JaneEspenson.com

Did you know that authors rarely do book tours anymore? It’s true. Unless you’re a huge draw as a freestanding celebrity, those tours just don’t sell enough books to pay for the travel costs. So now there are internet tours, where you promote your book by “appearing on” various websites. Of course, this is all a way to announce my up-coming internet book tour to promote Serenity Found, the newest book edited by me, about Joss Whedon’s Firefly/Serenity universe.

So, for those of you who want to follow the tour, here is the schedule:

Oct. 19: FireflyTalk.com

I will make a second appearance on SpaceWesterns.com to discuss the book.

Did you catch the important bit? Guest Judge in a Limerick Contest! Seriously, that makes me just about as happy as anything could.

So mark your calendars, Gentle Readers. If you can take that much more of me — there I’ll be!

Lunch: pasta eaten during stress — no memory of actual ingredients or flavors

Remember this excellent piece by E. E. Knight on writing blunders? I’ve been thinking a lot about them, especially the one about not starting your narrative with the character waking up in the morning. This particular prohibition is spot on and I think there’s something really interesting to be learned from it.

Keep an eye out for the waking-up opening, and you’ll start to see it everywhere in movies and stories. I googled, “the story opens with,” and “waking up,” and found, among other entries:

“The story opens with Engineer Jack waking up…”
“The story opens with a girl waking up…”
“The story opens with Kelly waking up…”
“The story opens with Robin waking up…”
“The story opens with Will Barrent waking up…”

Yup, everyone loves it!

Here’s why. It’s good. Waking up provides a natural starting place, and it allows you to establish a character’s ordinary life and the ordinary status of their world before the inciting incident takes place.

So why avoid it? Because everyone loves it. It’s just become so familiar now, and it’s so easy that it shows a lack of effort and imagination. In pitching a pilot this very season, I had to take a few extra minutes to find a better opening to the story, because my brain went right away to that waking up/morning routine. The opening I found? Much better. Anything that makes you think, tends to make you write better, and the main sin of the waking-up opening is that you can write it without thinking.

Lunch: pork loin, havarti cheese tart, mashed potatoes

Okay, ready for more information from guest speaker and friend-of-the-blog Marcia? If you recall, Marcia is an accomplished writers’ assistant, with access to inside information about the job that I simply don’t have. So, once again, take it, Marcia!

Here’s where I say what you’ve been hoping I wouldn’t. Writers’ assistant jobs are near impossible to get if you’ve never been one. What’s equally frustrating is that a large percentage of those who end up in my position for the first time, get there by pure, dumb, luck. Being good at the job is how you land consecutive gigs, but that first one? Luck is a big part of it. There’s an unfortunate Catch-22 nature to the hiring of a writers’ assistant. No one wants an inexperienced writers’ assistant, but new writers’ assistants can’t become experienced if no one will hire them. Which is where connections come in. This won’t come as a shock to most readers, but being in this business is often like being in the mafia. It’s more than just a little helpful to know someone to get your foot in the door. That’s not to say the totally unconnected can’t find a job, but connections on all levels should never be overlooked. Nor should you feel the need to take the “I can make it on my own” stance. Take the advantages you can. Sure, connections may have gotten you the job, but it’s your abilities that keep you in it. Staying employed consistently is based only partly on who you know, the rest is the reputation you cultivate.

(LisaKlink’s October 4th blog that Jane linked you to had some particularly good advice for those right off the bus. [The blog is here. You can page down to the relevant entry. – Jane]The only thing I’d recommend caution with is her “find a way to stand out” piece of advice. She’s not wrong, but you want to make sure you do it in a way that doesn’t get under the skin of your fellow underlings. Because, though it may work to get you in good with the writers, it’s also those little people on the same level as you or thereabouts that recommend you for future work. For example, when I get hired as a script coordinator on shows, I do my best to make sure MY writers’ assistant and MY writers PA are hired. By which I mean, the people I’ve worked with in the past who I know will work hard for me, are people I don’t mind spending 18 hours a day with, and who don’t have a chip on their shoulder about the work. Anyway, where were we?)

