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Gentle Reader Nicholas in Rhode Island, writes in with a couple of interesting questions. First off, he wants to know if it’s all right to introduce the main character in a spec pilot late-ish, say, seven-to-nine pages in. Yes, certainly, that can be made to work. In fact, you can use the time to establish suspense if you want to — who is this man everyone’s talking about? But even that isn’t necessary. You see neither David nor Maddie until at least that late into the Moonlighting pilot, if my memory serves me. In the meantime, you’re watching the murder they’re going to be solving. Just make sure that the main character gets a fine introduction both for the viewer AND for the reader, by which I mean use your stage directions to make very clear that this is our protagonist. One of the worst things that can happen is to have the readers latch onto someone else by mistake.

Nicholas also asks for my input on an analogy he wants to use in a stage direction. It involves comparing a character’s ability to lie with that of a certain politician. He wants to know if I think it relies too much on the reader’s knowledge of current events. No, it’s okay to assume some sophistication in that area. But there is a different danger — what if the reader likes that politician? You’ve got a chance of raising someone’s defenses here with little chance of gaining any compensating benefit.

As young or aspiring writers, you’re a blank slate to the reader. They’re forming a picture of you based on glimpses like those provided by stage directions, which are, after all, in your voice. You can certainly apply an acerbic charm or even a defiant viewpoint if that’s important to you, but try hard to keep it from working against you. Remember, in television, people aren’t just looking for strong writers, but for people to spend a lot of time with in a small room — as in any job interview, you want to maximize the chances that they’ll sense you’re a kindred spirit.

Actually, in your letter, Nicholas, in discussing this stage direction, you coin the phrase, “lying by the seat of their pants.” I love that. I suggest you use that in your stage directions instead — I haven’t heard it before and it conveys what you want, the feeling of someone lying spontaneously and fluently. Nice work.

Lunch: eggplant bharta, raita, rice

Mail Bag! First up, a letter from Gentle Reader Bill in Houston. He’s an aspiring prose writer in the Sci Fi genre, who is looking for a Sci Fi writers’ group in which to participate, perhaps long-distance. Sorry to say, I don’t know of such a group, but I’m certain they must exist, certainly online, no? I suppose it’s a hopelessly old-fashioned answer, but I suggest you ask at your local public library. If they don’t know a group, I bet they’ll still know how to help you find or start one.

Bill mentions, in his note, the familiar scourge of the Sci Fi writer — the perception among others that Sci Fi is somehow unworthy or not respectable. I sometimes wonder if those people are aware that (off the top of my head) respectable works like 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid’s Tale, Dracula, and Slaughterhouse-Five all contain unabashed Sci Fi or fantasy elements. And that’s not even including popular juggernauts like those Oz, Lord of the Rings, Narnia and Harry Potter series.

Write and be proud, Bill!

The same batch of mail includes a letter from Gentle Reader William in Delaware, who is also interested in writing Science Fiction, more specifically TV Sci Fi. William is about to select a major at his liberal arts college and wants my advice on what to pick — should he definitely go for the “creative writing” minor? Psych? Anthro? Short answer: doesn’t matter.

My undergraduate degree is in Computer Science and that’s never hurt me a bit. I know many writers who studied film in college, but more who did not. Writing is a skill and a talent that can be engaged in and studied without benefit of classroom instruction. In fact, the more you become really good at other things, the more you have to offer when you arrive in Hollywood and have to compete against all those other people who can write, too. If you also know something about the law, or history, or technology, or government, or, man, anything, then that can be a selling point. Take writing courses, certainly — I did — but you can do that starting from any major.

(By the way, William, Bill, from the first letter discussed above, works for a living running a Space Station simulator for real live astronauts. Now that’s a nice background for a Sci Fi writer. Don’t know how you major in it, but as an illustration of how experience can mean more than writing experience, it can’t be beat!)

So, in school, pick something that inspires you, take loads of courses outside your field for breadth of experience, and — get this — don’t be afraid to be practical. It’s not a sign of an unartistic spirit to keep an eye on future earnings.

My favorite picking-a-major technique was the one employed by a friend of mine who went to her campus job-placement office and asked which major produced students who always got hired upon graduation. When they said “engineering,” she went to the Engineering Department and signed the heck up. It can be hard to get a writing job in Hollywood, and it’s not crazy to have something else that you love and that can also pay the bills while you’re polishing those spec scripts.

Have fun in college, William! You’re gonna do great!

