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Are you working on a lightly-humorous hour-long spec pilot? Are you finding yourself getting bogged down in plot moves and client-story elements that fail to even capture your own attention? Are you longing to bring the focus back to the main characters? Here’s a crazy thought: maybe your show isn’t an hour. Maybe it’s a (single camera) half-hour.

This won’t work for all shows, of course. If you’ve got a cop or lawyer show that hangs on dense plotting, or if it’s dark drama, it clearly won’t feel at all like a half-hour. But if it’s got a light tone, some funny, and doesn’t necessarily hang on lots of plot moves and suspense-filled act breaks, then it might work well as a half-hour.

Imagine that you were given the job of going through a stack of “Ugly Betty” scripts and cutting them down to a half-hour length. What would you lose? You’d probably cut all the arc elements, the running mystery stuff. You’d simplify the A-story too, reducing plot complications while trying to keep all the funny character moments. “Ugly Betty” obviously works well as an hour, but I suggest that if it were a spec script, that a half-hour version of it would have definite appeal as a little gem of characterization: funny, fast, and short.

[CLARIFICATION: I am not suggesting writing spec Ugly Betty scripts as half-hours. I was unclear here. What I meant was that if Ugly Betty had been a spec pilot, it would have worked well as a half-hour spec pilot.]

It’s not a prescription, but it’s an option.

Lunch: Vietnamese pho, this time with tripe in it. Yum! Tripe’s fantastic!

A spec script is a lot like an audition. Actors and writers both don’t get hired until they’ve showed off what they can do. But it can also be more than that. It can also be a lot like an interview, a chance to say a little bit about your background. If there’s something about yourself that you think makes you an interesting addition to a writers’ room, you can use your spec script, especially a spec pilot, to tell your future employer about it.

Now, normally, I’m a bit skeptical about the “write what you know” advice, since, taken too literally, it means that no one gets to write about spaceships. I always point out that it should be taken to mean “write emotional truth as you’ve experienced it.” However, in this specific case, where you’re using a script to sell yourself and your point of view, there is something to be said for drawing on your own personal specialness.

Did you grow up on a farm? Train as a nurse? Witness a crime? Overcome dyslexia? Were you raised by your Filipino grandmother? Are you a twin? Does your family practice an unusual religion? Is your mother a cop? Is your sister a soldier? Did you win the national spelling bee?

If you’ve got something like that, a little hook, the kind of thing you’d drop into an interview situation to generate interest, then it might be worth putting your special knowledge into a script. There’s certainly no reason your lawyer hero couldn’t have a Filipino grandmother, and their scenes, written with authenticity, will probably end up stealing the show.

Now, if you’ve just surveyed your life and decided you’re boring and have never had any experiences, then it might be worth having some. I know a very good smart young drama writer who went out and took a “be a private detective” class. Just like that, he had something to talk about in interviews, something that made him valuable to a show runner, as well as something that could be used to give real authenticity to a spec script.

Remember, a spec might be art, but mostly, it’s a sales document. It’s selling you. Push the product!

Lunch: the “famous tofu reuben sandwich” from Factor’s Deli. Greasy and good. It tastes exactly like a real reuben, only it’s soft. No, seriously, it’s good.

Eric in West Hollywood wrote in a very long time ago, with a question that I’m finally getting around to answering. He asks about the act structure for a one-hour drama. Eric:

In your opinion are five acts a blip or a trend? If I’m writing a [spec] pilot, should I write it in four acts? And which act break is the most important?

Ooh, those are great questions. Most hour shows seem to have gone to the five-act structure now, although the show I’m currently working on (Battlestar), is still holding to the older four-act structure. It’s hard to tell, of course, if something is a blip until it blips out, but I think this has the feel of a something more permanent. Networks like commercial breaks and they like a longer opening sequence to hook viewers, and those impulses have created the additional act. (I hear that some shows are even toying with a six-act structure, although I wonder if, in that case, maybe that first act feels a bit like a teaser and that last act like a tag.)

The nice thing for you spec pilot writers is that the transition is still transitioning. You can choose with complete freedom whether to tell your show with four or five acts. I’d suggest that you let your story determine that. Look at how many times it turns, and number your acts accordingly.

As to the most important act break, that’s a very interesting question. I’m going to rephrase it a bit, and ask how the four-act act breaks line up with the five-act act breaks. Traditionally, the end of act one is the moment that defines the main problem of the script — the obstacle the characters face. This should still be the end of act one, certainly not any later. The end of act three in a traditional four-act show is often the “all is lost” act break. I’d suggest that the end of act four plays this role in a five-act show, certainly you don’t want it earlier. So it’s not that you’re tacking on an extra act of set-up at the beginning, nor an extra act of resolve at the end. The new act is made out of the cloth in the middle.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to get more specific than that, because shows differ so much in what they require out of an “act break moment,” so you’ll have to do some exploration of this on your own, by playing with your own story. And remember, it’s all right if the length of your acts varies. Acts early in a script are often longer than later ones. I’ve seen first acts that are over twenty pages long and final acts as short as five or six pages. If the reverse is happening with your script, that’s a bit strange. You might want to have that looked at.

