Buy yourself a gift! G'wan, you know you deserve it. Here's what I recommend. It's a fabulous book called PANEL ONE: Comic Book Scripts by Top Writers, edited by Nat Gertler. I received it in my blog mail, along with a gracious letter from Nat himself.

In the letter, Nat supplies a nice addendum/clarification to my recent post on comic book script writing:

One thing that I'll note is that you don't always have to call the angle of the shot. Call the setting, call the action, yes. But calling the shot every time is setting aside one of the comic writer's most useful tools: the artist. Always have a shot in mind -- it's the only way you can be sure that there is something that works. But only call the shot when you have a real specific vision, a specific effect that you're trying to build toward. Otherwise, work with good artistic storytellers and let them do what they do well. Call the angle every time, and you're apt to bore the artist, and the work shall suffer.

Great advice, and also, nice use of "shall". We don't get a lot of "shall" 'round these parts.

The book itself is fantastic, containing actual scripts presented in their purest form. Even if you're not a comic book person, you'll learn a lot and be entertained. In fact, it's possible you may be MORE entertained by the script than the resulting comics, if you're more of a word person than a picture person, and if you're fascinated by process. There's a lovely feeling of peeking backstage that you get with these scripts.

The first thing you'll notice is that thing I told you about how the scripts can vary in the way they convey the content. Boy, do they ever. Some are dense blocks of prose, some are actual story-boards, most have some resemblance to other kinds of scripts, but with extreme variations in format. It makes me wonder what television and movie scripts would look like if they hadn't been unified into one fairly uniform (although flexible) format. Even the font varies! Courier has been shed like an old school uniform. Wild.

Here's a random sample of what you'll get, from a Neil Gaiman script:


Page 6 panel 4

THEY ARE WADING THROUGH TWO OR THREE FEET OF SHOW. THEY AREN'T REALLY DRESSED FOR IT, ALTHOUGH THEY'VE ALL TAKEN GLOVES AND SWEATERS OUT OF THEIR BACKPACKS -- THEY AREN'T ALLOWED TO PUT ON THEIR INSULATED GEAR UNTIL THEY GO OUTSIDE THE PYRAMID. THEY ARE HUGGING THEMSELVES AS THEY WALK. THEY LOOK MISERABLE AND COLD. THEIR BREATH STEAMS ON THE AIR. IT'S A SORT OF ARCTIC DREAMWORLD, DIAMOND-SHARP AND SNOW-SCUMBLED.

cap: Walking up the stairs we don't talk. We don't have the energy, or the air.

cap: Walking the halls we don't talk either. We don't have anything to say.

cap: Gwen sings, from time to time.

Mmm. Fantastic.

Lunch: leftover thai food. Roast pork just tossed into the same skillet with the papaya salad and reheated together. Can't be beat.
Jane on 03.31.08 @ 11:07 AM PST [link]

A Friend of the Blog called me yesterday because she'd been given a note on a spec pilot that she'd written and it seemed strange to her. The note was to adjust her act breaks so that they all focused on the lead character. She'd heard notes before about breaking acts on story turns, but never about breaking them on a certain character. She wondered if she was getting bad advice.

She was right to ask the question. Any time a note feels like a formula is being applied to your script ("You should ALWAYS..."), you're right to step back and ask if this is the blind application of some abstract rule instead of something that actually will work for your script. But, in fact, I think the note was probably a good one.

I wrote recently about the importance, especially in a spec pilot in which your readers are trying to grasp a lot of new things all at once, of making sure that every reader knows who the protagonist of your story is. Besides, the protagonist's reactions during the developments in the story ARE the story. Since the act breaks are your story turns, they are the biggest opportunity to accomplish this.

Here's an example. Let's say your big act break involves a secondary character revealing a big secret to a huge audience that contains the protagonist. What's the last line of text before the FADE OUT at the end of the act? It could be, "On the speaker's face, knowing his political career is over, we..." or "On the crowd, gasping in surprise, we...". But it's probably better if it's, "Among the crowd we find our hero. His jaw clenches as he realizes that this changes everything." Or, you know, something in that area.

