile to remember that sometimes the funniest moments aren't the hard jokes that shine like diamonds on the page.

But here's the rub. You, as a young writer just starting out, are not writing a script to be performed. You're writing a spec. All you have is the page. This is one of the ways in which the spec script system is imperfect. Really subtle emotional writing will be noticed, but really subtle joke writing might very well simply fade into the page. Use those produced scripts you've acquired as your guides for how many jokes to have on a page, and for how "jokey" those jokes should be. But if there's any question in your mind, I would err toward the ha-ha-ha side.

In my opinion, it is probably better to be considered a funny writer who might have to be reined in, than to be considered a writer who will have to be pushed toward the funny.

Note to Nicole in Germany: I lost your address and cannot send you a script. Sorry! Check out scriptcity.net to order a Gilmore Girls in pdf form. You can even get one that I wrote! Thanks for the letter!

Lunch: Spicy noodles with pork from Noodle Planet, a wonderful place near UCLA. Noodle Planet. Even the name is satisfying.

Jane on 03.16.06 @ 04:22 PM PST [link]

I got travel innoculations today, my friends, plus I had blood taken out. Stuff went in. Stuff came out. I'm woooooozy. So it's a perfect time to tell you about a writing secret that works goes really well with wooze.

We've been talking about getting past that horrible stage where you hate the script you're writing. It happens. Even to really experienced writers. Sometimes it's because the story is wrong. But sometimes it's that the dialogue isn't coming out sounding like the show you're specing. And you can't figure out what's wrong with it.

Here's a little trick I use. I take my fingers off the keyboard. I walk away from the computer entirely. I lie down. And I try to hear the character's voices. And, for once, when I talk about the voice of the character, I really am referencing the actual physical voice of the actor as well.

Try to just imagine them talking about the general concept of the scene you're working on. Don't try to make the conversation move from topic to topic the way it will when you write your scene. Instead, let them talk as long as they want, go off on tangents, change their minds, contradict themselves, repeat themselves. You can virtually write a lot of different versions of the conversation this way without having to actually type them.

Once you've heard all the characters have to say on the topic, you can start shaping the actual scene.
And somehow -- I guess since the process is more about the spoken word than the written word -- you end up with lines that sound truer to way the character talks.

This is an advantage you have as a spec writer over a writer of features. You know how your characters/actors sound, so you can "hear" them.

This can also be used really well as you wake up in the morning. (Not as well at night, because you fall asleep and forget it all.) In the morning, especially if you can wake up naturally, not with an alarm, and have time to drift there for a while, try applying this sort of "auditory imagination" to the next scene you're going to write, or to one that's giving you trouble. Your brain is free of stress, more open to fun and exploration, more creative when its defenses aren't up... give it a try!

Now I'm going to watch America's Next Top Model. Between that and the blood loss and the polio booster... wow. Woozy/creative.

Lunch: half a burrito from Baja Fresh and an enormous OJ from Jamba Juice. Love that Jamba!

Jane on 03.14.06 @ 08:29 PM PST [link]

I went to my local bookstore/coffee shop today and bought one of their seasonal novelty coffees. The Hazelnut Mocharoon. Seriously, it was called that. But when it was ready, they didn't put a lid on it. They instead directed me to a selection of self-serve lids. Well, I did the best I could, but I'm no professional. And the only way out of the parking structure was up the steepest exit ramp in L.A. This resulted in half my Mocharoon peeing neatly and very gradually into a velvet-lined sunglasses case that I was very fond of.

But you've got real problems. You hate your script. At least it's a fair assumption that some of you out there have suddenly realized that something feels wrong. Scenes that sounded fine in outline form are flat or awkward or simply unwritable when you try to turn them into dialogue. And it all just seems so pointless...

