JaneEspenson.com

Nuts! Nuts and bolts! That is, I’m hoping, primarily what you’re here for. Nuts-and-bolts advice about writing scripts. Stuff like this:

If you simply have to give a character a very long chunk of dialogue — if there’s simply no way to shorten it, try breaking it up with parentheticals and stage directions so that it doesn’t sit on the page as one big block.

I mention the nutsy and bolty nature of this advice because I’m looking at a lot of blogmail here that I simply don’t know how to answer. I’m afraid I can’t get you Battlestar scripts or suggest what you can do to get your Battlestar specs to the Battlestar show runners or take your ideas for episodes to my bosses or any of the similar things that I know would be very helpful, but are simply, as we used to say in grad school, “beyond the scope of this work.”

It’s probably time to review the basic premise of the exercise that is getting work as a television writer. Again, my expertise is in the writing, not the getting hired, but here is what I’ve observed. There are two primary ways in. One is by getting recognition through a contest or a fellowship, or by doing well in film school, that kind of thing. Leading with your script and letting your body be pulled after. The other is by moving to Los Angeles and getting work as a production assistant, then a writers’ assistant, and simply working your way into the writers’ room where you can make friends who will read you. This is leading with your body and pulling the scripts behind you. Both ways require that you, at some point, get someone — someone from the ABC/Disney Fellowship, a professor, a boss… someone to read your spec script.

That’s really where my part starts. Not by reading your script. But by making sure that when you hand that script over to that someone – whether at the start or the end of the process – it’s perfect. Clean, spare, elegant, confident, funny where it’s supposed to be, mature and reflective of your sensibility. Sound fun? I think so!

Lunch: roast chicken, broccoli, corn

Though Friend-of-the-blog Kate, I have received this very good question from Gentle Reader Katie in Los Angeles. She says:

“I’ve been working on a Dexter spec. I came up with a b-story that I really like, that is thematically linked with Dexter’s a-story in a lovely, subtle way. The problem is that the b-story focuses on Det. Angel Bautista, who is sort of a third-tier character on the show. My instinct was to give the b-story to Dexter’s sister Deb or Sergeant Doakes because they are more prominent on the show. However, the story is working so well I hesitate to throw it out for purely analytical reasons. What do you think are the possible benefits/pitfalls to featuring prominently a character that usually plays more of a supporting role on the show?”

Well, the pitfall is obvious: the person who ends up reading the script might not know the character. I recommend that you beef up the stage directions when the character first appears, to remind readers who it is you’re talking about. That should do it.

And, as if the teeny pitfall wasn’t enough encouragement, there is also a large benefit to what you’re doing, Katie. Bringing a background character to the foreground can be a really good way of making your spec different from others in the stack, and, more importantly, of demonstrating the skill of character-deepening, which is highly valued. In fact, I know a show runner who made it his policy to focus his spec scripts, back when he needed them, on under-utilized characters on purpose, in order to demonstrate this exact skill.

It’s easy to fall back on what we’ve seen established characters do before. Sometimes you might be patting yourself on the back for having “nailed” a character, when all you’ve done is recreate something they’ve already done. If you can give them new “colors,” new behaviors, attitudes, actions that we haven’t seen before but that seem right given what we have seen, you’ve done something really important that provides a good indication of what you’d be able to do on a writing staff. Good work.

Lunch: spaghetti with vegetarian chili on top

Well, for those of you keeping score, I made it to Dallas and back home again. Many thanks to the kind people of Equality Now and all the Browncoats who were so great to me there!

I returned to find an intriguing piece of mail from reader John in Albany. It’s a great piece of mail, too, printed on thick creamy stationary with the kind of law firm letterhead that makes your pulse speed up because it looks like you’re getting sued.

John has (with a writing partner) written a spec half-hour comedy pilot. And he has filmed it. Whoa. He asks: “…are there any real advantages to actually shooting/making the TV pilot?” He adds, “I’ve even heard that this is detrimental because the ‘idea’ is always much better than the execution.”

My first instinct is to point at that last sentence and say, “yup.” One of the things I love about scripts – all scripts – is that they are creatures of perfect potential, always well-acted and well-produced in the reader’s brain. If I set something on an “abandoned pier lying still between the dark sky and darker sea” then that’s what the reader sees, not a redressed hotel loading-dock being splashed from off-screen by my friends who own buckets. Unless you have lots of money and some pretty advanced skills, it’s going to be very hard to make an amateur production good enough to come up to the level of the production that the reader’s brain is able to muster. And quality acting is, of course, even more crucial and hard to find than friends with buckets.

So, in general, I think it’s going to be easier, cheaper and more effective to try to use a script to break into the business than a produced sample. However, we live in strange times. If you have managed to put together something great, John in Albany, well, then let’s see how far you can ride it. Maybe you can submit it to film festivals, or slap it up on YouTube, or have friends link to it on their blogs… If it’s great and people find it, you might create a sensation and be treated like one of those film school phenoms who make a stir now and then. You might have just created a new way to go about this whole crazy endeavor. It’s a long shot, but since you’ve apparently already shot it… why not?! This is a business that is about creativity, and applying creativity to your way in might not always be a bad thing.

