JaneEspenson.com

Vegas mission complete! All the leafleting that needs to be done is done. Thanks to those who came out and apologies for any missed connections.

And now… the mailbag! I haven’t gone through the accumulated letters for a while, so if you’re waiting for me to post, referencing something you sent, you might have to hang on as I work my way through the pile. First off, I’m tickled to see so many letters of strike support mixed in with the holiday greetings. Loyal Reader Ingrid checks in, as does Paul in Surrey and Maribeth in San Francisco. Maribeth urges me not to worry that frivolity on the picket line sends the wrong message. That’s good to know, since I’m hearing that delightfully frivolous plans are being made by the “Women of Sci Fi” group with whom I sometimes guest-picket.

Michael in Connecticut points out that labor unions are the reason we have weekends off. Ooh. Is that true? I suppose it must be. Nice. Now I have something to say to all those people who go read articles about the strike and then post comments saying “unions are bad for America.” Is that right? Have a good weekend, Dude?

And… finally… actual writing advice! Man, it’s been a while!

I was thinking today about a certain temptation of writing. Sometimes you make things easier for your protagonist, when what you’re actually doing is trying to make your own writing job easier.

Sometimes two crises come to a head at the same time in a script. Maybe an A and a B story both require action from the hero. Maybe an emotional crisis and a professional one happen at the same time. It can be tempting to arrange events so that the protagonist can deal with one crisis and then move onto the other one. You can even rationalize it by thinking of it as a “one-two punch.” She’s still reeling from being dumped by her boyfriend when the monster attacks… that kind of thing. And sure, that might work fine. But it might also come across like one of those fight scenes where the ninjas wait and attack the good guy one at a time for the apparent convenience of the good guy.

So try letting your hero deal with everything at once. It can be tricky writing this kind of scene, but it has tremendous potential to be a stunner, full of energy and humor and action.

If one of the crises requires a quiet, private moment, you can let the character — instead of the writer — be the one to say, “hang on, let me kill this thing first.” Having a character arrange this instead of circumstance, helps you, as the writer, be invisible. When things get too neat by your design, that when the reader of the script sees your giant hand reaching down and moving the checkers around.

Lunch: the buffet at Bellagio. Amazing. I had pasta and yams and noodle-salad and ceviche and sushi and cucumber-salad and pickled stuff and fish and flan.

I’m still finding out more about what’s going on in Las Vegas this week. But I have found out that I will be at the Wynn hotel and casino tomorrow night (Monday), from about 7 to 8 PM, in front of the Alsace Ballroom, handing out leaflets to members of the press there. Fans, Gentle Readers, Friends and Fellow Writers… want to come by and stand up with me? Please do! Because if you don’t, there’s a good chance I’m going to be there all alone!

UPDATE: Mark Verheiden, fellow Battlestar co-exec producer will be joining me in Vegas! Come check us BOTH out!

I have an interesting announcement today, Gentle Readers. Disney/ABC, the people who run the writing fellowship, are expanding. Wait– the people aren’t expanding as far as I know, but the fellowship is. They are currently accepting applications to the 2008 ABC/DGA Television Directing Fellowship. Applications and detailed submission guidelines can be obtained at the Disney/ABC web site. The deadline for submission is February 29, 2008.

Are you more of a director than you are a writer? Here’s a test. Look at your hands. Are you making little “V”s with the index and middle fingers of both hands and angling them around like alien eye-stalks? If you are, you’re a director. (Really, they do that all the time, those directors.) Go apply!

Lunch: spaghetti and cheese sauce, just like my mother makes it. Because it was made by my mother.

Ahhh! I’m back, Gentle Readers, and happy to be so. You know those vacations that leave you less well rested than you were before? I had one of those. TWO bouts of food poisoning on one trip? Really? That’s not right.

But I’m back and I’m in fightin’ form and ready to blog!

First, let me call your attention to tvguide.com again, as they’re doing another poll of viewer support for the strike. I think they’re expecting to see the support numbers slipping. I think they’re wrong. What do you think? It’s easy to register and vote on their site.

Moving on! Here’s a neat bit of writing vocabulary for you. I recently heard a new one. How cool is this? I am told by a writer in a certain sitcom room that in his room, a “fly chamber” is when there’s a tiny element from a past draft completely ruining your present script, a la Jeff Goldblum in THE FLY.

This is significant, of course, not so much for the terminology itself, although that is delightful. Many rooms, like isolated islands, develop dialects incomprehensible even to their nearest neighbors. The term is more notable for serving to call attention to the phenomenon itself. I often think the worst enemy of a well-written second draft is a first draft. You end up bending scenes to try to retain stuff that worked, and you also overcompensate for stuff that didn’t work by going too far the other way. For example, if the first draft of a scene was too sentimental, you might rewrite it too hard-edged to avoid getting that note again.

Often, the key to a good rewrite is a clean new page.

Lunch: a very nasty airplane lunch that seemed to be cheese and too-salty ham in a hot-dog bun. Oh, dear.

… I tackled a question about spec scripts for highly-serialized shows. A Gentle Reader wanted to know if they should include a sort of “previously on ___” for the top of their script, to help place the episode in context. I came down against anything but the briefest of place-setters, and threw open the question to anyone in a position to know the answer, especially someone who knew how the readers at a writing fellowship would approach the issue. And… ta da… someone stepped forward. This is the response I got from Friend-of-the-Blog Derek Olson, who is part of the team over at the ABC/Disney fellowship. Take it, Derek!

Hi Jane,

Derek

No mangling necessary. I hope that answers any questions out there. Looks like you should ditch the “previouslies”!

Lunch: a Baby Ruth bar eaten during the substantial wait at City Hall today between meetings to discuss the financial impact of the AMPTP’s absence from the negotiations. Baby Ruth is a fine product.

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