All right. Let's talk about the most likely option for why you're feeling this way. I'd love to say that the most likely option is that you're panicking about nothing. But I suspect that's the second most likely option. The actual most likely option is that the script is not ABOUT anything anymore. You probably started out with nice clear small little premise. You know, something like: This episode is about our hero giving up his life's work and then realizing that his own moral core won't allow him to do so. Or: This episode is about our heroine rejecting her mother's advice and later realizing that through that very independence she's acting just like her mother. Or: This episode is about our couple fearing they're growing apart and then realizing the time away from each other is strengthening the relationship. Or: whatever you've selected as the journey that best makes for a shimmering knockout episode of your show.

The process of turning that simple core notion, the about-ness of the episode, into a series of scenes, can result in its being obscured. Most of the time, just THINKING about the about-ness will suddenly make it clear which scenes have lost focus. Bring the about-ness back to the front of your brain, keep it in mind as you write every scene, and things will suddenly be much easier.

Sometimes, though, you'll realize that the reason the about-ness went away is because it got lost at an earlier stage of the process. Go back. Don't try to push ahead. If you need to go back and adjust the outline, well, then, you have to. And do it thoroughly. Don't cling to anything you've already written. In the long run, it'll be faster starting entirely over, if it results in the RIGHT outline, than it'll be to keep forging ahead with the wrong one.

I should've gone to the counter and asked for help selecting the proper lid for my mocharoon.

Lunch: a tiny rare filet mignon with barely-steamed corn-on-the-cob, sliced heirloom tomatoes and crusty oven-warmed bread. Mm-mm-mm.


Jane on 03.12.06 @ 05:09 PM PST [link]

It's so cold here! Well, not really cold. But L.A. cold. I walked to a neaby mall yesterday without a jacket in hand, and had to take a cab home because it was too cold to walk back -- seriously, it was like six blocks and it was unthinkable. Sometimes you're halfway through an enterprise when you realize it's gone badly off track.

The same thing may be happening to you. You've analyzed produced episodes. You've found a story that seems to fit the show's prototype while genuinely saying something new. You've selected your act breaks. You've broken the story into scenes. And now you're writing dialogue, actually watching the show take shape beneath your hands. At this point something starts to happen...

You start to hate your story. Really hate it. Just thinking about it makes your face burn with shame. This is normal. You can get through it. The first step is to try to articulate what's feeling wrong about it.

Here's a list of things that might be wrong. Does your script feel…

- Banal? An unemotional story that's not about anything?
- Soapy? So full of event and reaction that it's slipping into melodrama?
- Talky? Speechifying and banter with no drive?
- Calculated? So precisely engineered that it's lost all spontaneity?
- Jokey? All quips and no heart?

Once you figure out what feels off, you can start deciding if you're experiencing panic with a cause or panic without a cause. Either way, it'll be okay. This is one of the wonderful things about spec writing -- this episode will not be shoved in front of cameras in a week. You've got time to figure out what's going on. Think about what feels wrong, and then, soon, we'll talk about how to fix it. Or whether to start over entirely, which isn't as bad as it sounds.

P.S. And if you aren't hating your story? Well then. Never mind. Good for you.

Lunch: hot 'n' sour soup made from a packet, with noodles added on a whim. Zesty and starchy both!

Jane on 03.11.06 @ 03:28 PM PST [link]

You know what's always bothered me about that story about Solomon? You know, the one where he suggests cutting the disputed baby in half, knowing the true mother would give the child up rather than have that happen? The fake mother who goes along with the verdict. "Oh. That sounds fair. At least I'll get a half a baby."

And yet... sometimes cutting the baby in half is exactly the right answer.

Remember the jokes in the Jack Benny radio script archive? Remember how labored they were? We already discussed one example with a set-up that seemed endless.

Here's another example lifted from the archive:

Jack: How many kids have you got now?
Dennis: Thirteen.
Jack: Thirteen kids?
Dennis: Yup, one for every month in the year.
Jack: Dennis, there are only twelve months in the year.
Dennis: NOW HE TELLS ME.

Okay. So what do those last two lines add to the joke? I submit that if you're going to laugh at all, you're going to do it after "one for every month in the year." The rest is an explanation of the punchline. And sure enough, as audiences got more and more used to broadcast comedy, set-ups got shorter, and post-joke explanations started to fall away. And half a baby was, indeed, better than a whole one.

