JaneEspenson.com

On Monday morning, gentle readers, I am headed off to a new job. I’m going to be on the staff of the new Andy Richter comedy “Andy Barker, PI.” I’m so excited – the pilot is great and I think it’s going to be a really strong show. The new staff had our first get-to-know-you dinner last night, and I can report that it’s a fun and accomplished group. The new schedule will mean I’m going to be a lot busier all of a sudden, and the blogging frequency may drop a bit – from once a day to once or twice a week, but I’m going to be here as much as I possibly can, my friends.

I’m way behind on addressing all the fine questions that arrive in the mail – I love these! And I wanted to talk about what may be the most delightful one yet. Jenn in L.A. asks “How do you deal with henchmen?” Oh my. Well, I punish them harshly if they fail to protect my mountain lair.

She explains what she means: “Lots of times in Buffy, she’ll come across a cluster of vampires, only one of whom has a speaking role. Still, the rest of these vamps might appear throughout the episode / die in interesting ways. How do you keep them alive on the page without taking up too much space?”

Thanks Jenn! That’s an interesting question. And, I should note, it’s not just relevant to Buffy and similar shows with an action element. Doctors, for example, might have to break some hard news to a gathering of a patient’s family members, and those might also be characters that reappear throughout the episode. This is a very similar situation since, again, it’s likely that only one of the group will have a speaking role. (You have to pay people a lot more to speak – even if it’s only one line – and writers will go to great lengths to keep extra characters from piping up.) For the sake of making me laugh, let’s continue to refer to these silent supporting characters as “henchmen.”

Usually, these kinds of characters don’t really get names, just the barest of labels. Here’s a chunk of stage direction (I believe this was written by the impressive David Fury) from a Buffy episode in which she fights some silent henchmen-types. Note that in this case there was no central speaking villain, just a band of silent equals:

—

BACK ON BUFFY as she is about to engage the Monster. When she hears a SNARL and turns to see ANOTHER ONE on her right.

NEW ANGLE as she takes a step back, sizing up the beasts, when a THIRD MONSTER leaps in behind her. She’s surrounded.

She spins around, catching the third monster in the head with a roundhouse kick. MONSTER #3 is knocked back as MONSTERS #1 and #2 charge her.

—

If you want to give them each visual defining characteristics, these could well have been called “bumpy-headed monster,” “extra-strong monster” and, I dunno, “mangy-furred monster” or something.

In our analogous doctor show, you could imagine something very similar:

—

BACK ON HOUSE as he straightens up from questioning the patient’s DEVASTATED MOTHER. He hears a CLEARED THROAT and turns to see the patient’s ANGRY-LOOKING SISTER on his right.

NEW ANGLE as he takes a step back, sizing up the sister, when a RED-EYED BROTHER steps in behind him. He’s surrounded.

—

At this point, he might dodge through the group to the safety of his office. Buffy’s roundhouse kick is cool, but House has got that bum leg…

Now, as the writer, you can just refer to ANGRY-LOOKING SISTER and RED-EYED BROTHER as being present in any scene in which you need them to be standing around silently. That’s all you need to do to keep them alive on the page. If they had importance to the story, you’d give them names and lines. But since henchmen really are just there to fill up the room, you should spend as little ink as possible on them. Similarly, if the Monsters in the Buffy story stuck around, you’d simply mention in stage directions something like “the three MONSTERS from earlier glare at Buffy from across the crypt.” Nothing more is needed.

Note that you can also fill up scenes with extras just by mentioning: “The deli is moderately busy” or “The halls are full of students.” Silent people are pretty cheap when producing an episode, and even cheaper in a spec.

Lunch: chicken and salsa in scrambled eggs

I’m planning a whirlwind last-minute trip for the 4th of July – just a long weekend, really, but fun. As a result, I got to go buy travel books the other night! Whee! Hey, you know what books I love? Those “100 Places to See…” books. Usually travel guides assume that you already know you want to go to Maui or Peru or Greece or whatever. But those books open it all up, and you end up considering places you’ve never thought of. That how I ended up in Tobago a while back… one of those books said it was the place to go, and it was.

Those books remind me of a great brainstorming technique that my friend Michelle told me about once. It’s called “One Hundred Bad Ideas.” It’s just what it sounds like; you make a list of one hundred bad ideas for a sitcom or a drama or for a House spec or for a movie or a short story. The fact that you’re calling them “bad ideas” frees you up to put down absolutely anything that crosses your mind. After all, they’re *supposed* to be bad. But, truth be told, you don’t really have one hundred bad ideas. Once you’re thinking about your subject, and being free and accepting with all your ideas… some of them are going to be good. Possibly really good.