Lunch: ground-chicken loaf with embedded vegetables

Ooh! Brit-ness! Get this, Gentle Readers! I am holding in my hand — well, not really, cuz I’m typing — a letter from the BBC. How cool is that? Doesn’t it seem like it should smell like tea and dry wit? Nice. Anyway, the letter is from Piers Beckley (gotta love it), who runs the BBC writersroom website that I talked about in the February 10th post on this blog. (This is the BBC development program that should be of great interest to those of you for whom a career in the UK makes sense, and which I find especially intriguing because it also includes radio scripts as an option.)

Piers says:

I just thought I’d drop you a line to confirm that there’s no [UK] citizenship requirement — we’re happy to read scripts from people outside the UK.

Yay. He goes on:

One thing that might catch US writers out, though, is that like most producers in the UK, the BBC won’t read specs for series that currently exist — we can only read original pieces.

Notice that this is the exact opposite of the ABC/Disney Fellowship, which cannot legally read original pieces, but only specs for existing series.

A good way to look at this is that anything you write now has a destination. Thanks so much, Piers!

Lunch: Grilled vegetable sandwich. I was disappointed to find out that the vegetables inside were grilled, but the sandwich as a whole was not. I wanted a grilled grilled vegetable sandwich.

How fortuitous! Or is it serendipitous? Perhaps both. Gentle Reader Hilary in Honolulu has sent a letter (thank you, Hilary!) in which she references a comedy bit that has relevance to something we were already talking about. Hilary describes a character (from a British show I’m not familiar with), in this way:

Rowley Birkin sits by the fire, snifter in hand, and tells a story. His speech is so slurred, however, that only tiny fragments of the story emerge, such as “‘don’t point that thing at me,’ she said,” or “three buttocks,” after which he relapses into indistinct speech.

Oh! That’s the same joke as “story fragment” jokes we were talking about on February 25. The reader/listener gets an incomplete part of a scenario and has to fill in the rest.

I don’t suppose there’s much instructional value in this observation except to point out that this is why it’s so often said (falsely, I believe) that “there are only seven jokes.” What writers mean when they say that is that joke types often end up encompassing a lot more different kinds of examples than you notice at first. The general principal that there’s humor in forcing the audience to mentally complete unlikely mental scenarios can be brought to the page in a lot of different forms that are all funny for the exact same reason, no matter how much the execution varies.

By the way, Hilary also mentions that she is making progress in terms of breaking into the business in the UK — she’s got professional interest there and a finalist slot in a competition. Whoo! I hear all the time from readers who are making progress, gaining confidence, creating good work. I couldn’t be prouder!

Go Team!

Lunch: chicken enchiladas, rice, beans

Thank you to Gentle Reader Seanna-Lin in Massachusetts. She’s a novelist who says she has found this humble blog to be helpful. Really? Cool! I’ve never taken on a novel myself and am overwhelmed by those who have. Have you seen one of those things? So many words on a page!

There is also a letter here from Nicholas in Rhode Island. He’s asking about taking on too many spec script projects at once. In a neat turn of phrase he says that he thinks his “back burner is about to collapse.” Hee!

Well, Nicholas, I’ve found that back burners can pretty much take any weight you put on them. It’s the front burners that are shaky. Cue up as many projects-in-waiting as you want. The trick is in determining the number of them that you can actively work on at once. Some people need to work on one at a time or they get distracted and out-of-focus. Others of us find there to be something counter-intuitively calming about being slightly overworked, since it forces us to turn off our censor and go into emergency mode, which can be very helpful. Figure out which kind of person you are and take on projects accordingly.

And then set some priorities. Having a spec pilot seems to be necessary right now, so that might be a good thing to have finished — really finished — before you work on that spec episode of Chuck which is less likely to be immediately useful.

Nicholas also asks a question about breaking the fourth wall in a spec script in an unusual way. He’s thinking of having a character in a spec for an already-existing show make reference to a bit of pop-culture to which the actor playing that character is connected. Did you follow that? Well, strange thing is, I actually did exactly this in one of the first specs I ever wrote. I learned that the actor on the show I was specing had recently performed in a Chekhov play. So I added a bit in which that character specifically talked about that play, gambling that someone reading the spec might understand and be amused by the connection.

In retrospect, it was a mistake. I cannot recommend this approach. It’s going to cause you to make choices in the writing that have nothing to do with what’s organic to the scene, and it’s probably not even going to be noticed or understood. Worse yet, if it is noticed and understood, you’re in danger of appearing cute, instead of honest, in your writing. I understand why it’s tempting (as I was tempted myself, once), but I have to say, “turn away!” Writing the show within the confines of the walls of that show is almost always the right choice.

Nicholas has more good questions, but those will have to wait for another day. For now…

Lunch: a chopped salad with garbanzo beans. I got extra garbanzo beans and I still had them all picked out before I was half-way done.

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