And yet, that baby can be cut back even further. How many times have you had to sit through a set-up that seems to go on forever:

CLUMSY HUSBAND
Honey, you don't have to warn me that a Sloppy Joe is "sloppy." I know the meaning of the word. Besides, I'm not six. I think I can manage to somehow maneuver a sandwich into my mouth without--
(He drops the sandwich onto himself)

And explaining the punchline? That's actually a mistake I've made myself. Here's an exchange adapted from one of my Buffys:

WILLOW
(to Xander)
I wish Buffy was here.

Buffy enters.

BUFFY
I'm here.

WILLOW
I wish for a million dollars.
(off Xander's look)
Someday it'll work.

Looking at this now, I should not have had Willow explain. It was clear enough what she was doing. She did not need to spell it out to Xander.

The people who are going to read your spec are smart and they will get the joke without a lot of set-up or explanation. In fact, more than anything, this lack of these things is what makes a script feel smart.

Lunch: A wonderful Sloppy Joe, which made me start thinking about messy sandwiches and jokes about same.

Jane on 03.10.06 @ 10:09 PM PST [link]

I had the most delightful lunch today with friend-of-the-blog Maggie from the bootstrap-productions blog . How exciting to be just starting the journey! And, from my point of view, there's this interesting thing that happens, like when you're showing the new foreign-exchange student around the high school, where you start seeing everything with new eyes. Hollywood looks like HOLLYWOOD again.

But then, I've had that feeling for a while now, because of this blog. It's totally envigorating to look at the process of writing from the beginning again. You start thinking consciously about things that have become entirely subconscious.

Like jokes. Jokes have different functions. Some are hammers. Just old-fashioned put-downs used against other characters. And almost all of them are flashlights trained on the character that says them. You learn something about a character every time you laugh at something they say.

And a few jokes... A few jokes are explosives. They hit every one in the room. They change the way all the OTHER characters look at something. They turn the story. This is the most difficult kind of joke I can imagine.


Remember on Sex and the City where the women were talking about a baby boy with an unpleasant demeanor? One of them (Samantha) finally said: "Maybe he's just an asshole." I have heard so many people remember and comment on that line. It was written by the wonderful Alexa Junge, by the way. In that line, she didn't just shock us with using that kind of language to discuss a baby. Instead, she hit on something we'd all observed but that no one had said out loud before: babies are not equal. Other people are allowed to have bad qualities, why not babies? And, as I remember the moment, you can SEE that insight hit all of the other characters.

Usually jokes are not bendable to this purpose. When Radar announced that Col. Blake's plane was shot down, the line affected all the characters. That moment was so big and so tragic that it obviously would have been impossible to do that with a joke. But when it IS possible to bring emotional impact and humor together, it's magic.

On Friends, there was a moment when fighting between the friends became intense and Phoebe shouted "Stop! Look what we're doing to Chandler!" And we then saw that Chandler was capering frantically, like a little boy trying to get his parents to stop fighting. Funny and heartbreaking. The moment hit the audience and it hit the characters and it still managed to play as a joke. Fantastic.

I bet we could find moments like this from All in the Family, Cheers, Taxi and Frasier. And I bet it wouldn't even take us that long to remember them. Those are the moments you remember.

If you're writing a comedy spec, and you want to try for the highest degree of difficulty... wow. Good for you.

Lunch: Eggs and mimosas and sherbet and good company.



Jane on 03.09.06 @ 09:09 PM PST [link]

Does your cell phone ever say this? "You have one unheard message. The following message has not been heard. First unheard message..." This is the kind of detail of daily life that stand-up comics seize on. It's totally familiar, ridiculous, and laughable when pointed out. I recommend that you take note of these little details of life. Collect them as if you had a set at the Improv to prepare for. And look around to notice the new trends. What silly fashions are starting to show up? What are the new slang words? What do people do at the gym? What are the current topics of dissent in your workplace? What new daily-life hassles are peeving you? What's the new limited-time offering at McDonalds? What's the food allergy everyone suddenly seems to have?

