JaneEspenson.com

A Friend-of-the-Blog is writing a spec pilot that he described as Friday Night Lights in a _____ (noun omitted to protect his idea). He recently asked me a question about plotting this pilot. He wanted to know how much plot to put in those first few pages versus how much pure character development. As I think about this now, it occurs to me that there’s no reason that those of you writing spec pilots can’t take advantage of the same system I recommend for those of you writing specs for established shows. By which I mean: look at an example.

If you want your pilot to have the feel of Friday Night Lights… why not look at the FNL pilot? How did they establish the mood, story, characters when they were at square one? There’s nothing wrong with learning from those writers who’ve gone before you. A quick look at ebay reveals there’s a copy of that very script for sale, and that’s after a two-second search. For all I know, the script, or a transcript, is available elsewhere on line for free.

Want your spec pilot to have the mood of House? Grey’s Anatomy? Ugly Betty? I would highly recommend taking a squint at those shows’ pilots. Maybe you’ll like what you see, maybe not, but you’ll certainly learn a lot from contemplating why those shows’ creators made the choices they did in introducing their premises and characters. Don’t lift scenes or words, obviously, but check out where they start their story, how early they establish back stories, how soon the central hook of the show is made evident… all that good stuff is right there to be studied.

Lunch: a chicken salad sandwich from that cute little grocery store in the canyon on Beverly Glen.

Reading a spec pilot can be hard work. You have to figure out a lot – What’s the tone of this? What’s the heart of this story about? What’s going on? And who are all these people? As a writer of spec pilots you want — you NEED — to make the reader’s job as easy as possible. One of the ways you can help is through the way you name your characters.

I hate picking up a script and realizing that I’m going to have to keep Mike, Bill, Jim, Tom and Greg separate and distinct in my mind. It’s just so much easier if I’m dealing with Graydon, Javier, Mr. Vargas, Squeaky and Security Guard. Don’t you think?

Obviously, that was an exaggerated example. But tagging characters in a variety of ways will help make the names more memorable. If it’s done with a light hand, giving them names that help us remember some characteristic of theirs will really help make it easy on your reader. The bad guy host in The Running Man was named Damon Killian. That is debatably a bit too much, but, geez, it sure makes it easy to remember he’s a bad guy.

For a much subtler approach, look at Pride and Prejudice. Who’s more level-headed? Kitty or Jane? Who’s the prude? Georgiana or Mary?

The ironic name can also work, of course, since irony is another grappling hook that memory can seize onto. “Harmony,” one of our great Buffy characters, was an ironic name long before we revealed that she literally couldn’t carry a tune.

There’s a reason that soap opera characters tend to have names like Harper and Ridge and Skye. They have an awful lot of people running around, and they need to be able to hook into them with a memorable name. Take a cue from the soaps. They’ve been around, what, a hundred years now? They must know something.

And yet, if you’re interested in the adventures of two guys named John, check out this. The amazing John Hodgman and John Oliver (you know them both from The Daily Show among other things) are going to be playing Scrabble for charity later this week. You can help them reach their goal!

Lunch: left-over pizza. Onion and double-pineapple. I’ve started ordering pizza with no cheese and extra sauce. It’s actually great.

Gentle Reader Richard writes in from London, asking about the prospects for British writers attempting to break in the US feature or television writing business. I’m sorry, Richard, but I just don’t know. I can give writing advice, but Getting A Job advice isn’t really my field. I can tell you, in general, that I don’t think US show runners would have any cultural concerns about hiring a British writer. We could easily remove all those extra ‘u’s and the jokes referring to famous soccer players. The fact that I’ve never worked on a staff with a Brit writer makes me think that this is unusual, though. Now, I have the notion that feature writing is a more international game. Certainly there are successful feature writers who don’t live in the US, after all.

Richard also asks about the kind of jobs an aspiring screenwriter might do here in Los Angeles. As I’ve discussed before, the job of Writers’ Assistant is one of the very best ways to work yourself into a writing gig. Look to this blog, the entries of Oct. 12th and 14th of 2007, for a detailed discussion of the joys and perils of this job. Note to Gentle Reader Megan in LA — these entries should also address the questions in your letter — thanks for writing.

Obviously, Writers’ Assistant is a very hard job to get. That’s why I recommend applying to any fellowship or contest for which you’re eligible. That’s how I got my start.

