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We all know how important act breaks are, right? The dramatic moments at the end of acts are not just there as little tricks to make the audience return after the commercials, they legitimately turn the story in a new direction.

When you’re writing an act break, don’t just think about the last action that happens, or the last line of dialogue. Think hard about the last words that appear on the script page right before “END OF ACT WHATEVER.” You should use these words to help the reader know exactly where they’re supposed to be mentally, what they’re supposed to focus on.

For example, let’s imagine that a character has just swept out of the room, leaving another character there alone. You could just say that, start typing “END OF…,” and trust that any attentive reader will know all that is implied by that action. Or, you can nail it down with something like:

Harriet stares after John, hoping his anger isn’t about to get them both into deeper trouble.

Sure, an attentive reader knows that’s what she’s hoping, but you never can be sure exactly how attentive your reader is. A little check-in sentence like this makes sure everyone is following along.

It also has a novelistic feel, telegraphing what’s about to happen in a way that prose writers get to do a lot, but that’s more limited in the stripped-down world of script-writing.

Be careful not to try to sneak stuff into this sentence that a reader couldn’t actually know, of course, but if this is done right it can be very helpful in letting a reader know they’re reacting as you intend them to react.

Lunch: some kind of scramble at a Canadian Denny’s. It was something like the “Homestead Scramble” or the “Heartland Scramble.” Nine letters, started with ‘h’ and ended with pancakes.

When you came up with the central idea of your spec script, you probably described it to others very succinctly. “House treats an ailing psychiatrist who only allows treatment if she can psychoanalyze House in return.” Or “Michael and Jim spend a day that feels as if they’ve traded lives.” You probably had a tidy little one sentence hook like that.

But then you started work. You broke the story into scenes, figured out act breaks and an arc and a progression of events and a conclusion. You developed a B-story and braided the two stories together so that they influenced or commented on each other. You made sure all the regular characters had some way to participate in the story. You found interesting character moments that taught us something new about the characters without contradicting what we already know. You found dramatic moments and emotional pay-offs.

Now that you’ve got all that done and you might even have a completed draft, you should check to see if that original spark of an idea that made you want to write the script is still there. Is it still clear that this patient is engineering moments with House in order to analyze him? Is the Jim-and-Michael life-trade thing still in the script or is it just reading like Jim’s having a bad day while Michael has a good one? It’s very easy for the original notion to get muddied while you’re working. It’s like an underlying image that’s been traced through so many layers of paper that it’s rendered indistinct.

Sharpen it up. (Or, if a better concept has emerged during the writing, sharpen that one up.) This is a good time to quiz your test readers. Ask them what the basic idea of the story was and see if they got it. You want people to read your script and not just see a bunch of stuff that happens. You want them to see a story that hangs together as a whole, and that little one-sentence notion is the stapler that makes that happen.

Lunch: Burger King’s Whopper Jr. Burger King features tomatoes a lot more than McDonald’s does. Interesting.

As I do periodically, I recently checked in with an agent to find out which established shows were currently being recommended as specs. I expected to hear that Grey’s Anatomy and House were still strong in hours, and that The Office was still the current hot half-hour. I also thought I might hear that Heroes and 20 Rock specs *might* be starting to slip onto the scene.

Other than that thing about The Office, though, which *is* still apparently *the* half-hour to have, my predictions were wrong. For the first time since I’ve been asking the question, I was told that the agent wasn’t recommending *any* established shows at all! Spec pilots, as well as original plays and short film scripts were *all* that she recommended for young writers putting together their collection of samples.

Wow. That’s kind of earth-shaking — causing me to scatter emphasis-asterisks like snowflakes. Or maybe it’s just taken me this long to listen to what agents have been edging toward over the last several years. I seriously expected to hear that, with the current healthy array of quality dramas, specs for established shows were rebounding. But apparently not.

Personally, I think this is a shame. So much stuff goes into writing a good original pilot that isn’t really relevant to whether or not a writer will be good on a staff. And, conversely, original material tells a reader nothing about a writer’s ability to capture an established voice. AND, spec features and plays don’t even tell the reader about the writer’s fluency with the limitations of television writing. So I sigh. But I pass the information along to you, gentle readers. And I will continue, as I have been, trying to post hints that will help you in the writing of these original pieces.

Lunch: corned beef hash, poached eggs, home fries

Here’s a little riddle for you: How is Desperate Housewives like The Love Boat? Well, until Ted McGinley is added to the DH cast in season eight, the best answer I have is that they share an interesting writing peculiarity — the stories are divided among the writers by thread instead of by act.