These are the observations that will improve the jokes in your comedy spec scripts, because they will create jokes taken from life. Too many spec scripts seem to use jokes that have been adapted from other jokes in other scripts. Like last year's coat, they've been cut and resewn to try to look new. There is very little new comedy ground to plow in the area of white people saying "bling," for example. And there is positively no tillable land in "what part of ___ don't you understand", unless it is twisted in some very unexpected way. (What part of Burrata Frittata don't you understand?...Hmm. You MIGHT be headed for a joke. Maybe. Still smells old to me.)

Some observations were funny when they were new, but now have become overused. The idea that having a third child makes you "outnumbered"? I've heard it on several shows. First time, great. Subsequent times, not so good. Observations about sweatpants with words across the butt are a little old now. Jokes about how your parents can't set the VCR. Done. "Does this dress make me look fat?" Over. Bearded men in a dress. Not fresh. A dog that covers his eyes in embarrassment. No. Shatner has a hairpiece. We know! We know!

Friends was a show that did a really good job of finding joke areas that hadn't been worked to death. When Chandler railed against the kind of people who say "supposably," it led to Joey, alone later, tentatively checking a few sentences out loud to check if he used it. That was new and very funny. I think of it every time I hear someone say "supposably" (which is appallingly often). But I'd never heard anyone COMMENT on that word before. If the joke had been built around, say, people who say "irregardless," it would have been eleven per cent less funny.

Exactly eleven.

Lunch: A sandwich from Bay City Imports in Santa Monica. The best sandwich shop / grocery in the world. Veggies and hot pepper salad and parma proscuitto and horseradish cheddar all on a crusty italian roll. Best sandwich EVER!
Jane on 03.08.06 @ 06:01 PM PST [link]

Hi all! I came across the neatest thing today. A website at which one can be entertained and appalled in a number of different ways. The site is tobaccodocuments.org and it's fascinating!

As part of some settlements reached between states and tobacco companies, the companies were required to make documents available. They're all on this site. There are some very interesting things there if you can wade through a lot of gibberish in between the goodies. The best part is an amazing archive of old Jack Benny radio shows. Complete with lots and lots of ads for Lucky Strike cigarettes.

You can find the scripts here: Jack Benny radio scripts. Just scroll down until they appear.

What's especially cool about these, is that they are photos of the original scripts, with pencilled-in corrections, rewrites, additions and cuts. Wow.

There's even one script in which Mary has been cut and Rochester has taken her lines without any changes being make to them. Sloppy characterization? Or surprising color-blindness for the time? I'm torn.

What I find interesting, in addition to the sheer, gee-whiz time capsule aspect of these, is that there is virtually nothing to be learned about comedy here except how not to do it. I'm perplexed as to why this is the case. Here's one of the jokes. A girl at a passport office is helping Jack fill out a form:

Girl: Age?
Jack Benny: 39
Girl: Occupation?
Jack Benny: Comedian.
Girl: I thought so.

Now, I KNOW it was a running gag that Benny perpetually claimed to be 39. But still.

Also, the jokes in these scripts seem to have awfully long set ups. In one, a character enters and announces he's going on a trip to Waxahachie, Texas. Benny asks him a long series of questions about why he's going. Friends? Family? Business? No, no, no. So why, Benny belabors, if it's not friends, if it's not family, if it's not business, WHY then, is he going to Waxahachie, Texas? WHY? Punchline: The name fascinates me.

Oh dear god. This is an ostrich straining to lay a jelly bean.

So far, the joke I like best is one that got cut:

Mary: Say, Jack, in Alaska, do they really use fish for money?
Jack: Uh-huh. It works out pretty well, except they have the sloppiest juke boxes.

Once you get past the ludicrous premise that she might actually believe in the fish money, you get a pretty funny and surreal image.

Anyway, check them out if you're interested in how the currency of our business (and, apparently, the currency of Alaska) has changed!

