JaneEspenson.com

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.

Okay, apparently I just can’t leave this alone. I’m all hung up on this “I thought you said you could…” set-up. And it occurs to me that this is a really good exercise. Take a set-up and think of all the punches that you can to follow it. They don’t have to be outright jokes, but should at least have some attitude to them. This is a pretty good simulation of what you do in a comedy writer’s room, actually. On Ellen we were often all working in our offices simultaneously on the same jokes, generating lists that looked a lot like this:

MAN 1
I thought you said you could drive!
MAN 2
Yeah? Well, I thought shut up!

Or

MAN 1
I thought you said you could drive!
MAN 2
It’s two pedals! I assumed I could!

OR

MAN 1
I thought you said you could drive!
MAN 2
I also said this was my real hair, so you knew I couldn’t be trusted!

OR

MAN 1
I thought you said you could drive!
MAN 2
We were talking about golf!

And so on forever. I’m not saying these are great, just that they exist. And that there are always more. Give it a try with another set-up. Something like “Are you wearing that?” or “Is this ketchup?” Go ‘head, come up with as many as you can. And set the bar low. This exercise is about quantity, not quality.

And here’s the big secret. This isn’t really just about finding jokes. This is about finding possible attitudes for your characters. I mean, look at what the list above really represents. The first choice is petulent, the second is sort of absurdist, the third is flippant and the fourth is confrontational. Would I have considered all those colors if I’d approached the scene another way? I don’t think so.

I knew jokes revealed character. Maybe they can also create it. Hmm…

Lunch: more bread and cheese and apples

When I was first working in sitcoms, I was told about an aging comedy writer who was still working as a freelancer. I was told that he would come into an office and sit down and say, “I got two stories. One, your main guy gets sick and he’s a pain in the ass about it. The other is, everyone’s trapped in a cabin and they have a big fight. Which one do you want?”

I was told that he still occasionally got a sale. I suspect the whole thing was an urban legend.

But those two stories are interesting to contemplate. Why were these the two stories that our fictional man took all over town? And why, for god’s sake, would they still sell?

I don’t think I have to tell you what makes these stories bad, at least in their most traditional form. They’re familiar. And they’re predictable. As soon as someone sneezes and says “I’m not getting sick. I’m NOT!,” we know they’re getting sick. And when they promise to be the best patient ever, we know we’re really in for it. Similarly, we’ve probably all winced more than once when someone on a television show lets a rooftop door fall closed behind them. Frankly, I’m always surprised when it doesn’t lock them up there. (Note that I’m assuming rooftops, and elevators, as cabin-equivalents.)

The stories are also too universal. We’ve all been forced to talk to someone we didn’t want to talk to. We’ve all been sick and we’ve all had to tend to a sick person. There’s nothing about the situation that’s really specific to any one character. In my Frasier spec, I thought hard about what he valued so that I could find a story that poked him where it hurt most. I ended up pricking his professional pride. I found a problem that hurt that character more than it might hurt someone else. But feeling trapped, and feeling sick — those just are not specific.

So why would anyone ever do anything like either of these ideas? Why would they ever sell? Because, at the core, the idea is right. Exactly right. Stress people and they get vulnerable. And vulnerable people open up, which is great stuff. Sickness stresses us. Being forced into prolonged contact with another person stresses us.

Remember Archie and Meathead trapped in the basement? It’s a classic All in the Family episode with moments I remember vividly. I also have very fond memories of Lou Grant and Joe Rossi trapped in — I believe — an actual cabin on Lou Grant. Again, there are moments that hit me very hard in that episode.

So, avoid cabins and elevators and rooftops in your spec. And don’t tell the “I’ll be a great patient” story, either. Find a situation more specific to your character to act as their stressor. But once you find it, use it like those writers did. Get to the vulnerability. Get to the revelations. Get to the emotions.

If any part of the story of the old freelancer is true, I buy that he still made a sale now and then. The way he got to the moment when a character opens up may have been hacky, but if he wrote those moments with sensitivity and insight, well, maybe it was worth it.

Lunch: corn bisque

When you decided to try to launch a writing career, you were faced with the question of what to do first. Unfortunately, once that’s settled, there’s a question that can be even trickier. What to do second?

Patrick in L.A. writes in with this question, which is also relevant to Zach, whose letter I answered a while back, and I’m sure, to a lot of the rest of you. You’ve got that first spec — one for a produced show, so you can submit it to ABC/Disney. Now you’ve got to decide what to do next. Another spec for a real show? Maybe a comedy to balance out that drama, or vice versa? Or a spec pilot? Or a spec feature? Or a spec short film?

The truth is, it hardly matters. Because ultimately, you will probably end up having at least one of each of these. So all you’re really worrying about here is the order. Don’t waste time worrying about that. Just pick one and do it, and then do the other one. Specs for existing shows aren’t as valuable now as they used to be, but I still think there’s probably value in having one for a dramatic show and — perhaps, why not — for a comedy if your instincts lie in that direction. But you’re clearly going to need other material, too. So even as you’re writing that “House,” keep an active file of feature-or-pilot ideas, too. And, of course, no one is keeping you from working on two projects at once — that can be a good way to stave off writing fatigue, in fact, having a way to change gears by switching to work on the other project.

So stop sweating, Nation, about which one to write next. In the long run, the order isn’t going to matter. Except in your autobiography. (Which you should write last.)

Lunch: Doritos, doughnut, coke. I know, I know.

Scott in Toronto wrote in a while back with some interesting questions. Apparently I let this letter sit a little longer than I should have, since one of Scott’s questions asks if there’s any point in writing an Andy Barker PI spec. At this point I’d have to say there is not.

Scott also asks a really interesting question about when you have to remove something from your spec. Here’s the deal: he has a certain joke in his spec for “The Office.” Recently, he saw a very similar joke actually used on the show. He wants to know if he has to change it.

Well, technically, probably not. He feels the joke is an important one that ties the story together, and I will point out that this certainly isn’t as big a deal as seeing a whole plot duplicated.

But, I will ask, Scott, that you give serious thought to replacing it. The Office is a hugely popular show in these parts, and it’s likely your reader will have seen the episode in question. And I bet you can find another joke that’s just as good and that does the same job of tying the story together. Remember, there is always another joke. I’ve been amazed, over the years, at the stuff that can get pulled out of scripts without damaging them. And almost always, when a change is made, it turns out to be change for the better. This happens simply because you’re being forced to really think hard about the story.

So give it a try. If you really can’t beat the joke, then you can leave it in if you must, but if you can beat it, you get a better script, plus you won’t be running any risk of a reader thinking you lifted the line.

(Scott also asks about spec-ing “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. Well, a little checking does show that this FX comedy would seem to be eligible for the ABC/Disney Fellowship application. It’s a more obscure show than many, so any writer will face that classic problem of weighing passion for a show against possibly dealing with a reader who has never seen it. You will have to flip that coin yourself, Scott.)

Lunch: an avocado and swiss cheese sandwich — a very nice combination

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