Of course, there are exceptions. Maybe your act break scene is a reveal that your protagonist is being betrayed by his best friend, and the protag isn't even in the scene. If you remain convinced that you've got the act break in the right place, you don't need to agonize over the fact that we're not close on his big glorious face when you head into the commercial break. Never panic if your script doesn't fit every guideline. But given the choice, if you've got a character that you want the audience to hook into... hook into them early and often.

Lunch: hummus on a tortilla with shredded parm cheese on top. Impromptu and fabulous.

Jane on 03.28.08 @ 11:28 AM PST [link]

Oh, such a wonderful letter today, from Cristobal in Puerto Rico! Isn't that cool? He's absolutely fired with determination to be a television writer. Well, that's an excellent first step and I'm wishing you all the luck in the world.

Cristobal asks about the amount of latitude that a writer on the staff of a show gets… "when assigned to plot out the beats of a certain story arc. [As in…] how much of what happens is theirs and how much is the showrunner's?"

A great question without a great answer. It depends a great deal on the culture and methods of the particular show.

On most shows this is the work that is usually done as a group by the whole staff. On some shows it's done on a more individual basis, but even then the writer isn't entirely on their own. They work with the showrunner and can ask for help from other writers on the staff.

As to how much of the story that results from this process is "theirs," well anywhere from all to none. Some shows, for a variety of reasons, are made up of episodes that fall from the brains of their creators and the staff finds itself having the job of helping midwife the ideas. Other shows are more collaborative, a great meeting of cooks around a cauldron. Interestingly, there need be no difference in quality between these two approaches. And even more interestingly, you may discover you don't even have a preference as to which kind of show you find yourself on. Both have their joys.

I think you're getting the message that TV is a really collaborative medium. Every now and then some writer on a staff may pitch their own story that is so perfectly crafted that they get to write it exactly as they imagined it, but that would be rare. And then, of course, in both features and television, there are more voices, generally from executives, that have influence over the story.

I think you'll find that the collaboration is a good thing. Being surrounded by experience and talent doesn't dim your own star, it actually makes it brighter.

Lunch: some kind of chopped salad. Remarkably slippery, wouldn't stay on the utensil.

Jane on 03.27.08 @ 04:13 PM PST [link]

This is going to be a messy post, I can tell. No theme, no arc. Ah, well.

First: I'm looking at a letter sent to be on behalf of something called Zhura, which is billed as "a new online screenwriting tool." The idea seems to be that you can write in professional script formats without paying for Final Draft. I have no idea if it works (everyone I know already has Final Draft), but if you've been saving your pennies to buy screenwriting software, you can check it out and find out if it works! (It's at Zhura.com.)

Second: Thanks to Gentle Reader Lila who kept me company on the picket line and who writes thank me for the invitations I issued for aspiring writers to come out and walk with us. Thank you, Lila and everyone else!

Similarly, Matt in England, who is starting what sounds like a rip-snortin' comedy career over there, writes to thank the blog for guidance in writing a comedy spec script. You're welcome, Matt! I'm thrilled to hear I helped!

Finally, I've been meaning to thank some Gentle Readers for some gifts. Lilia, thank you very much. Also, I have received several interesting books. One of them is at home and I have forgotten the name of the G.R. who sent it, so I'll add that here when I get a chance. The other is a fine book called "Comedy by the Numbers," by Eric Hoffman and Gary Rudoren. There is a lot to love in this book, but my favorite bit so far is a list of "Novelty Items That Never Caught On," which includes, "never-light emergency flares," "sexy edible shoe insoles" and my all-time favorite, "vomit bikini." Hee! Vomit bikini. In a way, these items work a bit like that joke we've been discussing, in which only part of a story is overheard. Like those story fragments, these items force the listener to construct a whole scenario in which these items are a sensible part. Interesting.