Lunch: tomatoes, sliced paper-thin, broiled, then served on rye toast with homemade white sauce. Mmm. Family recipe.

Jane on 03.06.06 @ 07:38 PM PST [link]

I had Indonesian food with a friend the other day. You remember the lunch entry. There was much interesting conversation and laughter and a really gorgeous dessert. This was one of those little restaurants that also has a small selection of imported grocery items for sale. I bought myself a bag of garlic-and-tapioca-coated peanuts and they're mighty good. I'm eating them now and enjoying the packaging very much. You should see this logo. It seems to be two Easter bunnies astride a swimming peanut that is arching out of the water like a breaching whale, or maybe like a speedboat. Seriously. They're certainly bunnies, and each is holding a basket. And that peanut that they're on is almost completely out of the water. Two small fish jump alongside and a pine forest is arrayed behind the whole scene. And there's a big setting sun, too. Wow. That's one hard-working logo. Words are not adequate.

But when you're writing a spec script, all you have are words. And you need to deploy them with maximum efficiency. Here's another neat little trick that can help you. This is from Joss's script for the Firefly episode called "Objects in Space." Jayne has been complaining about River, who recently came at him with a butcher's knife. Zoe defends River to Mal:

ZOE
Sir, I know she's unpredictable. But I don't think she'd harm anyone.

JAYNE
("Hellooo…")
Butcher's knife.

Joss has done a beautifully efficient thing here. The one word "Hellooo" in the parenthetical does the work of a much longer explanation. Even the longer alternative "pointing out the obvious" doesn't really get the job done, since it doesn't necessarily convey that distinct exasperated tone of voice that "Hellooo" does.

By the way, the quote most often used in this way is probably "Yeah, right," since sarcasm is needed so often.

Keep in mind that this is not a very commonly employed technique. This is the only time Joss uses a quote inside a parenthetical in this whole script, and a quick look through my own scripts didn't reveal ANY, although I know I have used it on occasion. So don't go looking through your spec for places to use this. But if you find yourself struggling to efficiently convey in a parenthetical the tone you need, then this might be the answer.

Maybe you thought scriptwriting would be all about learning lots of rules. But look at how many of the really expressive ways of doing it are all about creative variations on the standard ways of doing things! Don't you just love that?

Lunch: Sashimi with a nice little serving of warm rice.
Jane on 03.05.06 @ 02:40 PM PST [link]

So. Is anyone (or, possibly, everyone) else completely obsessed with Project Runway? This is what reality television was born to do. It's got actual documentary value, since you learn about a world you previously knew nothing about, plus it's got that contest element that makes for tremendous suspense. If you haven't seen the latest ep yet (the first half of the finale), and you don't want to know the latest, then skip the following paragraph.

Did you notice how everything is conspiring to make us think Daniel V isn't going to win? I have this strange suspicion that they're doing it on purpose to throw us off the track. If that's the case, then that would mean that producers told Tim Gunn to withhold praise from Daniel just to manipulate us. I love the show, but I feel a little bit like that would be cheating. Tim Gunn is supposed to be on THAT side of the camera, uninfluenced by gross matters of commerce and storytelling. I feel like there should be an information curtain between him and the producers, don't you? Ah well, perhaps there is, and Daniel V really has failed to impress. We may never know.

All right. Back to spec scriptwriting. There is a connection to what I just wrote, but it's tenuous... something about an information curtain. We all understand that a reader of script shouldn't be allowed to know more than a viewer of the eventual filmed product would. Thus, we purposely withhold information when we write our stage directions. It would be very strange, for example to include the following stage direction:

Jeremy sits up and notices that his tent smells strongly of boyenberries. His hair is then tousled by a shockingly warm wind that makes him think of his childhood in Florida.

The reader of such a direction is going to rightly wonder how the viewer is supposed to know about the scent of boyenberries and the temperature of the wind and the childhood memories.

