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I have very poor eyesight, and I hate wearing contact lenses (I can get ’em in, can’t get ’em back out). So I wear glasses. (Did you ever think that this might be the last generation to wear glasses? We’re going to look really weird in old photos with these odd little sculptures on our faces.) Anyway, I can’t wear my glasses when I’m snorkeling. So I recently ordered a prescription swim mask on the internet. It arrived the day before yesterday. I haven’t had it in the water yet, but it works really great for walking around my apartment looking like a freak. A freak who can SEE, thank you very much.

This will allow me to see many more fish underwater. Until now I was only able to see those who swam directly in front of my eyes. Saucy little exhibitionists.

Hey, you know what that reminds me of? Script readers who don’t read the stage directions. They only look at the dialogue and therefore only see some of the fish. How can we put our fish in front of their faces?

It’s terribly easy to blip right over stage directions when reading. And since spec scripts are destined not to be produced, and only read, this is of crucial importance to you, the spec script creator. We’ve already talked about putting some of the staging into the dialogue. Here’s a way to do something similar.

What I’m talking about here is putting stage directions into parentheticals. This is of course, immoral and wrong. But it can also be effective.

Here’s what I’m talking about.

CORRECT:

CHARACTER
Ooh. Nice place.

Character feels the fabric of the drapes.

CHARACTER (cont’d)
Or maybe not.

INCORRECT but BETTER:

CHARACTER
Ooh. Nice place.
(feeling the drapes)
Or maybe not.

Parentheticals are supposed to be used to indicate how a line is to be read. Not to describe action. But it sure makes the action harder to miss if you sometimes put it in there. It’s nicely mixed in with the dialogue, like putting a fish right in front of a person’s face. This is a common and unremarkable violation of the rules and I recommend it if you have any concern that the action is going to be missed. Sticklers might disagree, but I like this technique. Possible parentheticals under this system could include:
(dodging a blob of taffy)
(noticing the door is on fire)
or
(kicking the otter out the window)

Here’s a more extreme example:

CORRECT:

CHARACTER
Guess they didn’t find the murder weapon.

One of the nearby COPS hands him a knife. Instead of blood, the knife is covered with a thick GREEN GOO.

CHARACTER (cont’d)
Am I the only one who thinks this is strange?

INCORRECT:

CHARACTER
Guess they didn’t find the murder weapon.
(taking KNIFE from cop. Re: GREEN GOO on knife)
Am I the only one who thinks this is strange?

Now, this is a really extreme example. A cop, a prop and some goo are all introduced in a parenthetical here. This is really against the rules. It is a lot harder to miss the action in the second version, don’t you think? Also, look at the extreme space savings. That could totally help pull up a page if you need the space. But my instincts tell me this one is going a little too far.

Probably the best answer in this case, is to give the reader TWO chances to see the important info.

OPTIMAL:

CHARACTER
Guess they didn’t find the murder weapon.

One of the nearby COPS hands him a knife. Instead of blood, the knife is covered with a thick GREEN GOO.

CHARACTER (cont’d)
(Re: GREEN GOO on knife)
Am I the only one who thinks this is strange?

There. Now the parenthetical isn’t quite SO ridiculously overloaded and the reader has two chances to observe that goo and to fathom the fact that a knife was found. Isn’t that cool?

LUNCH: Went to a Greek street fair thing. Lamb! Innocent and delicious!

What show do you think this exchange came from?

Coroner: I have to go take care of the guy with the javelin in his chest.
Cop (shuddering): Why’d you get into this line of work in the first place?
Coroner (deadpan): Free javelins.

Answer: Law and Order.

I probably got the words a little wrong, but I know I’m not far off. I know, because the joke made me laugh. Laughter is one of those visceral responces that help cement memories into place. Do you remember strangely specific jokes from sitcoms you watched when you were a kid? Well, then.

The lesson here is that even if you’re writing a spec for a notoriously humorless show, like L&O, it will serve you well to look for a funny moment or two. If the show you’re specing EVER does comedy, EVER, then you have the total right to put it in your spec.

The specs that were submitted to Joss when I was trying to get onto Buffy included an NYPD Blue spec. The first thing he said to me about my writing was to compliment a joke from the spec. Not a tense moment or a bit of action or a reveal, but a joke. Jokes stick.

Usually, in a cop show spec, you will have a serious A story, balanced with a funny B story or runner of some kind. Spend a lot of time on the funny bits. They may very well be the thing that gets your script noticed. B stories are sometimes neglected by the writer, since they take up less acreage, but they are the spice that makes the dish.

Lunch: Chicken in Mole sauce (is that redundant?) The Mole was sweeter than I’ve usually encountered. Can’t say I’m against it.

I know that I haven’t made it especially easy to contact me about this blog. So I’m blown away by the great notes that have made their way to me. Thanks to Pat in Texas who sent me a note on a beautiful post card, and included information on her lunch! I love it! I also got a sweet note from Jesse Jackson. But I think it’s not THAT Jesse Jackson. And a great card from Ken in Virginia, who groks my love of scifi as well as of Jane Austin! Thanks to all of you!