Lunch: avocado, lettuce and tomato sandwich. I'm more and more convinced you don't really need the bacon.

Jane on 03.26.08 @ 03:19 PM PST [link]

A while back, I promised you, Gentle Readers, a little post about comic book writing. Have you ever seen a comic book script? They're fascinating. Different companies and different writers use different formats. Some, I'm told, describe only the action and put in dialogue after the pictures have been drawn. I've never written that kind.

The ones I've seen and written look surprisingly like television scripts. They're broken down by page and panel instead of act and scene. There are around 22-ish pages in a book, and from one to six-ish panels per page. The panels are described with some precision and the dialogue is given for each panel in script format.

Here's an example:

PAGE TEN

Panel One:

We are behind Jennifer, who has made herself comfortable in the giant bird's nest. Next to her an enormous egg cracks ominously.

SFX: krrrrk


Panel Two:

We're seeing Jennifer from the front now. She eyes the egg warily as a sharp bill punctures the shell from the inside.

SFX: Kek!

This is a supplemental post to thank all the fans who came out in Hollywood last night to celebrate Buffy with the cast and writers at the Paley Center Event. They showed the whole musical episode, "Once More With Feeling," which I hadn't seen in years. I think it's even more amazing than I realized at the time.

The fans were wonderful, treating even the writers like rock stars. It was wonderful and we all appreciate it so much! Thank you!
Jane on 03.21.08 @ 05:04 PM PST [link]

I've had a request to talk about pitching. Not the kind of story or joke pitching one does in the room, but the kind of prepared pitching that's used to sell a pilot, or sometimes a freelance episode of a show.

I should tell you that my own ability with regard to this varies widely. If I stay calm, I can do very well indeed, but if I get too nervous -- oof -- I can crumble entirely. So the most important thing for me is to stay calm. You already know if this is going to be a problem for you, so plan accordingly.

Now, everyone likes to pitch differently. Some people read their pitch, others have no notes at all, most are somewhere in between, with notes that they consult, but don't read directly from. I'm an in-betweener myself. I like to have practiced the pitch, but not to the point where it's lost all meaning… if I'm doing it right, I'm actually thinking about the story as I'm telling it, and will sometimes change something as I go along. Sometimes, for example, they'll tell you something about what they're looking for that affects how you want to position your show, so you have to adjust on the fly. If they tell you all about how they really want family shows, you may want to emphasize the family scenes, for example, and downplay the role of the hooker.

To a certain extent, you get to choose how the pitch goes. If you want it to feel more like a conversation, then give a very short pitch and spend your time answering their questions. If you want more control, maybe you'll give a more detailed pitch, which requires you to talk longer to preempt some of those questions. Even the longest pitch, however, shouldn't be terribly long. I'm sure there are writers who talk for twenty minutes or more, but I think you'd be far better off concluding your main comments after five or ten.

Some writers start by naming and describing their characters, but I don't like that approach. Listeners just aren't good enough at remembering the names and attributes and fitting them into the story. Instead, I describe each character very briefly when they first appear in the story.

I start by talking about the genre and feel and point of the show. I might say,

"My pitch is for a show called 'Giants' and it's a gritty adventure show that feels a bit like Schindler's List meets Alien. It's the story of how a rural farm wife becomes the leader of a resistance movement when disaster comes to the United States." Or whatever the show is.

There is never a reaction, by the way, to this first introduction. I've recently realized that that's because agents pre-pitch the idea for you. So the execs will already know that much. Anyway, I then either talk a little more about the series in general, or, often, I jump right into the events of the pilot episode:

"Okay. We start out on a farm in Nebraska where Tom, a 35-year-old farmer, is giving a tour to a bunch of Ag students from the local college when suddenly… "

I tell the story briefly, pointing out each act break and exciting revelation. I try to be animated and smiling and funny where I can be. I get excited and sit on the edge of the couch and wave my hands around a bit. I try not to let the story get bogged down in details, but to emphasize the emotional turns: "This is the moment when she realizes that no other leader is going to step forward. She reaches out and shakes the hand of the lead Alien and offers the use of her farm, gambling that she just made the Resistance stronger, not weaker…" -- that kind of thing.

