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Let’s imagine that you’re reading a friend’s spec script, and there’s something in it that feels like a mistake. Let’s say it’s this weird scene transition. You thought that a scene was leading into another one in the same location at a later time, and then you realize that you’ve actually changed locations. It’s confusing.

So you give the note, saying that you found it confusing, jarring, and the writer says, “Good, because that’s what I was going for!” Well, yes, making something jarring on purpose is a thing you can do for a certain effect. A writer might very well want to employ it. But if it’s bothering the test audience enough that they’re mentioning it, that’ll mean it’ll bother the ultimate audience too, and then the writer won’t be there to explain that they like it like that.

If you’re the writer, and you’re getting a note like this, don’t feel like you’ve solved it just because you were able to convince you’re friends that you wanted that reaction. You really need to address it. Addressing it doesn’t always have to mean giving up on that special thing you were going for, either. Sometimes it’s just a matter of letting the readers know that what you’re doing really is a choice, not a mistake. If you really, really, want that transition, then you can actually say:

Caroline looks up from behind the wheel of her car at the cloudless New England sky, and then, suddenly, jarringly, we’re seeing RAINDROPS bouncing off the hood of a car — no, wait, it’s a pick-up truck, and that’s not Caroline behind the wheel. We realize that we’ve somehow been dropped into:

EXT. TEXAS RANCH

A WEATHERED-LOOKING COWBOY-TYPE wrestles his truck through the storm. Someone in the truck bed peeks out from under a mud-splashed canvas cover…

There. You told the reader that you want the change of location and conditions to be purposefully sudden and unexpected, and even, for a beat, confusing. You’ve managed that whisper in the ear of the reader, “I know, I know. I want it that way.”

Lunch: left-over Chinese food from P.D. House (I think it used to be called Panda House, but they lost the rights to the name somehow and painted out all of Panda except the P and the D. That’s what the sign looks like, anyway.)

I was on a plane again today. There was a delightful boor on board. A boor, I tell you! He was braying into his cell phone right up ’til they practically had to swat it out of his hand — swearing loudly about travel delays, boasting unappealingly about his Vegas winnings, bullying his friends into picking him up at the airport. And here’s the best part… no one would. He couldn’t get any of his friends to come pick him up. Hee! It was so satisfying.

And it made me think, a bit, about “likeability.” People will tell you that you have to make your main character “likeable.” But it’s not really true. You have to make them “understandable.” “Likeable” is just a poorly-chosen word that people use to mean that.

Do you really LIKE Gregory House? Or Starbuck? Or Michael Scott of The Office? Would you want them in your home? You’re actually more likely to love them, I think, than like them. Loving allows for jack-assity more than liking does. Those characters are all damaged people who can be cruel, thoughtless, self-centered… these aren’t likeable traits. But we forgive them because we understand them. We either have some notion of *why* they act they way they do, in the case of House and Starbuck, or we can see that they’re *trying* to exhibit more care and humanity than they manage, in the case of Michael, and, I think again, Starbuck. In other words, we understand them.

There’s some French saying, I believe, that translates as, “Everything understood is everything forgiven.” Which is probably not true in real life, but is a pretty great rule in fiction. Let’s imagine that the airplane boor was a character in a television show. Now imagine that we get to see the scene in which he ends up crying in the cab on the way home, confessing to the back of the head of the anonymous driver that he wasn’t in Vegas to gamble at all, but to get married, but the bride never showed and now he’s trying desperately to seem uninjured despite his broken heart. There. Suddenly he’s “likeable” without my having to make a single change to the scene on the airplane.

So when you get a note from someone reading your spec about a character’s “likeability,” don’t assume that means you have to soften them, take the edges off them, rewrite their airplane scene. And don’t even assume you have to spell out everything about why they are the way they are. Just give us a hint that there *is* an explanation, and people will jump on it. We *want* to like characters, and we only need the slightest encouragement to forgive them, to try to understand them.

So go write some bastards, won’t you?

Lunch: “Cravings” buffet at The Mirage in Las Vegas. One bite each of: bao, sushi, sausage, banana-leaf wrapped rice, crab legs, ceviche, seaweed salad, noodles, hot and sour soup, shrimp cocktail, beef stir-fry, key lime pie, egg custard, bread pudding and chocolate pie. I loved it!

Recently I’ve been asked questions – in a few different letters and emails – that I think all boil down to the same thing. “How can I think funny?”

We’ve all met people who are effortlessly, automatically funny. Fearless in front of strangers, they tell stories, they do voices, they jump to their feet and do ‘bits’. When one of their jokes lands, they instantly follow it up, expanding it into a routine. When one of their jokes flops, they become a whirlwind of self-deprecation that’s even funnier than if the whole thing had succeeded. I love these people (even though they’re exhausting).

Comedy writers’ rooms are packed with these men and women (more men than women still, but that’ll change). I once heard that Martin Short literally could not leave the writers’ room (this must’ve been at SCTV or SNL) until he got a laugh, so that he could leave on the laugh. Geez.