So be sure you really want this when you give it a shot. You’re going to have to stick it out. For some people, it’s a short journey, but for most of us, it’s a long, winding road with many twists and turns. There’ll be disappointments along the way. Show’s get cancelled, orders are cut short, all ending your chance of a bump to staff writer in the future. Not to mention, there are plenty of show runners unwilling to see you as anyone other than the guy/gal who clacks the keys. But don’t let that discourage you from continuing on. There are also those show runners who will see that you’re working just as hard as everyone else to make their show a success, and reward you for it, if not in this production, than a subsequent one. You never know where that next job will come from, where it will lead you, who in the room will sell a pilot, and who will be able to give you the push you need to land what we’re all trying to land… a seat at the big kids table.

Thanks so much, Marcia! Jane here again. I hope you all found that helpful. And I wanted to leave you with this. One of my fellow writers this year at Battlestar Galactica began the year as our writers’ assistant — “clacking the keys,” as Marcia put it. Now he’s one of us. It happens.

Lunch: escargot and a greek salad in Squamish, Canada

Greetings from Beautiful Vancouver, Gentle Readers. I’m up here because they’re shooting an episode of Battlestar Galactica that I wrote. It’s all very exciting and a little bit cold. Anyway, my time is limited, so I decided to invite in a guest speaker. Friend-of-the-blog Marcia is very experienced as a Writers’ Assistant, and I decided to go to her with the question that so many of you keep asking me about pursuing that job. Take it, Marcia:

So, Jane tells me you want to be a writers’ assistant. I’d beg you not to, what with all of you being my competition, but if you can’t be dissuaded… then let’s talk. I’m sure your first question is, “How do I get a job as a writers’ assistant?” Good question. But before that, let me ask you one. Do you really know what the job entails, what you’re getting yourself into? Being a writers’ assistant kinda stinks. It’s the worst job ever. I’ll give you the top three reasons why:

1. Make sure your typing skills are honed. This may seem obvious, but new writers’ assistants are frequently shocked by the fast pace of a writers room. Nothing will get you fired faster than an inability to keep up, causing notes to be incomplete and basically useless to the writers. That includes being adept at spelling and punctuation. Often, the writers assistant’s computer is connected to a large TV monitor so the writers can see what you’re doing, and nothing distracts them more than your errors.
[NOTE FROM JANE: THE TV MONITOR IS NOT GENERALLY USED IN THE WRITERS’ ROOMS OF DRAMAS.]

2. Study up. Be an expert at one of the two most popular scriptwriting software programs, Final Draft and Movie Magic. I have found Final Draft to be the most common, but Movie Magic would be number 2. If you’re already a pro at one, it wouldn’t hurt to have a cursory knowledge of the other, if only to be able to convincingly lie when you’re asked in an interview. Also study up on MAC and PC operating systems. The computer in the writers’ room tends to be whichever the show runner prefers, so be prepared to use both. [NOTE FROM JANE: MOST OF THE SHOWS I’VE BEEN ON HAVE USED THE WRITERS’ ASSISTANT AS DE FACTO TECH SUPPORT, EXPECTING THEM FIX ANY COMPUTER PROBLEM THAT CROPS UP.]

You’re probably saying, “I get it. I hear you. It’s not all cake and ice cream. But I already know I’m sure. I want this. How do I get the job?”

Since I know act breaks, I think that’s a good place to end for today. More from Marcia next time!

Lunch: Mmm… it’s the catering truck at the set! I love the catering truck! Lamb and coconut cream pie.

So, I understand that some notifications are going out to Warner Brothers Workshop applicants who didn’t make it through the first cut. If that’s you, I’m sorry, but remember that this is a very small program, so there are undoubtedly many many future successful television writers, counting you, who just got that same letter.

All it really means is that you need to write another spec of a currently-existing show that you can use to apply again next year. Every year, I see people jumping too quickly to spec shows soon after they premiere. This is a mistake for a couple of reasons. Most obviously, it takes a while to find out if a show is going to even survive. Also, a show takes a while to settle down, to find out what its strengths are, which kinds of stories it tells well, which characters are clicking, and all of that stuff. You may love Reaper, or Chuck or Pushing Daisies, but at two or three episodes in, you may have yet to really see those shows in their final forms.

Watch the new shows, certainly, and start picking those that you think might fit your specing sensibilities, but keep your fingers off the keyboards until at least mid-season or even later.

Lunch: roasted artichoke soup and a roll

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