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I talked this morning with someone who has been reading stacks of half-hour spec scripts in anticipation of hiring a staff. So I used the opportunity to find out what’s going on out there.

The answer? Well, it’s bad news for show-runners, but very good news for you, gentle readers. This show-runner is reading, of course, dozens of “The Office” specs. None of which — none of which! — have any emotional pay-off.

Gasp! (Not a sarcastic gasp. An actual gasp.)

This is the thing I keep saying about having to be better than the average episode of a show. We all know that the very best episodes of The Office are more than simply piles of jokes. Remember, in the episode that Joss directed, when we were expecting Jim to show up at Pam’s art show, but it was Michael instead and he loved her art? Remember the “Booze Cruise” episode where Jim confessed his feelings for Pam to Michael? Those moments of connection, of vulnerability, of hurt, of unexpected nobility… those are the reasons to even sit down and try to tackle a spec “The Office.” If you’re not driving toward a moment like that, you need to start over.

And the fact that specs from professional writers are floating around out there without those moments? That means that there is room for you, gentle readers, room for your excellent specs to catch the eyes of agents, or those people who read for contests, or whomever. Fill the gap.

Lunch: cheddar cheese. And one of those “doughnut cupcakes” from Big Sugar Bakery.

In response to a recent question about where to acquire produced scripts for The Office, an observant friend-of-the-blog directs us to dailyscript.com, where I understand you can actually have scripts emailed to you in the pdf format. Oh, technology today. It’s like we’re all living at EPCOT.

Once you have a few produced examples, you can start examining them minutely. I mean, really minutely. If I were sitting down to write a spec Office, I think the first thing I would do is try to figure out how the show balances the Michael Scott stories against the Jim-and-Pam stories. Is one more likely than the other to drive events, to result in act-break moments? Do they always comment on each other? Influence each other? Which character is more likely to undergo change during the episode? Is Michael really the lead character, or is it Jim-and-Pam? I would want to go through every script and every logline until I understood the typical skeleton of the typical episode. Only then would I start trying to find stories that fit together, that grow out of the show’s genetic material, but which also strike a little deeper than just an average ep.

Then get some 30 Rock scripts. Repeat.

Lunch: veggie dumplings, stuffed eggplant and some sort of lovely chicken dish at City Wok, a restaurant right here in the shadow of Universal Studios “City Walk” attraction. Clever and yummy!

Hey there! Did everyone enjoy tonight’s episode of Andy Barker, PI? This was “Fairway, My Lovely,” the episode I co-wrote with Alex Herschlag. Unusual for a half-hour script, it included an action sequence, and I thought you, Gentle Readers, might enjoy looking at how it was written. Here is part of it, exactly as we scripted it:

ANOTHER ANGLE REVEALS Brian on the roof of the cart. He must’ve grabbed hold of the cart as it went past him.

He bends over to check on Brian. But Brian was playing dead and now he GRABS ANDY by the shirt front and pulls him down onto the ground. Brian stands above Andy…

First of all, I should say that I don’t consider myself a great action writer. It’s always the last part of the script that I write. I even tend to zone out when watching action. Just tell me who won, you know? But I’ve gotten better at it over the years as I’ve finally learned that the hard part is the visualization of the action, that writing it all down can be pretty easy and straight-forward once the hard part’s done.

This is how I tend to like to write action. There are a few camera directions, like “On Andy” and “Close on:”. But mostly I’m striving for a succinct description of exactly what’s happening without telling the director how to shoot it. The main actions are in capital letters, but that’s not an exact science. I mostly use this for things I’m afraid people will miss. Also, you’ll notice I’m free with the sentence fragments. I want the sequence to feel quick, almost breathless in the writing, and fragments can help with that.