At the end of the initial bout of talking, I complete the story of the pilot, and maybe give a little glance forward: "We end the episode with that first thread of hope -- communication with another small community that's also been converted to an Alien arms factory. Ruth has grown into a true leader, although one faced with an overwhelming enemy."

Then I say, loudly, "AND THAT'S OUR SHOW."

It's only after that that I mention that I have ideas for many sample episodes. They will ask to hear one-sentence versions of those.

Soon, it's a genuine conversation and they'll start giving real feedback mixed in with more questions. Sometimes it's a quick "no," sometimes it isn't, but I've never been treated rudely or unkindly.

Believe in your idea. Be proud of it, excited by it, and put effort into showing it off. You might want to practice your pitch for friends, or practice out loud to yourself. But the most important thing I do, I think, is just to keep asking myself, as I prepare the pitch -- what's frakkin' great about this story? Then sell that point. See? Easy!

Lunch: leftover Persian food: stew over crispy rice. Mm.

Jane on 03.21.08 @ 04:58 PM PST [link]

Friend of the Blog Alex Epstein sends along an interesting contemplation on a certain type of joke. I'm going to let you see his explanation and then present mine, which differs on a certain point. Here is how he explains it:

… Sometimes, I see good writers make fun of bad, obvious dialog and cliche. Saw a bit on Steven Moffat's JEKYLL, ep. 3. A bunch of suits and techies watching the usual assortment of screens tracking Dr. Jackman:

Shot of a dot moving along a drawing of a railroad track.

Technie: He's moving.
American agent: Of course he's moving! He's on a train!

We don't really need "He's moving" to tell us that he's moving, unless we're washing the dishes and listening to the TV out of one ear, or we are very, very stupid. The American agent makes that point for us.

But wait, there's the retort:

Technie: He's moving.
American agent: Of course he's moving! He's on a train.
English agent: You obviously haven't got the hang of England yet, have you?

Joss does this a lot, I think, subverting our TV viewer expectations:

Buffy: Puppets give me the wiggins. Ever since I was 8.
Willow: What happened?
Buffy: I saw a puppet. It gave me the wiggins. There really isn't a story there.

I bet that sort of retort comes up a lot in story rooms; I wonder how often it makes it to the screen. (Network exec: "But how does the audience know he's moving?")

Oh, this is very interesting. I agree that this is totally about subverting the expectations of the listener. It never would have occurred to me, though, that this had to do with a response to exec-driven overwriting. I would have taken this (at least the first joke) more as a response to the real-life human tendency to state the obvious. And the second one I take as a response to the expected structure of normal conversation (i.e. "ever since…" is supposed to lead to a anecdote.) So for me, both of these are about someone reacting to a statement that was deficient in some way, but deficient because of the foible of a character.

However, I'm open to Alex's interpretation, now that I hear it. Certainly, the first joke illustrates an excellent way to turn a "make it clearer" note into a benefit -- have someone hang a lantern on the over-clarity and then, if possible, slap a topper onto it! (So much writers' slang! Yay!)

By the way, the Buffy example reminds me of another classic Joss joke, in which someone tries to deflect a question by saying "it's a long story," only to have another character quickly sum up the situation, leading the first character to lamely say, "Guess it's not that long." The standard conventional rule is that "it's a long story" ends any discussion. To go past it and deflate it is funny.

It's making me curious about other jokes that do this. Oh! How about the Princess Leia/Han Solo moment: "I love you." "I know." That's certainly a violation of how we know that exchange is supposed to go. If you're writing a comedy or a drama with wit, it's worth doing a bit of thinking about this kind of joke since there's something so ingrained about conversational assumptions that these jokes always pack a nice punch.