The most inspiring letter was from Alicia in Australia who started watching Buffy when she was eight (!) and is going to start studying film-making next year. She thinks she’s not a writer, but her letter sounds exactly like a person talking, so I suspect she’d be great at dialogue.

So, let’s talk a little about dialogue! You know what your character is FEELING, but you don’t want them to just say it out loud, right? So how do you let your audience KNOW what they’re feeling? You can’t rely on acting to do this — not in a spec script! Somehow you have to do it on the page. Well, I’m going to show you a little trick. Credit Freud for this one.

Here’s a tiny little bit from a Buffy script of mine. Buffy has finally decided to let her boyfriend, Riley, know just how strong she is. They spar, and she throws him across the room. She hurries to him and they have this exchange:

BUFFY
Are you hurt?

RILEY
I… I’m… I don’t think so.

The trick here is having someone START to say something, then change their mind. Riley started to say “I’m…” something. “Okay,” probably. Or “fine.” That’s what you normally say. When he changes his answer to “I don’t think so,” he has decided not to commit to being fine. We know he IS hurt, even if not physically injured.

In that case, a character started to speak, then realized what they were going to say was a lie, and took it back. The reverse works too, in which a character starts to let the truth spill out, then stops herself.

I wrote an Angel script in which Cordy mourns the life she used to have as the Alpha girl of Sunnydale High. At one point she’s looking around at a beautiful apartment and she says:

CORDELIA
I… I used to have this. I was…

She decides not to finish the thought, and just trails off there. Someone else speaks, and Cordy never comes back to what she was, but we’ve heard enough to know that she’s thinking about her change of circumstances as a change in what she “was,” as a genuine change in identity.

I love this trick. It’s easy and efficient. It reveals character without a bunch of words. Give it a try! But only use it when a character is REALIZING something, because that’s when they’re distracted, when their censor is not engaged, when things can slip out.

Lunch: Chicken and waffles at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. Wonderful as always.

Back from my mini-vacation! Very refreshing! But it has gotten harder and harder to be out of touch with my life. I was emailing friends, getting calls on the cell phone, and feeling guilty about the times when I was genuinely unreachable. I recently changed vacation plans when I realized I’d have no internet access at my intended hotel. I couldn’t face such a thing. Breathing is input, and increasingly, input is breathing.

When I was getting started as a writer, I sought out support, eager for the input of the other writers in the Disney fellowship. But I thought that as I moved out into genuine employment, that I would begin swimming on my own, with less and less input from friends as I learned more and more skills. But that hasn’t been what has happened at all. I’ve actually become more collaborative as I’ve gone along.

When I was starting out I would NEVER have let a friend read an outline of mine. I would’ve felt like I wasn’t ready to be judged until I had some kind of finished script — that’s the point at which the “idea” started to feel like an “entity.” But once you’re employed on a show, the outline is treated as an entity, too. Your show runner reads the outline and gives you notes. Then it is sent on to the studio and the network, and they have input too. You rewrite the outline until it’s right. This process avoids lots of horrible huge changes after you’ve already fallen in love with dialogue. Even if I’m writing a spec pilot on my own, and have no boss, I will get input at the outline stage now.

If you have friends who know the show that you’re specing, have them read your outline. Even if they’re not writers, they are viewers, and they know if something feels like the show or not. This will encourage you to write a strong, clear outline, and it will help you catch story problems at an early stage. I know an outline feels like a private thing, and this is a little like bringing friends along to help pick out underpants, but if you can stand it, it can be really helpful. Have you ever regretted an underpants purchase? Then you know the kind of discomfort you’ll be avoiding.

Okay. I think I’m finally done with story-and-outline stuff. Soon we’ll get to dialogue! The fun stuff!

Lunch: A perfectly dreadful chicken wrap thing on the plane. The ingredients were fine, but they were wrapped in a flavorless white paste. Yuk!

Hello all! I’m writing to you from my long weekend. I’ve been doing a lot of snorkeling on said weekend. This is a very new skill. Once I’m in the water, I do great, floating around with minimal movement, staring at the pretty fishes, admiring the amazing colors and wondering which ones taste best in lemony sauces. But the transition from standing in three inches of water with a worried look on my face to floating about hungrily, is very very hard for me. I have, in fact, discovered that the only way I really can get myself fully into the water is to fall. I wade out into the water and trip over something. It works GREAT! Serendipity with extra dip.

Sometimes accidents lead to great results. Keep that in mind as you write. You’ve got an outline. But if something better comes up while you’re writing, you should feel free to explore it. Add a character to a scene or subtract one. Fiddle with a transition between scenes or change the order of scenes. You’ve got time, since it’s a spec. Time is your one advantage over the pro writer with a due date and this is one of the ways you can take advantage of it. Maybe your experiment will only end up reminding you why you put things in that order in the outline to begin with, but maybe it will lead to something interesting. Feel free to fall. Sometimes it leads to fish.

Lunch: wasabi peanuts, dried cherries with salt and licorice, chocolate coffee beans and an apple. Eclectic!

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