None of you would, I'm confident, write such a direction. That isn't the danger. The danger is over-correction. In an effort to avoid telling too much, sometimes new writers tell too little. It turns out that it is perfectly all right in many cases to explain what a character is thinking. Here's a stage direction I've adapted from one I wrote for an episode of Buffy. Xander is in a phone booth, calling Buffy to warn her that he's been duplicated. Then his double walks past the phone booth. The stage direction reads:

The phone's still ringing and Xander is torn -- wait for Buffy to pick up? Or follow his double? He hesitates, then hangs up and follows Xander-Double.

In a script that is going to be produced, these kinds of directions help the director and the actor know how to play to moment. In a script that is going to be READ, they help the reader imagine an actor playing it, and thus tell the reader how to interpret the moment. There is nothing wrong with doing this.

In fact, you can do more than this. You can tell the reader not only what the character is thinking, but you can also tell them what they, the reader, should be thinking. From earlier in the same script:

The dump is empty now. Except that something lies half-buried in garbage, unnoticed. We push in. IT'S XANDER, still lying unconscious where he fell. So who just went off with Buffy?

That last question, "So who just went off with Buffy?" is what I want the reader of the script to be asking. I include it so they understand that it's all right for them to have this question at this time -- that I WANT them to be asking it.

Putting in little signposts like these will assure the reader that they're following the story.

Here's another, hypothetical, example. Suppose you're writing a spec for a medical show and you have one of your major characters suddenly say something wildly out of character. You're HOPING that the reader will notice that it's out of character and begin to suspect that the character has become infected with the brain disease that's sweeping the hospital. But what if the reader simply thinks you've written a crappy line? Well, it's all fixed if you can include a stage direction like "no one around him seems to notice that what was just said has a tinge of insanity to it."

Letting the reader know that they're following the story as you are intending them to, is a special kindness when you consider the constraints on time and attention span that a show-runner will have when they're reading your script. Make it easy!

Lunch: Indonesian food. Mmm. The best part is the dessert, a mountain of pink ice with bits of confetti-colored goo and fruit inside.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: It occurs to me that this entry may be confusing to those who have paid attention to my repeated warning that readers skip the stage directions. Hmm. Good point. But still, if they do read 'em, it'll be good if they're helpful.

Jane on 03.04.06 @ 09:45 PM PST [link]

... I would want to write the line "There's more than one way to perform a CAT scan." Have they used that one yet? Because it makes me laugh.

Of course, it's actually skinning a cat that has so many appealling variations (nose-first, tail-first, and from-the-feet-up, I imagine). Turning an outline into a script is another one of those things that can be approached in more than one way. Some people write the scenes in order. Others jump around. For example, I start with the most quiet and internal, emotional scenes, and leave action sequences for the very last.

One of my Buffy colleagues had a method I want to tell you about. He would write what he called a "words on paper" draft. In this draft he would give all the scenes their shape, but he wouldn't finalize the dialogue. The characters were all given on-the-nose versions of what they needed to say.

After this draft was done, he would go through and rewrite the lines and polish the action and description, creating the draft he would turn in.

I would never be able to do it this way. Once I'm engaged in a scene I'm hearing the dialogue, and have to write it down to capture it. I think it would be more effort *not* to write it at that stage!

Also, there is a phenomenon that I urge you to look out for. The love of what is written. Once you have written a line, even if you intended it to be a temporary placeholder, it's possible to start seeing it as the best of all possible lines. Simply because it's there. Maybe it's the same mental process that keeps people in bad marriages. Well, he's here, isn't he? And what if I can't do any better?

So play around with the "words on paper" method if you want, or write in order or out of order. The important thing is to realize that there's no correct way to go about this. It's like taking a bath. Afterwards, no one's going to know anything about the process, but they'll appreciate the result.

Lunch: spaghetti and grated parmesian cheese in about a 1:1 ratio
Jane on 03.03.06 @ 09:06 PM PST [link]

I had dinner at The Stinking Rose last night. Everything there was saturated in garlic and I couldn't've been happier about it. We started with something called Bagna Calda. I believe that means "hot bagna." It was a big pile of lovely garlic cloves. We ended with garlic ice cream. This place was not subtle. They took a theme and they went for it.