Do it pretty fast. A quarter hour, maybe, until you run dry. You probably won’t complete the list. You’ll run out of ideas, bad and good, before you reach one hundred. But the fact that you will try as hard as you can to finish it, also means that you’re not settling for the first idea you came up with. This is incredibly valuable. The reason I started my writing career with *two* spec Seinfelds is that I had a better idea when I was halfway through writing the first script. I’d jumped on my first idea too soon.

I actually, right now, have a file on my computer called “100 bad ideas for a sci-fi drama.” It has 52 entries – that’s when I fizzled out. I actually love about fifteen of the ideas on the list, and will probably invest some time in all of those fifteen, playing around to see if they can be turned into something. Most of the ideas are, however, legitimately bad, as they should be. I was going to excerpt the list here, except that I have realized that one’s bad ideas are a very personal thing. We all need to feel free to put down *very bad* ideas without fear that anyone else will ever see them.

Okay, if you insist, here’s one of the more detailed entries: “A person is split into two people, a man and a woman. They need to solve a task together to re-integrate. They hate each other, but must stay together always or lose any chance of becoming one again.”

A wee bit contrived, no? Other entries are much shorter, by the way. “The Monkey’s Paw, the series,” that kind of thing.

So go crazy! Especially if you’ve decided to tackle a spec pilot. Looking for a family sitcom idea? A single-camera half-hour idea? A cop drama with a twist? One of each? Start making lists. You’ll be amazed what you’ve got kicked into the corners of your brain.

Lunch: tofu pups and fresh tomato.

Addendum: Friend-of-the-blog Jeff Greenstein adds this story from art school: “On the first day, my painting teacher told the class, ‘You are about to paint 100 bad paintings. So just go ahead and get ’em out of the way so you can start painting the good ones.'” Nice!

He adds:

“I think of that often when I look at my early spec scripts.”

Yesterday, I drove to the wrong place. Most of my meetings lately have been at Universal Studios. The one you’re thinking of, the one attached to the theme park with the Jurassic Park ride. It’s become very automatic to drive to Universal. But yesterday my meeting was actually at NBC. The one you’re thinking of, the one with Jay Leno inside. This led to a very confusing exchange between me and the guard at the gate at Universal. In the end, I got where I was going, and I wasn’t even late. If Jay Leno ever wants to go on the Jurassic Park ride, he can comfort himself knowing it’s only about ten minutes away. (I *knew* the meeting was at NBC. I can only blame motor programming. And my own general hilarity as a person.)

So, let’s talk about the guard at the gate at Universal. How important is it for you to know that his name was Jimmy? Not at all, I’m guessing. In fact, if I had told you this, you might have wondered if there was a reason for my mentioning it. Is he going to show up again later in Jane’s life? (So far… no. He hasn’t.)

When you’re writing your spec, you sometimes need to create incidental characters. Maybe it’s a guard at a gate. Or maybe one of the regular characters goes to the hospital, so you write a scene with a three-line-having doctor in it. A doctor whose lines should probably all be slugged with the name DOCTOR. Even if all the characters in the scene are calling him “Dr. Franklyn,” this is still my personal preference for how to label his lines. He might have gone to fictional medical school, but he’s not very important. Writers will differ on this, but that’s how I do it. Jimmy the guard is named: GUARD unless he pulls a gun and is revealed to be a much bigger part of the story than I thought. Then, he gets a name.

I was recently asked about a different kind of minor character. What about the kind who are introduced, not because your regulars go to a new venue, but because they’ve been there all along? For example, what if you need a Viper pilot for your Battlestar spec beyond those who have been established? Or another doctor we’ve never met before for your House or Grey’s spec? Or a sibling for one of the characters on Veronica Mars? I’m talking about someone whom the regulars are assumed to know, but who will be new to the readers.

Again, if they only have a few lines, I would still slug them as: PILOT or LITTLE SISTER. But if they’re going to be a significant part of the story, which is more likely now that they have an assumed pre-existing relationship with your main characters, then you are getting into the area where they will need a name.

Here’s how I would do it. (Others may disagree.) The stage directions would introduce the character, and they would also make his status clear in the following way:

INT. LAB – DAY
House is looking over the shoulder of the staff urologist, let’s call him DR. PATEL.

That little phrase “let’s call him,” tells the reader that this is a character you are introducing and naming. The dialogue that follows will make it clear that this is someone House already knows. This way, no reader will be confused into thinking that *they* should recognize this person.

The question I was actually asked about these characters had to do with how many of them you can have. A certain friend-of-a-friend-of-the-blog spec writer is finding that they’re having trouble keeping these people out of the story. Well, you don’t want to create bunches of them. If the actual show generally gets by without them, then your spec, ideally, should do so too. If you find yourself needing lots of extra people, lots of extra-canon relationships, then you might be going a bit astray. Cling to your produced examples, cleave unto them and do as they do. What has your show done in the case of stories that require these sorts of introductions? If you can’t find out that they’ve ever done stories that require them… uh-oh. Cleave! Cleave before you drive off the road!

