JaneEspenson.com

I saw Walk Hard yesterday and really enjoyed it. It does a great job of poking (affectionate) fun at some of the clunky hallmarks of biopic screenplays, like their constant need to keep stating everyone’s age and re-establishing what year we’re dealing with.

It also goes in for some delightfully overblown teeing-up of its big moments. In the obligatory first-time-in-a-recording-studio scene, our hero is told, over and over again, about how there’s nothing he can do in this moment to save himself from failure, how there’s no way that he can possibly pull out a last-minute performance that will turn his life around, how there’s no possible chance… etc… etc. It’s a great skewering of a classic screenplay mistake. It could be taken as great advice.

However — get this — I implore you to ignore it. In my experience, you are far more likely to make the opposite mistake and let a big turn in a script happen with too little fanfare than with too much. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps too many screen-writing teachers have been making you write those spare, clean, objective-sounding stage directions that don’t allow you to drum-roll a good story turn.

Obviously, I’m not asking you to go nuts here. Don’t have characters actually seriously say “nothing could possibly go wrong,” or lines like that. But don’t be afraid of letting the drama of a story turn play out. Let the stage directions help the readers understand what the characters expect out of the moment, so that the surprise of the turn will land. And then let the characters react to the turn. Don’t be afraid of hitting it too hard. You certainly might do so, but it’s an easy matter to dial that back during a rewrite. And that’s a far easier correction to make than trying to figure out why the turn doesn’t feel as significant as you hoped it would.

Lunch: that crazy cheesy garlic bread at The Smokehouse. Yum.

Ahhh! I’m back, Gentle Readers, and happy to be so. You know those vacations that leave you less well rested than you were before? I had one of those. TWO bouts of food poisoning on one trip? Really? That’s not right.

But I’m back and I’m in fightin’ form and ready to blog!

First, let me call your attention to tvguide.com again, as they’re doing another poll of viewer support for the strike. I think they’re expecting to see the support numbers slipping. I think they’re wrong. What do you think? It’s easy to register and vote on their site.

Moving on! Here’s a neat bit of writing vocabulary for you. I recently heard a new one. How cool is this? I am told by a writer in a certain sitcom room that in his room, a “fly chamber” is when there’s a tiny element from a past draft completely ruining your present script, a la Jeff Goldblum in THE FLY.

This is significant, of course, not so much for the terminology itself, although that is delightful. Many rooms, like isolated islands, develop dialects incomprehensible even to their nearest neighbors. The term is more notable for serving to call attention to the phenomenon itself. I often think the worst enemy of a well-written second draft is a first draft. You end up bending scenes to try to retain stuff that worked, and you also overcompensate for stuff that didn’t work by going too far the other way. For example, if the first draft of a scene was too sentimental, you might rewrite it too hard-edged to avoid getting that note again.

Often, the key to a good rewrite is a clean new page.

Lunch: a very nasty airplane lunch that seemed to be cheese and too-salty ham in a hot-dog bun. Oh, dear.

I am going to be taking a holiday break. For the first time I can remember, I don’t have a beat sheet, outline, script or revision to work on over the break, so I’m not taking my computer with me. This means that I will probably not be posting at all until 2008.

But if you’re an aspiring writer, not yet in the Guild, and you’re working on spec scripts to submit to fellowships or competitions, you CAN take your computer wherever you’re going (or staying). Holiday time can be an excellent chance to write your specs. The Star Trek: TNG script that opened the Hollywood door for me was written over a winter break. Maybe that’ll be the charm for you, too!

See you in the New Year!

ADDENDUM: Have you checked out Cash For The Crew? It’s a fantastic cause. Go look!

… I tackled a question about spec scripts for highly-serialized shows. A Gentle Reader wanted to know if they should include a sort of “previously on ___” for the top of their script, to help place the episode in context. I came down against anything but the briefest of place-setters, and threw open the question to anyone in a position to know the answer, especially someone who knew how the readers at a writing fellowship would approach the issue. And… ta da… someone stepped forward. This is the response I got from Friend-of-the-Blog Derek Olson, who is part of the team over at the ABC/Disney fellowship. Take it, Derek!

Hi Jane,

Derek

No mangling necessary. I hope that answers any questions out there. Looks like you should ditch the “previouslies”!

Lunch: a Baby Ruth bar eaten during the substantial wait at City Hall today between meetings to discuss the financial impact of the AMPTP’s absence from the negotiations. Baby Ruth is a fine product.

Lately, I’ve been able to meet and talk with a lot of other writers out on the line — not a thorough compensation for being able to do what I love, but it softens the blow. One of them, a young woman at the Mutant Enemy Day picket, pointed out to me an alternate way into a television writing job that I hadn’t known about. There are at least two young working (well, not right now, but before and after the strike) writers in town who helped themselves get their jobs by working as recappers at TelevisionWithoutPity.com. What a great idea!

Do you know the site? You really should. It covers a large number of shows, providing detailed and humorous recaps and analysis of each episode. I often use it as a resource to make myself familiar with shows I’ve failed to keep up with, and to make sure I’m getting references and subtleties that a more diligent viewer would catch. The recappers get to demonstrate an understanding of what makes television work (and what doesn’t). I don’t always agree with their analysis, but I’m almost always impressed by the care and thought that goes into it. And, I’m now learning, the job can lead to other things. (I should have known this. The long-time Battlestar recapper, Jacob Clifton, contributed an essay to Serenity Found, the newer book about Firefly that I edited — and he came to our attention because of the recaps.)

I have no idea if TwoP has job openings or what their hiring criteria is. It’s almost certain that they don’t need people right now since the amount of new product is plummeting due to the strike. But keep them, and other sites of this kind, in mind as you look ahead. Critical writing about television, for TwoP or your local college newspaper or on your personal blog, can help you hone your thinking and demonstrate a love and understanding of the medium that might just catch someone’s eye.

Then, of course, you better have a good script to hand to them.

Lunch: Bibimbap, the Korean vegetable-and-rice dish, from the Korean BBQ stand in the Farmer’s Market. Delish!

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