Lunch: heirloom tomatoes and burrata from the “nice side” of the Universal Cafeteria. Mm. Love those heirloom tomatoes.

Friend of the blog Erin has just pointed out a category of clam (an overused joke) that I hadn’t noticed before. She sites examples like:

“I thought you said you could cook!”
“I didn’t say I was a good cook.”

Try Googling the phrase “I didn’t say I was a good” and see what comes up — it’s quite a harvest. This is clearly an overused joke form, although, honestly, it’s barely a joke. Friend of the blog Erin asks if this is a clam that can be rehabilitated.

I don’t think so. There was a brief period where it got a second wind, when the second line was changed to the amusingly blunt, “I lied.” But now that has grown hoary with age as well.

If you want to say that someone is bad at something, I suggest that you avoid the “I thought you said…” set-up altogether and go at the joke in a different way.

But, for the sake of fun, let’s imagine that for some reason the thing you want to preserve is the notion of something being misheard or misunderstood. It looks to me as though there are at least three joke forms that use this. We’ve already looked at the first one, in which the humorous element is that the person is asserting and then denying some ability with a claim that they’ve been misunderstood.

Here is the second one, which is about actually mishearing the original assertion.

A Catholic learns what his daughter has been up to: “Did you say prostitute? Thank god, I thought you said Protestant.”

In a clever variation on this form, it wasn’t the words, but the grammar, that was misheard:

Mickey Mouse explains the grounds for his divorce from Minnie: “I didn’t say she was crazy. I said she was fuckin’ Goofy.”

Then there is the final category, in which the original statement was misunderstood because the hearer either made a very logical assumption about the point of the original statement:

“I thought you said your dog does not bite!”
“That is not my dog.”

And:

“But I thought you said your husband had a vasectomy.”
“He did. That’s why I have to take every precaution.”

Or the hearer failed to make the most logical assumption:

“I thought I asked you to take those penguins to the zoo!”
“I did, but I had some money left, so we’re going to the movies.”

I think these last two examples — the vasectomy one and the zoo one — are the jokes I’ve come across that best use the misunderstanding framework. And you know why they work best? Because they’re character-based. They look like language-tricks, like the “Goofy” one, but they’re actually jokes about assumptions, not mishearings. Anyone can mishear. But when you assume you reveal your character. Both the cheating-woman in the vasectomy joke, and the van-driver in the second joke, made an assumption that reveals their character.

Now, obviously, these are jokes that I’ve pulled off the rack. You can’t put them in a script; you have to make up ones of your own. But once you understand the mechanism, that part’s easy.

As you’re going through your script, look at the jokes. If they don’t reveal character, if they’re jokey-jokes that anyone could say, look for alternatives. Write something that tells us about the characters.

Lunch: stuffed jalapenos at Jack in the Box

Interesting. I have now received two letters from young straight white male writers who have expressed (joking) frustration at a perceived interest from agents or managers in representing “diversity writers.” Both letters hinted around at the possibility of trying to present oneself as gay in hopes of appearing more desirable (as a client, presumably).

Clearly, this is a terrible idea and I will assume you guys were joking. But let’s look, for a second, at the assumptions behind the joke. One has to assume:

1. Gay writers are in demand. Is it true? I checked with writer and friend-of-the-blog Drew Greenberg for an informed opinion. Drew?

I have yet to be on a writing staff where the show runner said, “You know what this show needs? More gay men. Hire me some of those!” Never heard it. Not once. Even on shows run by gay men. We still live in an era where being gay is considered being an outsider. Even in television.

Plus, I will point out that sexual orientation is not currently one of the criteria that is even credited with making a writer “diverse”. So there’s that.

Then there is a second assumption:

2. White male writers have a hard time getting hired. Is this true?

One of the reasons that agents or managers may be looking for writers with different backgrounds is because there are so many white male writers. That must mean someone is hiring them. Drew?

Here’s the bottom line: I did some math. On the five staffs on which I’ve worked since Buffy, 77% of the writers were white men. 77%. That’s three out of every four people, with an extra, what, arm or something. So if your agents tell you that you’re less desirable as a client because you’re a white man, tell your agents to come hang out on my staffs. I have something to show them.

I can support Drew’s math here. In fact, I’m surprised he gets a number as low as 77%.

This is a hard business to break into. But it’s hard for absolutely everyone. And you can do yourself the biggest possible favor by just worrying about your spec scripts since that’s the part of this you can control. Be great and you will get noticed where it counts — on the page!

Lunch: the chicken Caesar salad at California Chicken Café. It’s got little toasty pieces of pita in it instead of croutons. Delightful!

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