Your one advantage over every other kind of writer is that you have a road map. Reread your produced examples until they fall off their brads. I cannot say this enough.

Lunch: poached eggs on canned artichoke hearts with a layer of taramosalata (that Greek whipped caviar stuff). It was an experiment. Not bad, a little weird.

Had a lovely lunch at the Farmer’s Market today with Friend-of-the-Blog Maggie. Then I bought exotic fruit (love the cherimoya), and a bag made out of one long zipper. Have you seen these? It looks like a long dog leash. Then you zip and zip and it keeps mostly looking like a leash and then suddenly, it’s a bag! It’s like writing a script. You start with the idea of an episode, but then you get involved in all the little pieces, so you work on them, and work and work…. and suddenly, like magic, the episode stands as a whole.

But what if there are flaws? You’ve been looking at all the little pieces for so long, you probably find your judgment a bit muddy. The whole thing still looks like a leash to you. So, before you turn in your script, it’s a good idea to have a few friends read it. Smart friends with opinions you can trust.

But first, you have to be sure you want to hear their opinions. If you fight every suggestion that’s given to you, if you turn the note session into a vigorous defense of your draft, you will soon notice that your friends start *loving* your work. They don’t have a single note! This doesn’t mean your writing got perfect. It means your friends got tired.

The other classic mistake, of course, is to scrupulously take *every* note, whether you agree with it or not. I actually think this is the worse mistake. At least the first error gets your script rejected for script problems you’re actually responsible for. The second error gets it rejected for suggestions your dumb friends made.

The best way to take notes from a friend is to listen, to say, “uh-huh,” ask a question or two like “do you think you’d like it better if…”, and then move on to the next note. There is no need to tell Friend McFriendstein whether or not you’re going to actually implement the note. Giving your opinion of their opinion extends the conversation, makes them too invested in putting their mark on the script, and it commits you mentally to changes you may later realize aren’t really what you want. You should be in receive mode, not implement mode, at this point. Flip the switch back from “listen” to “do” after the conversation, and after you’ve had time to let it all sink in.

Lunch: tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich at the Farmer’s Market

First, an update. The day after I posted the entry about the Squiggy jokes, an actor friend of mine happened to be waiting for a voice-over audition, when who walked into the room?… Squiggy! If only there had been some warning, he could’ve set up the entrance!!

All right. Back to our regularly scheduled blog:

Have you heard about nudibranches? No? They’re the coolest things. Beautiful, brightly-colored, looking like tiny exotic glass art sculptures when photographed, they’re simply the most lovely sea slugs you’ll ever see. Do an image search for “nudibranch” and you will gasp with joy. Stunning. I’m hoping to see some on my next snorkel adventure. Can you imagine being an expert on these things? Fantastic.

Being a comedy writer can be like being a naturalist. Sometimes you stumble across a species that hasn’t been catalogued before. Here is an example of the small and exotic “audience assumption joke.”

GRACE
Barney’s was crazy. Ok, what would you do if there was only one size four cashmere camisole, and this woman starts crying, and says she needs it to wear to a funeral? You’d have to give it to her, right?

WILL
Yeah.

GRACE
Good… I think I’ll use that one again.

It’s a nicely surprising joke, and one of the most character-revealing kinds of jokes I can think of. Here’s a good one of the same type, this time from Friends:

CHANDLER
If I turn into my parents, I’ll either end up an alcoholic blond chasing after 20-year-old boys…or I’ll end up like my mom.

Here’s another one, a little different, but clearly in the same family, from the Simpsons. Grandpa Simpson is trying to cheer up Lisa, who is disappointed by a failed attempt at something:

GRANDPA SIMPSON
Oh, Lisa, don’t talk like that. I never thought I’d shoot down a German plane — and then last year…

This particular one doesn’t rely on the audience’s assumption about “who,” but their assumption about “when.” There was a similar one – even similar in content – on The Office recently too, in which Dwight is talking about his grandfather’s accomplishments in the war, finally mentioning that he ended up finishing out the war in a Allied prison camp! Hee! Assumptions are great!

I guess what I really like about these is that, like other techniques we’ve talked about lately, they presuppose an audience that’s thinking, that’s anticipating, that’s involved in the stories they’re being told. And if you expect that, you’re more likely to get that.

Lunch: Another In ‘N’ Out burger! Bunless! With rootbeer! I like my new deal with Universal. There’s an In ‘N’ Out right by Universal.

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