Richard, you may also want to consider trying to establish yourself overseas. If you had an agent there in London, and maybe a TV gig or a bit of BBC radio play writing, it would help make you salable over here, I would think.

But again, I want to remind all the Gentle Readers out there that this isn’t my area of expertise. I’m here to talk about nuts-and-bolts of screenwriting, and anything I say about job-getting should be viewed with suspicion.

ALSO… thanks to Gentle Reader Lilia who sent me a strike/holiday gift, and to Doria for the holiday card! I’m still sorting through piles of recent mail, so don’t worry if you haven’t seen your letter referenced yet.

Lunch: scrambled eggs with onion

Vegas mission complete! All the leafleting that needs to be done is done. Thanks to those who came out and apologies for any missed connections.

And now… the mailbag! I haven’t gone through the accumulated letters for a while, so if you’re waiting for me to post, referencing something you sent, you might have to hang on as I work my way through the pile. First off, I’m tickled to see so many letters of strike support mixed in with the holiday greetings. Loyal Reader Ingrid checks in, as does Paul in Surrey and Maribeth in San Francisco. Maribeth urges me not to worry that frivolity on the picket line sends the wrong message. That’s good to know, since I’m hearing that delightfully frivolous plans are being made by the “Women of Sci Fi” group with whom I sometimes guest-picket.

Michael in Connecticut points out that labor unions are the reason we have weekends off. Ooh. Is that true? I suppose it must be. Nice. Now I have something to say to all those people who go read articles about the strike and then post comments saying “unions are bad for America.” Is that right? Have a good weekend, Dude?

And… finally… actual writing advice! Man, it’s been a while!

I was thinking today about a certain temptation of writing. Sometimes you make things easier for your protagonist, when what you’re actually doing is trying to make your own writing job easier.

Sometimes two crises come to a head at the same time in a script. Maybe an A and a B story both require action from the hero. Maybe an emotional crisis and a professional one happen at the same time. It can be tempting to arrange events so that the protagonist can deal with one crisis and then move onto the other one. You can even rationalize it by thinking of it as a “one-two punch.” She’s still reeling from being dumped by her boyfriend when the monster attacks… that kind of thing. And sure, that might work fine. But it might also come across like one of those fight scenes where the ninjas wait and attack the good guy one at a time for the apparent convenience of the good guy.

So try letting your hero deal with everything at once. It can be tricky writing this kind of scene, but it has tremendous potential to be a stunner, full of energy and humor and action.

If one of the crises requires a quiet, private moment, you can let the character — instead of the writer — be the one to say, “hang on, let me kill this thing first.” Having a character arrange this instead of circumstance, helps you, as the writer, be invisible. When things get too neat by your design, that when the reader of the script sees your giant hand reaching down and moving the checkers around.

Lunch: the buffet at Bellagio. Amazing. I had pasta and yams and noodle-salad and ceviche and sushi and cucumber-salad and pickled stuff and fish and flan.

Thanks to all the fans who showed up yesterday at the Wynn to help with the leafleting at the Consumer Electronics Show! I’m truly touched. The event itself was the strangest thing. Hold out a piece of paper and whisper “WGA,” and members of the press will actually come over to you, saying, “Can I have one?” It was like we had coupons for free tiramisu. The public/media is interested, I will say that!

We only handed them out for a short while, but we gave away a surprisingly large number of fliers. (Right up until casino security “asked” us to leave. But what the heck, at a certain point in one’s life, I think it’s important to start getting thown out of places.)

Today, we’re going to try giving away some more at the Convention Center. If you want to join us, the plan is to meet at the entrance to the North Hall at 11AM. But, as we learned yesterday, these plans are dubious in their doubtfulness. Things are fluid but fun here. If you can’t find me, I apologize.

BTW, the fliers are very simple little informational sheets that just lay out the basics of the dispute. The idea is that the sorts of press representatives who cover new consumer electronics are going to be interested in the “new media” issues at the heart of the dispute.

Coming soon: writing advice. I did not intend this blog to turn into a strike diary, and I still do not. We’ll be back to my regular prattling (Blah! Parentheticals! Blah!) again in no time!

Lunch: poached eggs at Jerry’s Famous Deli

« Older Entries

Newer Entries »