Lunch: salad bar, squash soup

Jane on 03.20.08 @ 02:49 PM PST [link]

Gentle Reader Lauren from Michigan writes in with a question I haven't seen before. She asks,

I was wondering when you are writing a script if you should include what musical selection you think should be played over the course of the scene and if so, should you be so detailed as to indicate which lines of the song would correspond best to the mood? How would you represent this in the script or is it best not to explore that aspect at all?

Great question. This actually is something you can do as a writer, although you should use it only very rarely and very carefully.

It's not unheard of to indicate a song that you'd like to hear in a scene. Here's a (slightly edited) stage direction from my first draft of an Angel script I wrote: The radio turns on my itself and changes stations, landing on the Mills Brothers singing "You Always Hurt the One You Love." A SHADOW falls across Cordelia's bed. An old lady voice comes out of nowhere...

And I can certainly imagine the last scene of a pilot looking something like this:

EXT. COURTYARD

And there, amid the wreckage of the wedding reception gone horribly wrong, Billie Holiday's version of "Embraceable You" wafts over the broken tables. Charles pulls Audrey into his arms. Here, finally, they get their wedding dance.

I think this has happened before. It seems like every time I post something here that seems to close a door, I get an email from a friend with a way to open it back up. Fantastic.

After my post about how sending an agent a letter probably wasn't a workable avenue to job-having, I received the following communication from working writer and Friend-of-the-Blog, Gillian Horvath. Take it, Gillian!

I did get my first agent by sending a letter to someone I'd never met. I was at that time a young aspiring writer without a script sale. It wasn't entirely a "cold call" -- the agent had been recommended to me by a mutual acquaintance -- but there was no personal connection. It was the letter that got me in the door to be read, and met, and signed.

There are two keys to this approach, I think. One is that you don't send a query letter and wait to be asked for the script, the way prose writers do with literary agents. Your letter is more of a cover letter, with the script right there in the envelope, so that if the letter piques their interest they can flip open the script and read a few pages right then and there. (Be prepared to spend money on copying and postage that you will never see back, because of course many times that whole envelope is going straight into the recycling.)

The other key thing to be aware of is that there has to be something in that letter that sets you apart from everyone else in the pile. Not your script -- you. What you're selling them on is not the enclosed script -- not its premise, not its quality, not its saleability -- but you. This is the direct opposite of query letters for prose manuscripts, where it's all about the project, and details about the author are discouraged.

The letter is your chance to convince the agent that you are going to make money for them -- that you are committed to making a career, and that you are putting so much work into it that their job will be easy. In my cover letter, I was able to mention various contacts I had made and promising leads I'd created. I'd made those contacts by working as an intern and assistant around town, but I think the important thing isn't the specifics of my progress -- it's the fact that I used the letter to report on that progress. I was able to realistically portray myself as on the cusp of selling, so the agent I'd approached could see the potential for getting a commission soon. That made it worth her time to consider my spec.

In a post-script, Gillian adds: Typing up the story really got me thinking about that transitional moment when I realized that you can't approach an agent hunt (or a pitch meeting, or a job interview) as a complete supplicant. No one signs you because they want to do you a favor, right? They sign you -- or hire you -- because it's going to be good for them.

So there you go, Nic in Germany and everyone else... excellent advice from someone who found a door that I didn't even know was there. Inspiring! And that final observation is a huge one -- when you're dreaming about your big break, stop framing it as, "how can I get someone to do me a huge favor?" and start framing it as, "how can I make the case for what I have to offer?" (Then, don't argue the case, build the case.)

Lunch: chicken soft tacos from Del Taco. As always, opt for the Del Scorcho sauce.

Jane on 03.17.08 @ 12:26 PM PST [link]

Nic in Germany wants to know about query letters that a writer could send to agents to get their TV specs read. Hmm. I actually have not heard of this being done. I suppose there might be small agencies that would read a query letter, but it just doesn't sound like the most likely approach to me.