I loved it. However, it was the culinary equivalent of an "on the nose" line of dialogue.

"On the nose" is a criticism you might get a lot during your first few years of writing professionally. At least, it was one I got a lot. When a line is "on the nose," it's too literal. A character is saying exactly what they feel, or conveying precisely the pertinent piece of information. This leads to dialogue that feels written and unreal. It also makes your characters sound shockingly self-aware and composed, which isn't very vulnerable and sympathetic of them.

So take that dialogue and scuff it up. Put in hesitations, false starts, embarrassed understatement, hyperbole, misunderstandings, sarcasm, evasion, self-delusion and outright lies. Have characters trail off, interrupt themselves and anticipate the other characters.

ON THE NOSE:

CHARACTER ONE: It's not just that I want you. I need you.

CHARACTER TWO: I don't want to hear that. I want you to love me. I'm leaving.

NOT ON THE NOSE:

CHARACTER ONE: I know this sounds like, I guess, lust. Which it is. God, it SO is. But there's more. Look, I'm not going to say I need you--

CHARACTER TWO: You need me? Need? That's not what I... Look, I have to go.

The downside is that this sometimes requires more words.

Lunch: canned beets and some couscous salad from the grocery store. It was okay.
Jane on 03.02.06 @ 05:31 PM PST [link]

Hi! I went back to college last night. I was invited to speak to a UCLA Extension course. It was a class that was specifically for people writing spec scripts. For those of you in the LA area, this kind of class is the sort of thing you should look to for info, encouragement, and a community of people any one of whom could get hired and turn into your friend in the business at any moment.

Anyway, I had a blast. Then I couldn't find my car in the parking structure. I'm standing there in the middle of the structure, looking off to one side, craning, pressing the beep-button. I can hear my car beeping, but I can't tell where it's coming from. ANGLE ON: My car. I'm clearly visible in the b.g., standing right behind it, looking the wrong way.

Did'ja see that? That was an ANGLE ON. It's a way to focus the viewer's (or reader's) attention on something by specifying a shot. Sometimes it can be very useful.

The use of ANGLE ON is pretty loose. And sometimes I use "ANOTHER ANGLE REVEALS" instead. This is one of those things that writers tend to learn just by noticing how other writers are using them, so they aren't always terribly consistent. Here are some examples of places where you might use ANGLE ON.

This one is adapted from a script I wrote. Buffy is in the middle of a long speech. Unless I tell the reader otherwise, they're going to assume the camera is on her.

BUFFY
...more than just a battle. It's going to be a battle like we've never seen before...

ANGLE ON WILLOW, watching Buffy talk. Willow looks really bored.

Here's another situation in which it's useful to specify the angle:

GILES
For god's sake! How can anyone be thinking about their social life? We're about to fight the original, most primal evil, and these girls are all in mortal danger!

ANGLE ON GILES from some distance away... someone's POV.

By suddenly cutting to this distant angle, it's clear that someone as yet unrevealed is watching Giles.

Sometimes I use it if I don't want to reveal the location of the scene yet. I'll start with a CLOSE ON or an ANGLE ON a character, then later WIDEN TO REVEAL where they are.

And sometimes I use it when I have two things happening in the same set. For example, if there is a big party scene in which I'm alternating chunks of dialogue taking place between two different couples in different parts of a set. I can't use a new slug line in this situation because I'm staying in the same set, so I'll use ANGLE ON to switch between the two conversations. "ANGLE ON Jim and Tammy over by the fireplace," like that.


I think you can see that any time it's useful to move or focus the reader's attention, you've got the option of using an ANGLE ON. But use it sparingly. Picking the shots is the director's job. That's why ANGLE is only one letter different than ANG LEE.

Lunch: I had the Enchiladas Verduras at Mexicali on Ventura here in L.A. Love that tomatilla sauce!

Jane on 03.01.06 @ 11:09 AM PST [link]