Sometimes a writing staff splits up episodes and writes them as piecework. This is very common on comedies, but often happens on dramas as well. The name that appears on screen as the author of the episode may or may not indicate something meaningful about the contribution made by a particular writer. Now, obviously, one can imagine different strategies for splitting one script’s worth of writing among a milling and embittered clump of writers. One common way is to assign continuous chunks of the script. Usually this is done by acts, but sometimes it’s more like: “I’ll take act one up to but not including the least scene. He’ll take from that scene up to the middle of act two, then…” The other way, which I call the Love Boat way, is to give a writer responsibility for one of the story lines all the way through. (On the original Love Boat, the episodes were actually credited this way, with the different story lines each having titles and the writers of each identified in the opening credits.) This is how Desperate Housewives apportions the work.

The Love Boat method, of course, only works under very special circumstances. It requires that the stories be fairly separate. A few scenes in which the threads overlap and influence each other — that can be worked out, but if the story lines are very dependent on each other, things will quickly get difficult. The method also requires additional writing to smooth out the transitions in and out of scenes and figure out those scenes that are influenced by more than one thread and do whatever else is needed to unify the whole.

On Buffy, we used this method exactly once that I recall. For an episode named “Conversations with Dead People.” The episode had an atypically modular structure. The episode named “Life Serial” was also split up by thread, but since each act was a separate thread, it actually was also an example of the other method as well.

Usually, if we needed to split an episode, we did it by acts. This method allows the writers more control over their own transitions, but it also requires a very good outline. No one wants to sit down and write Act Four if they’re not entirely sure what led to this point. Even given an outline, it’s always amusing to read that first assembled draft in which the output of different writers is just slapped together. There will always be exposition that is covered two or three times, and sometimes, interestingly, the same joke will appear more than once. Again, more writing is required at this point, to sand down the joints where the splinters stick up, and to make it all read like a genuine whole.

By the way, I think there’s a lesson in the Love Boat method for those of you writing specs. Sometimes, instead of writing your script straight through, you might want to power through all the segments of your script that relate to one thread. There is something to be said for the mental focus you get when you tackle a single thread from beginning to end. Maybe you’ll find it exciting and new!

Lunch: the sirloin and cheese ciabatta sandwich and jalapeno poppers at Jack in the Box. Wonderful.

Hi all. Oh, such a heart-tugging letter just arrived from Angie in (I think) Los Angeles. She’s 35, has been trying to be a writer for many years now, acting as her own agent, and is wondering if the time is right to give up. Oh, Angie! I think you know me well enough to know that I never advocate giving up. And since I think you know that, I think that’s what you really want to hear. So here it is:

Don’t give up! You’ve got a number of factors working in your favor: 1. your scripts have performed well in contests. 2. as a “diverse” writer, you’re a member of a protected group, which can open up some opportunities. 3. You live in LA, so the door you’re trying to get through is right in your neighborhood. 4. Thirty-five doesn’t seem nearly as old as it did when I was, ya know, under thirty-five. You’ve still got time. And in five years you’re going to be forty whether you keep working at this or not. So you might as well keep working.

The sobering facts are that this is a rough time for anyone to get a television job. You really need an agent. But agents are hard to find. Lots of them don’t want to take on new clients right now, with employment prospects thin. The fact that a writers’ strike is looming probably has an effect too.

But these things can change — a strike, should it happen, will end, for example. And if you continue to add to your list of contests and fellowships, eventually an agent may agree to rep you, or at least “hip-pocket” you, which is a more informal relationship that can still get your scripts to producers under an agency cover. Then you can stop having to try to do it all yourself.

I know it’s hard. But all I can tell you is to meet other writers, join screenwriting groups, take classes, keep submitting those specs to contests and fellowships. Maybe start writing plays — some playwrighting contest wins could be impressive. And I know quite a few people who have written and shot their own low-budget features — heck, maybe you can conquor the world through YouTube! Get creative about how you approach the problem. But don’t be too aggressive with people — if you come across as pushy, you’ll burn bridges. Let your scripts do the talking, as much as possible.

And, Angie, write me again, okay? Let me know what you decide to do.

In other news, a follow-up on yesterday’s five-act post. I’ve received two emails from working writers with completely contradictory information on the future of episodic tv structure. I am informed both that Bones has gone back to the four act structure after an attempt to work with five, and that new ABC drama pilots are being written with SIX acts (although with no teaser)! Well! So, I guess, the wise thing is probably to let your story dictate your choice! How many times does your story turn? That’s how many act breaks it can have!

Lunch: tortilla chips with salsa and cheese and a chocolate cupcake

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