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I knew it would happen. I don’t like it, but I knew it would happen. Andy in Los Angeles writes to let me know that he attended a recent “breaking in” seminar at the Writers’ Guild and that agents and execs there said that Internet short films were becoming popular samples in place of spec scripts.

Andy directs me to his short, which is excellent, so I’m going to direct you to it, too, Gentle Readers. It’s called “24: The Interns” and you can find it at “funnyordie.com”. Those of you contemplating this option should check it out. The bar is set pretty high.

You can probably already guess why this is a trend that I dread, since I’ve already nosed around the edge of this topic in a previous post. In my opinion, watching a finished product like this makes it hard for me to tease out the contribution made by the script. It also can be so easily derailed by poor acting, editing or cinematography.

If this appeals to you anyway, give it a try if you have the resources; film school students, go for it. But please don’t panic if you don’t. I still believe that the best way to tell if someone can write a script is to read their scripts, and I suspect most show runners ultimately feel the same way. If you’re an introvert like me, most happy in a quiet room with your fingers on a keyboard, there is still plenty of room for you in the spec-script-writin’ game.

Lunch: Cup o’ Noodles (try the Salsa Picante Chicken flavor.) I buy mine from the little corner store here on the Universal Studios lot. They’ve got the bar code scanner set wrong so that every time I buy it, the computer says it costs over forty-nine thousand dollars. But so far they have never actually demanded the money.

There’s another good option in town, Gentle Readers! I’m hearing good things, from several sources, about the new configuration of the
Warner Bros. Television Writers Workshop. I used to hesitate to recommend this program since it charged money from its participants, but check out the details now – the only cost seems to be the application fee. Well, that just became much more appealing, didn’t it? The deadline is coming up: August 15, so you’ve got a little time to scrape together an application and I recommend that you do so.

They require at least one spec script “based on a primetime network or cable comedy [or drama] series that aired new episodes during the 2006 – 2007 television season”. They also allow you to submit multiple samples and to submit both comedies and dramas. Nice. (By the way, note that, according to that description, a show like The Sopranos, which was ineligible for ABC/Disney, is still kosher for WB.)

The obvious question has already been asked of me, by the way. Amanda in Ithaca wants to know if she can submit the same script to Warner Bros. that she already submitted to ABC/Disney. Well, I hate to go on the record with this in case I’m wrong, but I don’t see anything in the rules of either program to disallow this or that would make a submission or an acceptance to either program a disqualifying factor for the other program. If it was me, I would probably use the same script — whatever I feel is my strongest sample.

The Warner Bros. program is, clearly, more limited than the ABC/Disney Fellowship. It’s shorter in duration, in intensity, and it doesn’t provide a stipend. But it still can provide experience, contacts and bragging rights.

So get to work! Even if you’re going to regift your ABC script, that extra time should be used to polish, tinker and tweak! The nice thing about perfection is that you never quite get there.

Lunch: left over Chicken Piccata from Maria’s

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

I have in hand a wonderful letter from Gentle Reader Branko in Croatia. Thank you, Branko! He reports that since he last wrote, he has broken into the ranks of working television writers with a gig writing teleplays for the Croatian sitcom Cimmer Fraj. Whoo! That’s about the coolest thing I’ve ever heard of. By the way, I’ve tried in vain to obtain a translation of “Cimmer Fraj”. Nothin’. Perhaps it’s a proper name? It looks like it might mean “Stawberry Summer,” but I suspect I’m wrong.

Branko points out that non-US citizens aren’t eligible for the ABC/Disney Fellowship. Oh — I hadn’t even realized that. That’s unfortunate. But he suggests an interesting alternative as a way into the business: radio plays. Interesting. Branko, tell us more!

“BBC is a huge monster that requires constant feeding with scripts. Radio 3, Radio 4 and Radio 7 produce a significant number of radio plays. While it’s not an enormous leap in the right direction it’s still a step. It’s a nice way to tell an exec — ‘yup, I can write good dialogue. Or at least folks at the BBC think so.’ You’ll notice a spark in her eyes. When you’re an unproduced writer, BBC sounds damn good. Almost as good as BBQ.”

Ha! That’s a pretty good joke, especially for someone who doesn’t speak English as a first language. So, those of you who live in places where the BBC is more accessible than ABC should definitely look into this option.

Lunch: The Battlestar staff took a trip off-campus to a Mexican restaurant for chips and salsa and guacamole and margaritas. Wonderful.

So the ABC/Disney submission process is over for another year. Your script is in the mail. That makes today the day you start your next project, right?

When you were writing a spec script for an existing show, I encouraged you to watch as many episodes of the show as you could find. I also suggested that you watch a little bit of the show before a writing session as a way to refresh the “voice” of the show. Well, you can do a similar thing even if you’re not writing a TV spec script. You can even do it if you’re writing a short story or a play.

What I’m suggesting is that you find stories or plays that have the tone and complexity you want yours to have, and use them to make your story or play better. Want your story to feel like it comes from the pages of The New Yorker? Go get a bunch of issues of The New Yorker and study those stories.

It’s okay; I’m not talking about plagiarism — not even plagiarism of style — I’m talking about doing research. No one would expect you to sew a shirt, even an imaginative free-form re-imagining of the concept of a shirt, without at least examining some examples, and perhaps even trying one on and walking around in it. Look at the structure of the stories you like the best, look at how the tone is established, look at how a story can grab a reader with the first sentence, and at how neatly it does or doesn’t tie things up at the end. If it’s been a long time since you’ve written something that isn’t in script format, you’ll have to make decisions about tense and POV, too. Reading other writers’ stories is a good way to understand the effect those choices have.

If you’re going to write a play, making an effort to read and study examples is even more crucial, since few of us already have a stack of plays on our bedside table for leisure reading. The script of a play is probably less familiar to you as a document than a short story or a film script is, so give it some study before you start plotting out what you’re going to do with yours.

I’m still not sure I’m embracing this new model in which TV writing aspirants can use stories and plays as their writing samples, but if you’ve decided to do it, take the time to learn what it looks like when it’s done well, and think about what makes the good ones good.

Lunch: an amazing Indian lunch at a humble Indian restaurant/grocery in Glendale called, I believe, “India Sweets and Spices”. Mixed vegetables, raita, something wonderful made with “snake gourd and potatoes,” pickles, rice, chapati, samosas… wow.

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