Notice also that it’s not strictly true that you can only include descriptions of things that can be seen. Look toward the end. “Brian was playing dead.” That’s a conclusion that I want the readers/viewers to draw, and it’s the intent of the moment. But it’s not, strictly speaking, only visual. Earlier in the piece, “possibly badly injured” is also something that’s less than purely visual. It’s there to make clear to a reader why Andy is getting so close to his opponant. Don’t get all hypervigilant and discard things like that on the basis of some kind of screenwriting rule. The purpose of the exercise is to be clear, not to follow the rules. So loosen up, forget about a bunch of technical stuff. Thoroughly visualize what you want, then just get it on paper as clearly as you can.

Lunch: pasta salad and banana squash soup. No one was taking the soup. I think maybe they thought it was squash banana soup.

Just a reminder — my episode of Andy Barker, PI airs tomorrow night (thurs) on NBC! Check it out. After it airs, I’ll talk with you all a bit about writing action sequences, since I got to write a really fun one for this episode.

But while we wait for the ep to air, I say we go to the mailbag. Robert in Orlando asks about how a novice can get an idea for a show to a network. Sorry, Robert (and everyone else with this very popular question), I’m afraid I don’t know of any such open door. I was working as a writer for more than ten years before I got to pitch pilot ideas to network executives. If there were a quicker route, most TV writers would take it.

Networks like to hear pitches from writers with the experience to write a polished and producible script, and ideally with the experience to run the show themselves. In short, it’s just not a system that’s really set up for input from the outside. But there is a way to the inside of the system, if you want to write a spec script and use it to apply to programs like the ABC Writers’ Fellowship. So pull up a chair and we’ll talk specs!

Finally, to comment quickly on some other notable notes:

In answer to Richard from New York — thank you for your letter — I’m not allowed to use any writing submitted to me, but thanks for lovin’ the blog! In answer to Andrew, also from New York — yes, I think your interpretation of the Balzac joke is exactly right! And a thank you to friend-of-the-blog Leona for the lovely card. And to Scott from Alameda for his Battlestar insights.

Thank you everyone! Soon: action!

Lunch: an ice cream sandwich (I know, I know)

Okay, here is another chapter in the continuing saga of whether or not you’re going to need some other kind of material in addition to your specs of existing shows.

I’ve reported here before that writers are being urged by various agencies around town to have short stories, short plays and scripts for short films available in addition to traditional specs. But this week I heard a new spin on this.

Aspiring comedy writers are now being urged to have short comedy pieces available for busy executives and even show runners to read. And we’re talking really short, like a few pages!

The kinds of things that are being used for this seem to vary. Parody pieces suggest themselves immediately: a spoof of a catalog, or of a children’s book, or of a museum guidebook, or of a MySpace page, or of the “Harper’s Index,” or of the “cuteoverload” website, complete with pictures? … maybe an excerpt from a scholarly analysis of The Pussycat Dolls… maybe a school-lunch menu that devolves into a rant from a clearly deranged lunch lady. A parody of a travel guide or an obituary…? A funny series of newspaper retractions that build off each other…? An amusingly bad translation of The Rosetta Stone…? I assume comedy sketches and funny short stories would be good for this kind of purpose, and I could also see a humorous dialogue written as an exchange of emails, or as a series of text messages. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if soon execs are just given the address to the YouTube clip you’ve written and produced for them. Maybe we’re already there.

Be creative in thinking of your approach to what you pull together for this. If the concept itself is unique, that in itself might just be the thing that opens that door. Take a while to decide what to do, take a few practice passes at it. When a piece is short, it often takes far longer to write than something long, because every word of it has to be precisely right.

Now, recall that this does not replace a script. You will still need a spec script of some kind. Possibly a spec pilot, although I still advocate also having at least one spec of a show currently in production. So write your spec “The Office”. And then keep writing just a little bit more.

The idea, if this isn’t clear, is that reading a script takes time and concentration. Gems can be missed because the reader is rushed and tired. Something short and punchy that shows off your comedy skills in a concentrated fashion is going to have a heck of a lot of appeal.

Lunch: “Eggs Ranchero” at some random restaurant on the 3rd St. Promenade.

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