JaneEspenson.com

You know what always bugged me on Cheers? When Diane would say something like this (hypothetical line):

DIANE
Nothing could be more delightful for Sam and I.

Or “… Sam and myself.” Both of these are wrong. Only “Sam and me” is technically correct, although the others are commonly used. I suspect the scripts were correct, and the actor was being imprecise. But Diane was supposed to be educated. And persnickety, at that! She should have gotten something like this right.

Letting uneducated characters speak in their own style requires some thought, if you don’t speak their variety of English. But getting educated ones to speak the way *they* would is also worthy of some effort, and yet it’s not often talked about.

Not sure if you’ve got it exactly right? Check with your aunt, teacher, librarian… find someone who knows the rules. Don’t assume that just because it sounds awkward it must be right!

Professor McCubbin, the Oxford-trained medievalist character now working for the CIA in your spec pilot, knows when to use “that” vs. “which.” Before you write his lines, make sure you do too.

In other news: Guess who’s talking about Yours Sincerely? Ron Moore, that’s who. If you want to make me blush, check out the wonderful things he says about me at: blog.scifi.com/battlestar.

Lunch: gyros, hummus… Greek delights!

Webmaster here. This is a test post as I try to upgrade the XML feed. It’ll be deleted shortly.

More from the mailbag. Sometimes, I get letters from the most amazing people. Daniel Wallace, who wrote the book Big Fish, which became the movie Big Fish, wrote to say he likes this humble blog – how cool is that? Check out danielwallace.org for more on him and his work. Great stuff!

Less famous ’round these parts is Monty Lo, the Hong Kong-based author of a kids’ graphic novel called Captain Fried Rice. The book itself is a thick horizontally-arranged number with parallel text in Chinese and English, about a boy who has super powers only when he eats with impeccable table manners. Wild! Monty recommends spicy thai chicken feet and durian, thinking I might not have tried them. He compares the spiky appearance of durian with the demonic version of Doyle’s face from Angel. Gotta love that. But, oh, Monty, I am no stranger to the stinky creamy goodness of durian. And I have had chicken feet, although not the boneless variety you describe in your letter. (Isn’t it nice when people know the sort of thing that’s going to provoke my genuine interest?)

Finally, Lilia from Houston, who writes of many things, includes a discussion of a number of problems with The Da Vinci Code. She provides an interesting analysis, with a specific point that I want to discuss more. She says:

“The author has Wizard of Oz syndrome, in which all the pretty characters are good and all the ugly ones are bad.”

Nice observation, Lilia. It’s really shocking the degree to which this particular rule is applied, not just in art, but in our actual interactions with the world. Positive qualities get attributed to attractive people. Negative ones to unattractive people. And it sucks. It sucks both if you’re an ugly person trying to get respect for your good qualities, and if you’re a pretty person seeking to discourage unwanted attention with your evilness.

When television writers apply this rule, of course, they are relying on human nature to do some of the work of characterization for them. Which saves time and space. If the fat guy is greedy, the short guy is petty, and the ugly woman is clingy, you don’t have to do a whole lot of set up and explaining. Conditioning has the audience half-expecting those traits anyway. Another word for this sort of expediency is laziness. A clichéd description is just as bad as any other sort of cliché.

In a spec, you don’t tend to rely on physical appearance as much as in a produced script. Your reader doesn’t see a bald actor. But they do still read your description of the character as a bald man. And if you’re using that trait as a sort of shorthand to suggest a character trait, then you’re missing a chance to execute a trick of much higher difficulty – making the character’s words and actions do that work. And any chance you have to show off a difficult trick – you should take it. A spec is an excuse to show off. Take it!

Lunch: a goat cheese and greens sandwich. Accompanied by a salad that was identical to the contents of the salad. Good but redundant.

(A final word to letter-writers. Although I was tickled to look through a comic book from Hong Kong, that was pretty much the one exception. I cannot read your specs, or fan fic or screenplays or plays, or even scripts for shows that are no longer on the air. This protects you, and it protects me and my time. )

Hi all — just wanted to call your attention to the new “Jane Recommends” feature on the page. It’s over there, up and to the left.

^

“Prisoner of Trebekistan” is available for pre-order right now. Click on the pretty cover to go to the Amazon page! I promise you that this is an amazing book. Seriously.

In other news… I do get the nicest letters! Thank you to Susie in Maryland, Shoshana in New York, Marisa, also in New York, and Stephanie in Wisconsin, to name a few.

Stephanie asks a question that comes up now and then. Some of you out there aren’t stopping after you write a spec pilot. You’re writing additional episodes of shows that you are developing on your own, and wondering if there’s any market for this kind of project. I applaud the work ethic even as I tell you that there’s no real use for these episodes in the traditional world of television. Beginning writers are expected to provide writing samples, not entire series. In fact, I’d been writing for television for more than ten years before I was given the opportunity to tell anyone about ideas that I had for entire series of my own.

BUT… things are changing. Product is being developed for other media now — including cell phones and toaster ovens (or whatever). It’s possible that in these exciting new worlds things won’t work in the same way. If you’re excited by your series idea, and you’re having a good time — and learning — by writing the episodes, go ahead. I don’t yet know of anywhere that will look at them… but I wouldn’t be shocked if such a place is just about to start existing!

P. S. Someone told me that they had heard of some kind of program, similar to the ABC Writing Fellowship, that helped young writers develop pilot ideas, but I haven’t been able to track it down. Remember, I’m not an expert in writing opportunities — I just want to offer writing tips. Anything beyond that, and I’m out of my comfort zone.

Lunch: tongue sandwich from Art’s Deli. It’s exciting because it tastes you back!

I noticed something interesting on one of my new colleague’s office walls today. A framed story — just a few sentences long, written in large letters in a shaky hand. I thought at first that it might have been written by his small child. But it was written by HIM when HE was a small child. Isn’t that great? Makes me want to dig out my old stuff. The best part of the framed story was the title. An account of a childhood accident, it was called “The Hammock and the Blood.” Wow. Great title. Seriously. A classic structure, a promise of violence, and a concrete visual image — the dangerous dangerous hammock.

One trick I have employed to find a cool and memorable title is to find an unusual and concrete word that connects tangentially to something in the episode. Early on at Buffy, I got to write an episode that involved a creepy guest appearance by Hansel and Gretel. I named the episode “Gingerbread.” Love that one.

Later on, I tried the same technique again. I wrote an episode which dealt a little bit with a love triangle. I called it “Triangle.” Total failure of a title. The love triangle part of the script wasn’t highlighted enough to make this work. People still ask me where the heck the triangle was hiding in that episode. Win some, lose some.

Okay. One last final point about titles, using another example from my own career:

If your script has a surprise, make sure the title doesn’t give it away. My Buffy episode “The Replacement” was originally called “How the Other Half Lives.” The original title is actually more apt, since the episode was really about how Xander’s personality is split in half, and how one half ends up staring in awe at what the other half is able to accomplish. But the episode contained a huge mislead, in which the audience needed to think that Xander was being supplanted by an evil look-alike. The eventual title sold the mislead, and was therefore better.

Is there more to say about titles? Oh, probably. But I do believe I’ll be moving along…

Lunch: a simulated mustard and grilled cheese sandwich created at work by using a combination of toaster-and-microwave technology.
Clarification: the mustard wasn’t simulated. The “grilled” was simulated.

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