JaneEspenson.com

Well, I’ve got some hot news for those of you writing spec pilot scripts. The news comes from Nic in Germany, who has directed my attention to the Fox diversity program. I hadn’t heard about this program before, but it sure looks good to me. And this exerpt from their site makes it clear that the admission standards are likely to include many of you out there:

“The emphasis in our Writer’s Initiative will now be to support the development of original television series ideas by diverse writers, or by non-diverse writers who are writing about inherently diverse themes and/or diverse lead characters. African-American, Latino, Native American and East and South Asian writers are particularly encouraged to apply. You must be at least 18 years old to submit.”

You can read more about the program here. If I were an aspiring writer with a spec pilot, I’d be casting an eye over it right now, looking to emphasize or add “diverse themes.”

In other news, a letter from Heather at Harvard really made me smile. I wrote a line, years ago, for a Buffy episode (“Pangs”), in which a character referred to the fact his grandparents live on a farm just outside Huxley, Iowa. Heather’s grandparents live on a farm outside Huxley. As you can imagine, she was tickled by the line. Hee! How funny is that? I love when stuff like that happens. Notice that this is one of the benefits of specificity — if you give enough details, not only does a situation *feel* realer, but it’s also more evocative for the people who are actually *in* that situation.

Lunch: a potato knish from Junior’s deli. Mmm.

Remember when I told you all, a while back, about Melinda Snodgrass? She’s the writer who actually had her Star Trek: The Next Generation spec script produced. Amazing. Specs are supposed to be writing samples only! The only interaction an actor is supposed to have with a spec script is to ignore the person typing one at his local Starbucks. When I told you about Melinda, I said she was the only writer I knew of who had ever accomplished this feat.

But today I learned of another such case. One of the writers on the Andy Barker P.I. writing staff was working as a P.A. on Third Rock from the Sun when he wrote a Third Rock spec. He was able to convince one of the writers on staff to read it… and the next thing he knew, he was sitting in the writers’ room, watching his script being polished up before it went in front of the cameras.

How ’bout that? It happens, Gentle Readers. It happens. Maybe it’ll happen to you.

Lunch: steak and baked potatoes and strawberries at Arnie Morton’s. The steak did not arrive as rare as promised. Sigh.

Did you see Project Runway last night? It was an odd task in which the designers were required to use every bit of fabric that they purchased. Every scrap of postcard-size or larger had to be on that model. (Me, the moment they announce the rules, I’m cutting every scrap into smaller-than-postcard subscraps.)

Some of the designers were really stuck, ending up with big superfluous shawls of material, or with a purse stuffed with scraps. It was exactly the opposite of the writer’s task, which is so often to pare away, pare away words and throw them into the trash heap. If we had to use every word of our first draft in our final draft, we’d have an awfully bulgy purse.

You want to cut words not just to address problems of overall script length, but also to make individual lines shorter. A page full of long clumps of monologue is uninviting and tiring to read. You want your spec to have more white on each page than black.

Look at the following lines (all pulled from different non-existent scenes) and consider what can be done to simplify them:

SOMEONE
I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

A PERSON
I promise to keep you safe forever.

CHARACTER
I suggest we take a little walk, you and I.

ANOTHER CHARACTER
I apologize. I shouldn’t have insulted you.

You’re probably already seeing what I’m seeing. These lines can be made simpler, more direct, more effective if they are cut back to:

SOMEONE
You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

A PERSON
I will keep you safe forever.

CHARACTER
Let’s take a little walk, you and I.

ANOTHER CHARACTER
I shouldn’t have insulted you.

The lines as originally written had a sort of redundancy about them. Why say you think something? If you’re saying it, it’s implied that you think it. And why say you’re promising, when you can just promise? Why, ever, say you’re suggesting something?

Now, sometimes, you want to keep the longer version because you’re writing a character with a certain style of speech. And a very strong proclamation of some kind can often do with a bit of the drumroll that these words provide. Scarlett O’Hara probably shouldn’t just say “I’ll never be hungry again!” The “As God is my witness” adds an important little somethin’ there.

But often, the shorter version is clearer, neater and, get this, more emotional, because there is less distance between the speaker and the acts they’re performing with their speeches — less words getting in the way of the doing.

Lunch: the “Mediterranean chicken sandwich” from Togos. Very good! I recommend it. It’s the Thursday special, so you’ll have to wait a week. Then, go for it. (Quiz: What sentence could be cut from this lunch description? Answer: “I recommend it.” I already performed the act of recommending through my simple praise.)

So, I was flipping through my favorite book the other day, and I came across an excellent example of a certain kind of joke which I simply must discuss with y– Oh, my favorite book? That would be Prisoner of Trebekistan, by Bob Harris. So funny! Available right now on Amazon. You can go get it now, and then come on back. We’ll wait.

Okay, so here’s the joke. (It’s on page 277.) Harris is talking about the eensy animals known as chevrotains:

“They’re also called ‘mouse deer,’ despite being neither deer nor mouse. If that sounds confusing, consider the woodpecker.”

This is a kind of joke that requires the audience to do some math in their head. If you’ve ever heard a joke of this kind performed in front of a live audience, like at a sitcom taping, it produces a rolling laugh… one that progresses through the audience as people arrive at the conclusion with varying degrees of speed. The laughter of one person sometimes even triggers the rest of the audience into figuring out there’s a joke to be got, so then they start doing the work. It’s a comedy version of “The Wave” or a communicable disease.

I love this kind of joke. I remember one from my childhood, that occurred during an episode of Match Game. Remember that old game show? The celebrity panel was supposed to fill in the blank: Kissing ____. Richard Dawson held up an answer card that read “-er.” A rolling laugh followed, as the audience performed the appending of the suffix to reveal the famous name.

You may be told by others that this kind of joke is too “thinky.” “Maybe we can hand out pamphlets to the audience, explaining it,” you might be told, snottily. And sometimes, in fact, a joke does require too much work. But the fact of the delayed laugh should not in itself be enough to make you cut the joke. Audiences like to feel smart, and this kind of joke does that.

Give them the tools, and let them build the punchline themselves. I love that.

Lunch: cheeseburger and banana cream pie. A good day indeed.

Five years ago, I woke up to news of the attack. Numb, I called everyone I knew, and then, still numb, when it was my normal time, I drove to work at Buffy. I thought we’d probably be sent home, but I wanted to see my friends anyway.

There was a television in David Fury’s office, and some of us collected in there to watch as the coverage continued. Soon, Joss was in the doorway. We all talked quietly, and then he sent us home.

To get from the Buffy offices in Santa Monica to the apartment where I then lived, my route required that I drive for a long time toward the building immortalized in film as “Nakatomi Plaza” from Die Hard. It towered at the end of the wide street, constantly in my frame of vision, with no other tall buildings nearby. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

I watched it not because I thought it could be another target, but because I was trying to comprehend the scale of events, to understand what it meant that what had just happened was real. It’s like it was still too large to understand, and I was trying to bring it closer to hand, so I could see it all, believe it was real.

It didn’t help.

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