Try, as much as you can, to let the natural shape of your story determine how it fits onto the pages. Let the demands of page-count and the number/placement of acts keep you from formlessness, but don’t let them dictate your story.

P.S. thanks to Loyal Reader Lilia for the fine gift!

Lunch: a “Boston Cream Pie Cupcake” from Big Sugar Bakeshop. I love self-contradictory treats.

Whoa. This humble blog has been praised by the amazing John Hodgman. Holy crap! I’m absolutely beside myself. If you follow this link, you’ll be taken to his blog entry which then links back here. Theoretically, you might never get out of the loop, so bring an apple.

Please linger on his side of the looking glass while you’re over there. Hodgman has a sense of humor that manages to be both dry and twisty (like uncooked ramen). I highly recommend his book “The Areas of My Expertise” and I consistently giggle with glee when he appears on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

In fact, there was a joke he made during his most recent Daily Show appearance that I’ve been wanting to discuss with all of you, Gentle Readers, and this is the perfect time. He was displaying a chart that purported to show an increase in the number of leprosy cases in the U.S. The joke went like this:

“As you can see, over the last seven years the average number of fingers per American hand has dropped off, while the number of fingers that have dropped off has risen dramatically.”

Wow. That joke is so well constructed that I want to live in it during the rainy season.

Here’s why it works. The phrase “dropped off” is one we use automatically when discussing charts. As a joke writer, you should immediately look for humor in the literal interpretation of any metaphorical language. In this case, the beautiful collision of the subject matter and the way we naturally talk about charts produced the joke. It’s identical in this way to this joke from my Buffy episode, “Harsh Light of Day,” in which Anya is trying to talk Xander into sleeping with her.

ANYA
I think it’s the secret to getting you out of my mind. Putting you behind me. Behind me figuratively. I’m thinking face-to-face for the event itself.

Often, you find this kind of joke as you’re typing. You write the words “dropped off” or “behind me,” and it suddenly hits you that those words, taken literally, are colliding with your subject matter in an interesting way. Your first impulse might be to change the wording to avoid muddying what you’re talking about. But before you do, play around with it for a while and see if the ironic clash of language can be turned into a joke.

A close relative of this kind of joke, by the way, is this classic one from the Simpsons in which Bart finds himself in the audience for a performance he doesn’t enjoy:

BART
I didn’t think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows.

The starting place, again, is taking figurative language and considering its literal meaning. My buddy John Hodgman and I recommend it. Hee!

Lunch: cup o’ noodles, pie

Clams! Fresh hot clams! Well, not all that fresh, actually. I have it on good authority that no fewer than three of the new pilots for Fall series use “That went well” as a punchline. Nooooo! Have I accomplished nothing?!

I also hereby call clam on these mollusks:

“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”

And

(sing-song) “Awkward!”

And

“I said, ‘good day, Sir!'”

Really, people, even in real life, don’t use these! They’re past their expiration date and they will make you ill. An excellent rule of thumb is “if you’ve read it, don’t write it; if you’ve heard it, don’t say it.” Adapt it, sure. Or make fun of it if you want — use it ironically. But don’t expect a genuine laugh.

Notice that there are also dramatic dialogue clams, which aren’t really clams, just overused lines. Usually these are lines that characters on screen say so often that they’ve become a sloppy shorthand for actual writing.

I’m talking about lines like “Don’t make me do something I’ll regret,” “I guess my reputation precedes me,” and “Did you really think it would be that easy to get rid of me?” They’re dangerously easy to write because you’ve heard them before. There’s nothing wrong with the sentiments, exactly, it’s just that the words have become calcified into these empty shapes.

And just because wealthy characters are meeting at a high-toned party, it doesn’t mean that they have to have the following exchange:

MATRON
Jeffrey! Finally we meet! Audrey’s told us so much about you!

JEFFREY
Ha Ha. Only good things, I hope.

ME
Bleagh!

Note that the “I said ‘good day!'” clam I list above was very funny the first time it was used (Seinfeld, I believe), because it was actually functioning as a parody of dramatic lines like these. Now, it’s entering its double clamage as it is itself growing hoary within its own function as a parody. Haven’t heard it? Keep your ears open. I have a feeling it’s not done with us yet.

So be careful, as these lines have a nasty tendency to type themselves when you’re not looking.

Lunch: fajitas, made with surprisingly excellent steak

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