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In response to a recent question about where to acquire produced scripts for The Office, an observant friend-of-the-blog directs us to dailyscript.com, where I understand you can actually have scripts emailed to you in the pdf format. Oh, technology today. It’s like we’re all living at EPCOT.

Once you have a few produced examples, you can start examining them minutely. I mean, really minutely. If I were sitting down to write a spec Office, I think the first thing I would do is try to figure out how the show balances the Michael Scott stories against the Jim-and-Pam stories. Is one more likely than the other to drive events, to result in act-break moments? Do they always comment on each other? Influence each other? Which character is more likely to undergo change during the episode? Is Michael really the lead character, or is it Jim-and-Pam? I would want to go through every script and every logline until I understood the typical skeleton of the typical episode. Only then would I start trying to find stories that fit together, that grow out of the show’s genetic material, but which also strike a little deeper than just an average ep.

Then get some 30 Rock scripts. Repeat.

Lunch: veggie dumplings, stuffed eggplant and some sort of lovely chicken dish at City Wok, a restaurant right here in the shadow of Universal Studios “City Walk” attraction. Clever and yummy!

I have, in the past, advocated a fairly loose adherence to the “rules” of what can be allowed in the various parts of a script. For example, I’m cool with allowing stage directions into parentheticals sometimes. Like this:

GLORIA
I’m… I’m sorry… about the crying…
(blowing nose)
I just can’t seem to stop.

And it’s fine with me if you put some stuff into stage directions that isn’t strictly visual. Like this:

John stares out at the audience, his nervousness growing with every breath. The prediction of his failure that we heard in the earlier scene just might be about to come true.

Sure, technically the writer is telling the reader what to think in that moment, instead of exactly what they’re seeing, but it’s only giving the reader an assist in terms of reminding them where they are in the story.

But be careful. It can be really tempting to go too far. And then you’ve got this:

Andy pets the dog tenderly, contrasting its rough fur with the soft hair of a human, and contemplating the unfairness, that this creature gets to live out its life in a shorter span, untormented by mysteries that take decades to unfold.

Interesting, but any reader is going to be justified in wondering how in the heck they’re supposed to know what Andy’s thinking when all they’re really “seeing” is dog-fondling. Don’t assume that a reader won’t notice when they’re being told things they aren’t seeing; it actually really leaps off the page when this happens.

So split the difference. Let the reader into the bits of a character’s internal landscape that an attentive viewer would be hip to. But don’t give them the power of mind-reading. They’ll notice.

Lunch: spaghetti with pesto and chicken

Ever notice how often, when speaking, you leave off the pronoun subject of the sentence? Happens all the time. I do it without even noticing it. Do it totally automatically.

You probably do this already when you’re writing dialog, but sometimes the grammar check may intimidate you into correcting it. Don’t correct it!

SHERIFF
Gonna go check the doors. Wouldn’t want any uninvited guests.

The missing “I’m” and “We” in this line wouldn’t do anyone any good. (Of course, if you want to give a character a voice that suggests they’re very correct, very precise, then always including the pronouns might be a good start.)

In general, you should ignore the grammar check when you’re dealing with dialog, and often even when you’re writing straight prose. I remember once being told that a grammar/style check reacted to the sentence “The boy was naked,” with the suggestion that the sentence would be better not in the passive voice. It suggested replacing it with “Someone naked the boy.”

I use the grammar check to help me find those sentences from which I’ve unconsciously omitted words — it can be helpful for that — but beyond that, beware.

Lunch: edamame from the Universal cafeteria. Made less appetizing by being labeled “green beans”.

Lisa from the Hoosier state writes in with a question that I haven’t addressed for a while. She says:

“…I read somewhere that if you want to write for The Office, you should submit a spec for a different show to them? Is this true?”

The answer, of course, is a ringing, “Well, sort of”. If you’re established enough to have an agent, then an agent is indeed not going to submit your spec of a certain show to that show. They’d send your spec Office to Earl and your spec Earl to The Office, for example. But if you’re still on the outside, trying to get into the business, then you’re going to be using your spec to try to get an agent, or even more likely, you’re going to be submitting it to contests and to wonderful opportunities like the ABC/Disney Writing Fellowship (follow the link elsewhere on this page). So you might as well write the spec you think you can do the best job on.

Right now, everyone seems to be writing an Office spec, the way that when I was struggling to get into the business, we all had Seinfelds. The disadvantage is that yours has to stand out compared to all those others. The advantage is that you’re getting to spec a great show.

You know what, though? I feel like it’s time for 30 Rock. It’s feeling established enough now. Smart show, funny show… feels specable to me. That might at last provide a little variety.

Lisa also asks about finding produced scripts of The Office. Good for you! That’s an absolutely crucial step. A quick check reveals that Ebay might provide what you seek. Good luck, Lisa!

Lunch: those cheese-covered prawns at Buffet City. Yum!

Want to know a sneaky scriptwriting trick that will instantly make your work look deep while addressing a fundamental limitation of screenwriting? I thought you might.

One of the problems with writing in script format is that, unless you’re getting very abstract and stylish indeed, you can only show what’s happening on the outside of a character. It’s not the best medium for really internal stories, because we can’t see the characters thoughts. And the one thing that can take us right into a character’s internal monologue — a voiceover — tends to be a bit devalued, because it feels like exactly what it is, an attempt to circumvent the limitation. So we give our characters other characters or pets to talk to, hallucinations or fantasies, or the tendency to talk to themselves, in order to help illuminate their inner thoughts.

But there is another way. It’s a trick, but it’s a good one. And with this one, you don’t have to arrange to give a character a conversation partner. Plant a physical object in the script during an important scene. Later, when a character is alone, show them looking at that same object. Boom! We know what they’re remembering. It’s like magic. It’s especially effective if the object stands for a person or a relationship. Remember the end of Brokeback Mountain? One of the men finds the two shirts, nested together, that had been saved by the other man. It was a detail from the short story that was perfect for the screenplay because it took us inside the character’s head.

An article of clothing was also a memory trigger in my episode of Firefly. Kaylee looks at her fancy party dress, now hanging in her grimy quarters, and we know she’s fondly remembering the party from earlier in the episode.

And the end of the Battlestar Galatica episode Maelstrom… oh, this one’s a heartbreaker. Kara has given Adama a small figure of Aurora, which we clearly identify with her. After Kara has disappeared, Adama fastens it to a model ship as its figurehead. And then, in a genius moment, he destroys the model in a fit of frustration and grief. Holy cow. Compare this to a scene in which he sits at a window and stares into space. Both tell us that he’s thinking, but the version with the previously-established physical object tells us exactly what he’s thinking and feeling.

A silent solitary moment of contemplation is greatly helped by any little trick you can use to clue the audience in. Give it a try… drop that toy giraffe in there somewhere. You’ll want to use it again later.

Lunch: chips and dips at my friend Michelle’s house, where I was for a lovely Scrabble party

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