JaneEspenson.com

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.

Greetings from Vancouver. Ever since I’ve arrived, I’ve noticed a fair number of people walking tiny Yorkie pups. Cute as heck. Vancouver, I re-christen thee New Yorkie City.

I was walking along today, trying to avoid stepping on puppies, and thinking about productivity. I was wondering how many specs I should be expecting all of you aspiring writers to produce in a year. Here is how I reconstruct my own spec-writing years:

In the two years leading up to the Disney Fellowship, I wrote three Star Trek: The Next Generations and a Northern Exposure and two Seinfelds.

During my year in the fellowship, I wrote a Coach, a Larry Sanders, a Roseanne and a Frasier.

After that, I starting having produced samples, so I had less need of new specs, especially since my spec Roseanne was still doing well for me, but I added a spec Friends and an NYPD Blue.

Now, in the current climate, you’re being encouraged to write original pieces rather than specs for existing shows. Those take longer, since you have to do all the work of creating the world and the people in it. So let’s say, hmm, if I was writing four specs a year, you need only aim at writing three. (Although I think you can do better.)

I’ve always said that one of the advantages of writing a spec, compared to writing a script while employed for a show, is that you can take all the time you need to get it perfect. This doesn’t mean that it has to take a lot of time to get it perfect! Break your story carefully, write it with confidence, polish it, get notes from others, rewrite it, then start on another one. You can always go back later and reread the first one again and take another pass at it, but your goal should be to have a variety of completed scripts that you are proud of, and ready to hand over at a moment’s notice. You never know when that golden opportunity will arrive in the form of a person with a script-shaped hole in their needs. Be ready.

Lunch: catering truck lunch from the Vancouver sets of Battlestar Galatica. Tamale pie with tortillas and homemade salsas and sweet-potato fries and ketchup-flavored potato chips. Perfect.

Though Friend-of-the-blog Kate, I have received this very good question from Gentle Reader Katie in Los Angeles. She says:

“I’ve been working on a Dexter spec. I came up with a b-story that I really like, that is thematically linked with Dexter’s a-story in a lovely, subtle way. The problem is that the b-story focuses on Det. Angel Bautista, who is sort of a third-tier character on the show. My instinct was to give the b-story to Dexter’s sister Deb or Sergeant Doakes because they are more prominent on the show. However, the story is working so well I hesitate to throw it out for purely analytical reasons. What do you think are the possible benefits/pitfalls to featuring prominently a character that usually plays more of a supporting role on the show?”

Well, the pitfall is obvious: the person who ends up reading the script might not know the character. I recommend that you beef up the stage directions when the character first appears, to remind readers who it is you’re talking about. That should do it.

And, as if the teeny pitfall wasn’t enough encouragement, there is also a large benefit to what you’re doing, Katie. Bringing a background character to the foreground can be a really good way of making your spec different from others in the stack, and, more importantly, of demonstrating the skill of character-deepening, which is highly valued. In fact, I know a show runner who made it his policy to focus his spec scripts, back when he needed them, on under-utilized characters on purpose, in order to demonstrate this exact skill.

It’s easy to fall back on what we’ve seen established characters do before. Sometimes you might be patting yourself on the back for having “nailed” a character, when all you’ve done is recreate something they’ve already done. If you can give them new “colors,” new behaviors, attitudes, actions that we haven’t seen before but that seem right given what we have seen, you’ve done something really important that provides a good indication of what you’d be able to do on a writing staff. Good work.

Lunch: spaghetti with vegetarian chili on top

I have in hand a wonderful letter from Gentle Reader Branko in Croatia. Thank you, Branko! He reports that since he last wrote, he has broken into the ranks of working television writers with a gig writing teleplays for the Croatian sitcom Cimmer Fraj. Whoo! That’s about the coolest thing I’ve ever heard of. By the way, I’ve tried in vain to obtain a translation of “Cimmer Fraj”. Nothin’. Perhaps it’s a proper name? It looks like it might mean “Stawberry Summer,” but I suspect I’m wrong.

Branko points out that non-US citizens aren’t eligible for the ABC/Disney Fellowship. Oh — I hadn’t even realized that. That’s unfortunate. But he suggests an interesting alternative as a way into the business: radio plays. Interesting. Branko, tell us more!

“BBC is a huge monster that requires constant feeding with scripts. Radio 3, Radio 4 and Radio 7 produce a significant number of radio plays. While it’s not an enormous leap in the right direction it’s still a step. It’s a nice way to tell an exec — ‘yup, I can write good dialogue. Or at least folks at the BBC think so.’ You’ll notice a spark in her eyes. When you’re an unproduced writer, BBC sounds damn good. Almost as good as BBQ.”

Ha! That’s a pretty good joke, especially for someone who doesn’t speak English as a first language. So, those of you who live in places where the BBC is more accessible than ABC should definitely look into this option.

Lunch: The Battlestar staff took a trip off-campus to a Mexican restaurant for chips and salsa and guacamole and margaritas. Wonderful.

You might have seen this list before, but they keep adding onto it, so it’s worth looking at it again periodically. Also, it will probably make you laugh, and possibly make you blush with recognition. (I know I did.) This is, of course, the list maintained by Strange Horizons, an online speculative fiction magazine: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

Notice that while lots of the entries are specific to speculative fiction (which I still informally call sci-fi), others apply across genre. Also, most of them can be applied to scripts as easily as they can to prose fiction.

The authors of the list are careful to point out that some of the entries actually apply to famously successful stories, or that they could work if executed with extreme skill, or that they might work well if they weren’t the only point of the story. It’s with this in mind that I point out their entry 21:

21. Person A tells a story to person B (or to a room full of people) about person C.

–1. In the end, it turns out that person B is really person C (or from the same organization).
–2. In the end, it turns out that person A is really person C (or has the same goals).
–3. In the end, there’s some other ironic but predictable twist that would cast the whole story in a different light if the reader hadn’t guessed the ending early on.

Recognize this? It’s “Three Stories,” that episode of House that I adore. In one of the best hours of television ever, House (person A) tells a room full of people (B) about person C, who turns out to be House himself. Entry 21! Entry 21! Run away!

So why does it work? First off, care is taken to make sure that the audience doesn’t get ahead of the story. House talks about more than one patient, which keeps us from anticipating the reveal. Also, the reveal is neither the end of the episode nor the point of the episode. The device is merely an entertaining way into a story about House’s past that could have been told without it. In other words, it fits Entry 21, but avoids all the pitfalls that earned Entry 21 a place on the list.

So don’t read this as a list of “bad stories.” Rather, I’d call them, um, tempting stories. There’s a reason these stories have such appeal to authors that they find themselves drawn to them over and over. These stories probably say something deep about our psyches. Certainly, taken together, they seem to speak to our need to use writing to work through our personal frustrations. The trick is to separate yourself from other writers by going deeper, probably by telling stories that aren’t on the list, but, just possibly by taking one that is here and saying something new and special with it, like a good chef revitalizing an overused ingredient. (Personally, entries 23 and 30 don’t smell too bad to me.)

Don’t get me wrong. It’s best to avoid these, even if only because your reader might have read the list, but as always, if you simply know you’ve got something brilliant, trust that before you trust any rule.

Lunch: “Spaghetti Fresca” called in to the studio from a local restaurant… loaded with fresh cherry tomatoes and spinach. I tried to get it served with an actual Fresca, but it didn’t happen.

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