Now, recall that I'm not any kind of expert or authority on getting a job. I just help with the script-writing part. I don't even like to address job-getting concerns at all, because it always leads to a flurry of letters with questions I can't answer. But I will tell you what I do know. It seems to me that there are three primary ways to get into the TV writing business:

1. Move to Los Angeles and get a job as an assistant of some kind, work your way into relationships with writers or agents or executives. Then get someone to read your scripts. (Get your body here and pull your scripts after.)

2. Get into the ABC/Disney Fellowship or the Warner Brothers' program, and then move to L.A. to participate. (Get your scripts here and pull your body after.) This is what I did.

3. Become established as a writer outside the business. Become a playwright or novelist or a creator of short films for online, or otherwise gain a solid writing rep, then slide laterally into television. (Get your name here and pull your body and scripts after.)

Notice that these approaches can be combined for a multi-pronged attack. And none of them require sending letters, cold, to agencies. The problem, of course, is that there are already so many writers approaching the business on these three tracks, that there really is no need for agencies to look around for a fourth track carrying query letters about scripts from outside.

So you can certainly try soliciting agencies. Who knows? Perhaps it will work. At the same time, however, you might want to try paths one, two, three or a combination of them. (And, Nic, since you're in Germany, you might want to try looking more locally first? Get established in Germany, or check out the BBC option? It's going to be extremely hard to crack the Hollywood market from so far away.)

Lunch: gyro sandwich

Jane on 03.14.08 @ 01:54 PM PST [link]

Gentle Reader Nicholas in Rhode Island, writes in with a couple of interesting questions. First off, he wants to know if it's all right to introduce the main character in a spec pilot late-ish, say, seven-to-nine pages in. Yes, certainly, that can be made to work. In fact, you can use the time to establish suspense if you want to -- who is this man everyone's talking about? But even that isn't necessary. You see neither David nor Maddie until at least that late into the Moonlighting pilot, if my memory serves me. In the meantime, you're watching the murder they're going to be solving. Just make sure that the main character gets a fine introduction both for the viewer AND for the reader, by which I mean use your stage directions to make very clear that this is our protagonist. One of the worst things that can happen is to have the readers latch onto someone else by mistake.

Nicholas also asks for my input on an analogy he wants to use in a stage direction. It involves comparing a character's ability to lie with that of a certain politician. He wants to know if I think it relies too much on the reader's knowledge of current events. No, it's okay to assume some sophistication in that area. But there is a different danger -- what if the reader likes that politician? You've got a chance of raising someone's defenses here with little chance of gaining any compensating benefit.

As young or aspiring writers, you're a blank slate to the reader. They're forming a picture of you based on glimpses like those provided by stage directions, which are, after all, in your voice. You can certainly apply an acerbic charm or even a defiant viewpoint if that's important to you, but try hard to keep it from working against you. Remember, in television, people aren't just looking for strong writers, but for people to spend a lot of time with in a small room -- as in any job interview, you want to maximize the chances that they'll sense you're a kindred spirit.

Actually, in your letter, Nicholas, in discussing this stage direction, you coin the phrase, "lying by the seat of their pants." I love that. I suggest you use that in your stage directions instead -- I haven't heard it before and it conveys what you want, the feeling of someone lying spontaneously and fluently. Nice work.

Lunch: eggplant bharta, raita, rice

Jane on 03.13.08 @ 06:32 PM PST [link]

I haven't quite finished with William's letter from last time. He has more to ask. First off:

...I'm wondering about other ways to slowly get into the TV-writing business. For instance, I'm wondering if I could dabble in creating comic books and if that would help me get into the industry. Or will getting some short stories published help me as well? Or should I just put all of my energy into writing my glorious spec?