I think a lot of this comic ability has to do with childhood environment. Crowded houses where attention is doled out to the funniest child, those are the comedian factories of our world.

But what about the rest of us? I myself am an only child from a quiet stable household where attention was not punchline-dependent. I did watch a lot of television comedy, and developed the ability to be funny “on the page” from observing what worked for me as an audience member. So I had that.

Being funny on the page can be enough, thank goodness, but being able to “pitch” your jokes well in the room is also part of the comedy writer’s job, and I wasn’t very good at it. I was most comfortable working out a joke on paper for a while, massaging the wording… not blurting it out as it was forming in my head.

Now, I’ve never gotten *really* good at blurting – I’m still fairly quiet in the room – but I will tell you what helped a lot. I took an acting class where we did improv. It was terrifying, but it did help. I had no time to overwork the joke, I *had to* just go with it. I already had a little bit of confidence that I could be funny given a trained actor to say the lines. I gained confidence in my ability to be funny with my own voicebox. It also is really good for teaching you to look at the world with an eye for comic potential — for “seeing things funny.” I can’t praise the experience enough.

Start with other beginners, learn the rules, and give it a go. Maybe it’s never too late to have a survival-of-the-funniest childhood!

Lunch: quesadilla, a coke, and something wonderful called a “buckeye” from Big Sugar Bakeshop… like a high-class Reeses peanut butter cup.

I caught a bit of the premiere of “Knights of Prosperity” tonight. And I saw an earlier cut of the whole thing months ago in the writers’ room at Andy Barker, too. Writing staffs will do that sometimes, checking out pilots together, rooting for quality. I liked Knights a lot. I had also read it when it was pilot script called “Let’s Rob Mick Jagger”. Before that, it was a pilot script called “Let’s Rob Jeff Goldblum”. And at some time in there, it was just called “Let’s Rob…” Discuss which is the best premise. Now discuss which is the best title. (Hint: It’s not ‘Knights of Prosperity’)

Anyway, I think this show might be a good model for those of you writing spec comedy pilots. It’s single-camera, which feels less moribund than multi-camera, and it has a big flashy daring premise that’s instantly memorable. I have no idea if the show itself is going to be consistently good, but the pilot is perfectly designed to draw attention to itself, which is what you are going to need. Take a look, if you get a chance.

By the way, employing built-in casting — as this script did — allows you to demonstrate you can write to a recognizable voice. I hesitate to recommend this in general, for fear of causing an avalanche of spec pilots all using the same gimmick: “My Aunt is Meryl Streep!” “I Reanimated the Three Stooges!” “Let’s Ask Rip Torn!” But I gotta say, it’s a pretty great idea.

Lunch: falafel and various highly-flavored salads

Ooh. I love it when I learn something from you, gentle readers! A very interesting letter has arrived from Betsy in Los Angeles. She’s asking about that weird dividing line between TV comedy writers and drama writers. Her father was a TV writer, and she supplies us with this info:

“When my father was working (60s-80s), there was no strong distinction between being a comedy writer or a dramatic writer. Many of his friends would write a Mary Tyler Moore episode one week, then a Streets of San Francisco, and so forth. Nowadays it seems a writer has to classify themselves as strictly one or the other… or do they?”

First reaction: Oooh. That sounds amazing. How much would I love writing a MTM and then a Streets of SF? Much.

I had no idea there was such mobility then. When I entered the business in the early 90s, the line was pretty strict. You really were one or the other, comedy or drama, although I’m sure there were ambidextrous exceptions. I was specifically warned against making the switch because it would require “starting over.”

When I was a kid, I once heard an opera singer being interviewed about his “realization” that he was, in fact, not a baritone, but actually a bass. He had to learn everything over again. I was, and am, a bit puzzled by that. What do you have to learn to, um, sing lower? I guess there’s technical singy stuff I just don’t know. Anyway, TV writing was like that — changing over was treated as if you were starting a new career.

But now, I’m happy to tell you, Betsy, that things seem to be going back to being like they were during your dad’s career, with more and more comedy writers finding their way onto the staffs of dramas, and with shows like Ugly Betty further blurring the distinction anyway.

Betsy herself has a preference for comedy, but is wondering about whether to try her hand at a drama spec, maybe something in a procedural, which would, of course, be at quite the other end of the continuum.

Yes. Do it. Comedy is coughing up blood right now anyway, so you probably would need to explore drama even if it didn’t interest you to some degree. And I personally think demonstrating versatility is worth something in its own right.

My only warning is that you have to be careful of trying so hard to be *different than comedy* that you end up with something purposefully dry and characterless. A Law and Order spec, for example, can have that feel, and might fail to convey your strengths. I would recommend something like Heroes or House or a spec pilot of your own devising, that will allow you to show off some drama skills while still getting a script that benefits from your ability to write comedy.

Good luck, Betsy! Sounds like you’re off to a good start!

Lunch: A “Fat Burger” from “Fat Burger.”

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