Do it all! Your spec pilots can't really do you a ton a good right now, since you're just now starting college and presumably won't be ready to jump to L.A. during the next four years, but they're good practice. You can also write writing short films if that interests you, maybe with an eye toward filming them and putting them on the internet. You can write plays, too. And, yeah, short stories. Comic books are great as well -- why not? (I think I'll devote an entry soon to comic book scripts, in fact.) When I was in college, I sold a greeting card idea for fifty bucks and considered it an important early sale. It's all good.

As I said in a recent post, (Jan. 25), becoming an established writer outside of the TV field can actually be one of the faster ways into the business. In fact, short stories and plays can actually be used as television spec scripts right now, so it's not even a matter of making a choice. What's the worst that happens -- you become a famous novelist by mistake? Might as well!

William also asks a very specific question about scriptcraft:

... if I wanted to write a scene with the camera facing down on somebody from an aerial shot, how would I do that? Would it be--

AERIAL ANGLE looking down on CHESSIE

--for example?

Yep, that would work. These things tend to be much more flexible than you might think. You could also say:

OVERHEAD ANGLE looking down on CHESSIE

Or

LOOKING DOWN FROM OVERHEAD on CHESSIE

Or you don't even have to break it out as an indicated shot. You could stay in stage directions with something like:

And suddenly our POV changes and we're OVERHEAD, looking straight down on CHESSIE.

Bottom line: your objective is to be clear more than it is to do something right. Hope this helps!

Lunch: An avocado, lettuce and tomato sandwich. The bacon looked chancy.
Jane on 03.11.08 @ 09:07 PM PST [link]

Mail Bag! First up, a letter from Gentle Reader Bill in Houston. He's an aspiring prose writer in the Sci Fi genre, who is looking for a Sci Fi writers' group in which to participate, perhaps long-distance. Sorry to say, I don't know of such a group, but I'm certain they must exist, certainly online, no? I suppose it's a hopelessly old-fashioned answer, but I suggest you ask at your local public library. If they don't know a group, I bet they'll still know how to help you find or start one.

Bill mentions, in his note, the familiar scourge of the Sci Fi writer -- the perception among others that Sci Fi is somehow unworthy or not respectable. I sometimes wonder if those people are aware that (off the top of my head) respectable works like 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid's Tale, Dracula, and Slaughterhouse-Five all contain unabashed Sci Fi or fantasy elements. And that's not even including popular juggernauts like those Oz, Lord of the Rings, Narnia and Harry Potter series.

Write and be proud, Bill!

The same batch of mail includes a letter from Gentle Reader William in Delaware, who is also interested in writing Science Fiction, more specifically TV Sci Fi. William is about to select a major at his liberal arts college and wants my advice on what to pick -- should he definitely go for the "creative writing" minor? Psych? Anthro? Short answer: doesn't matter.

My undergraduate degree is in Computer Science and that's never hurt me a bit. I know many writers who studied film in college, but more who did not. Writing is a skill and a talent that can be engaged in and studied without benefit of classroom instruction. In fact, the more you become really good at other things, the more you have to offer when you arrive in Hollywood and have to compete against all those other people who can write, too. If you also know something about the law, or history, or technology, or government, or, man, anything, then that can be a selling point. Take writing courses, certainly -- I did -- but you can do that starting from any major.

(By the way, William, Bill, from the first letter discussed above, works for a living running a Space Station simulator for real live astronauts. Now that's a nice background for a Sci Fi writer. Don't know how you major in it, but as an illustration of how experience can mean more than writing experience, it can't be beat!)

So, in school, pick something that inspires you, take loads of courses outside your field for breadth of experience, and -- get this -- don't be afraid to be practical. It's not a sign of an unartistic spirit to keep an eye on future earnings.

My favorite picking-a-major technique was the one employed by a friend of mine who went to her campus job-placement office and asked which major produced students who always got hired upon graduation. When they said "engineering," she went to the Engineering Department and signed the heck up. It can be hard to get a writing job in Hollywood, and it's not crazy to have something else that you love and that can also pay the bills while you're polishing those spec scripts.

Have fun in college, William! You're gonna do great!

Lunch: ground-chicken loaf with embedded vegetables

Jane on 03.09.08 @ 05:27 PM PST [link]

Ooh! Brit-ness! Get this, Gentle Readers! I am holding in my hand -- well, not really, cuz I'm typing -- a letter from the BBC. How cool is that? Doesn't it seem like it should smell like tea and dry wit? Nice. Anyway, the letter is from Piers Beckley (gotta love it), who runs the BBC writersroom website that I talked about in the February 10th post on this blog. (This is the BBC development program that should be of great interest to those of you for whom a career in the UK makes sense, and which I find especially intriguing because it also includes radio scripts as an option.)

Piers says:

I just thought I'd drop you a line to confirm that there's no [UK] citizenship requirement -- we're happy to read scripts from people outside the UK.

Yay. He goes on:

One thing that might catch US writers out, though, is that like most producers in the UK, the BBC won't read specs for series that currently exist -- we can only read original pieces.

Notice that this is the exact opposite of the ABC/Disney Fellowship, which cannot legally read original pieces, but only specs for existing series.

A good way to look at this is that anything you write now has a destination. Thanks so much, Piers!

Lunch: Grilled vegetable sandwich. I was disappointed to find out that the vegetables inside were grilled, but the sandwich as a whole was not. I wanted a grilled grilled vegetable sandwich.

Jane on 03.07.08 @ 03:53 PM PST [link]

How fortuitous! Or is it serendipitous? Perhaps both. Gentle Reader Hilary in Honolulu has sent a letter (thank you, Hilary!) in which she references a comedy bit that has relevance to something we were already talking about. Hilary describes a character (from a British show I'm not familiar with), in this way:

Rowley Birkin sits by the fire, snifter in hand, and tells a story. His speech is so slurred, however, that only tiny fragments of the story emerge, such as "'don't point that thing at me,' she said," or "three buttocks," after which he relapses into indistinct speech.

Oh! That's the same joke as "story fragment" jokes we were talking about on February 25. The reader/listener gets an incomplete part of a scenario and has to fill in the rest.

I don't suppose there's much instructional value in this observation except to point out that this is why it's so often said (falsely, I believe) that "there are only seven jokes." What writers mean when they say that is that joke types often end up encompassing a lot more different kinds of examples than you notice at first. The general principal that there's humor in forcing the audience to mentally complete unlikely mental scenarios can be brought to the page in a lot of different forms that are all funny for the exact same reason, no matter how much the execution varies.

By the way, Hilary also mentions that she is making progress in terms of breaking into the business in the UK -- she's got professional interest there and a finalist slot in a competition. Whoo! I hear all the time from readers who are making progress, gaining confidence, creating good work. I couldn't be prouder!

Go Team!

Lunch: chicken enchiladas, rice, beans

Jane on 03.06.08 @ 11:16 AM PST [link]

Here's an exchange I just heard today on an episode of The Wire. It went something like this:

A GUY
I got a little problem.

OTHER GUY
Not uncommon in a man your age.

Fantastic, right? Funny without being unrealistic. But what's the next line? It's tempting to feel that the next line has to be a topper, or at least a "very funny" or "f--- you" sort of acknowledgement of the joke. But that isn't what happened. Instead, the first guy acknowledged the joke with a sort of wry grimace and went on to outline what he actually needed from the other guy. And, I swear, the joke was funnier for it, and the scene retained a sense of urgency that might've been lost behind a whole string of jokes.

Jokes breed jokes. You want a little comedic head-piece to a scene, and it's easy to end up with a whole joke run, just because you feel like everyone has to keep responding and one-upping. Great for a sitcom, but if you're in a drama, consider letting a joke line just stand alone.

Lunch: Vienna sausages, canned oysters, "spicy thai" potato chips, strawberries and a variety of candies

Jane on 03.02.08 @ 07:02 PM PST [link]