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I have received a most interesting letter from Joe in San Jose. After telling a charming story about how he discovered the Buffy program, he asks why The Da Vinci Code sucks. Well, I seem to be the person who has neither read nor seen it, so I don’t have an opinion. Sorry, Joe. Loved the charming story!

I’m not done with that letter yet, though. It has aligned with some email correspondence I had today, to combine into a thought. In the email, an aspiring writer friend was talking about how she has had a very good experience with television. She watches the shows her friends recommend to her, and then she discovers she loves them. She is left with a view of television as a landscape cluttered with humor, intelligence and quality.

That’s when I had my thought. Here is my thought, and it is mine: It’s important to watch not just the good, but the bad. I suggested that she watch a bad show at once.

I shouldn’t be envied because I managed to avoid the evident pain of The Da Vinci Code, but censured for not wanting to go watch it to figure out something about screenwriting from seeing what failed. (And I suspect I should read the book too, to learn how to create a page-turny runaway best seller.)

If you want to learn how to sew a garment, it might be good to look at a poorly-made one, so you can see the exposed seams and figure out how it goes together, and also so you can see what mistakes to avoid. Watch a little bad TV. Watch for the mistakes, and observe the effects they have.

One common mistake is insufficient motivation. A character does a thing and you wonder why. There’s usually some sort of lip service made to why they did it, and since everyone else on the show is buying it, it can just slip past you. I mean, they clearly did it, so there’s no point asking if they *would*, right? They *did* it! See how you have to kind of force yourself to see these things? Anyway, once you start looking for it, you see it a lot. And you get better about making sure your own characters are doing things for reasons.

Look for weak act breaks, stereotyped guest characters, lame comebacks and familiar put-downs, stories that resolve too neatly, stories that peter out, logical jumps that don’t make sense, inconsistent attitudes across scenes, stilted language and old jokes. Notice the effect they have on the show as a whole. Maybe noodle around with how to fix or avoid them.

Try reading some of the excellent recaps on Television Without Pity, too. They have a brutal way of cutting to the heart of a script-writing mistake that can be very helpful to those of you wanting to get into the habit of watching critically. And, on occasion, a bit painful to those of us already on the other side of the process. But, seriously, it’s good stuff.

Mostly, when you watch, watch quality. But now and then, dip your toes into the other end of the pool. There are lessons swimming around in there.

Lunch: spaghetti with cheese sauce, a family recipe. Fantastic. Like fondue on your pasta.

It’s fun to just look back at my recent blog posts and remember. Why, it seems like only two days ago I was writing about flashbacks…

In the time since I wrote about flashbacks, I have been lucky enough to have a produced My Name is Earl script fall into my hands. So I can quickly report on how they notate it, since it’s a little different than how I described it. This is from an actual script:

EXT. HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL FIELD — DAY — 1995

A younger Randy stands on the field, waving to Earl in the stands.

They clearly find it sufficient to note the time frame of the scene without using the word “flashback.” Those of you writing an Earl, take note.

By the way, this Earl episode, one called “Randy’s Touchdown,” written by J.B. Cook, is a terrific script. Remember how I talked about how even in an Earl, with its typical use of guest stars, a really good spec would find a way to make show about the main characters? This script is an excellent example of how to do this. Earl starts out with a guest star to appease, and then realizes Randy is the one he really wronged. Keeping it in the show’s family makes it all so much more meaningful. There’s real heart here, among the funny.

Does the fact that this script already exists mean that this general shape of story is “taken”? Nope. There could be lots of things that Earl needs to make right with Randy. Or Joy. And there could be lots of different kinds of ways into a story with our regular characters at the core of it. If you’re writing an Earl, I recommend finding a way to do that exact thing.

Lunch: flatbreads and guacamole.

Know what I love? Terminology! I love that there are words for things like finials and processes like foxing. When I was in Hawaii, in a region with lots of sharp volcanic gravel called “tephra,” there was nothing I liked more than throwing that word around: “Oh, I slipped on the tephra,” “Did you cut yourself on the tephra?,” “The camera hasn’t worked right since I dropped it on the tephra”…

Television writing is a garden of terminology. One lovely concept that we haven’t talked about yet is “teeing up a joke.” It just means “setting up a joke,” actually. You can tee a joke up a lot or a little. Here is an example of a classically teed-up joke from an old episode of Boy Meets World that I found on line. (I looked because I had a memory of this being a show that did a lot of very clear and obvious teeing up.) The teacher has just asked the student if there’s any topic he wants to talk about:

CORY
Yes, actually there is a pressing social matter, which I feel equipped to discuss with confidence and alacrity.

MR. FEENY
Well then, you have the floor, Mr. Matthews.

CORY
Nah, that used me up.

The words “equipped,” “confidence” and especially “alacrity” were chosen specifically to set a certain mood that is then punctured by the punchline.

As you can probably tell, it’s really hard to tee a joke up very far without the audience getting ahead of you (without “tipping the joke” — more terminology!). That’s why this is not a great joke. First off, as the viewer/reader, you’re suspicious because Cory’s “alacrity” line doesn’t have a laugh in it. So you know his next line probably will. Already you’re on the look-out. And, even if you have no idea what the character of Cory Matthews was like, you know something’s up when you see “alacrity.” It’s tonally out of line with the entire rest of the show. The only question at that point is *how* the ball will be hit off the tee.

It can be done more subtly, of course. There was a joke in an episode of Ellen once that had a frakkin’ enormous tee, but that managed not to tip the joke. Anne Heche guest-starred as Karen, who was Ellen’s girlfriend Laurie’s ex-girlfriend (think it though). We had already established that she was enjoying making Ellen jealous of the old relationship. This is, as best I can remember, how she described an event that happened when she was with Laurie:

KAREN
One day, I came home, and I found that she had filled the house with candles. Hundreds of them. It was beautiful. And there was a note that said, “one day, all these flames will burn themselves out… except the one in my heart.”
(beat)
And then we did it.

This punchline is more likely to catch you off-guard since there’s nothing out of character or otherwise unlikely about the tee-up. It fits Karen’s agenda, in that it’s designed to make Ellen jealous, so you aren’t tipped off to the fact that a further drop is coming.

So tee ’em up, but be careful. Assume a clever reader. If there’s a straight-and-earnest line in your comedy, especially one that’s a bit out of character, doesn’t fit the show, doesn’t fit the moment… they’re gonna see the tee.

Lunch: I fried tortillas into crispy chips that I tossed into my scrambled-eggs-and-salsa.

I was on a certain studio lot today, where I had to pass the Building of Unpleasant Memories again. That building is the one wherein lies the writers’ room of doom. Everything about the place takes me back to those unhappy days of toiling on that specific staff. It’s just like the way the Radford lot still makes me unreasonably joyous– that’s where I entered my first writers’ room, at “Dinosaurs”. (Yes, the one with the puppets — fun!)

The writers’ room was also the showrunner’s office. The amazing Bob Young acted as his own writers’ assitant, typing the script himself as we all pitched. We could watch what he was doing on a TV that was connected to his computer screen. Gee, it’s almost like I’m back there now…

INT. DINOSAURS WRITER’S ROOM – FLASHBACK
We see a ridiculously young-looking Jane. She plays nervously with a pen, obvious to the ink marks accumulating on her fingers and chin…

Did’ja see that? That’s a flashback. You don’t really need to do much more than title the scene with that header. And the little “young-looking” reminder in the stage directions clues in anyone who missed it.

If you’re using flashbacks in your spec, I’d first make sure your show does that kind of thing, and then try, if at all possible, to check how they do it. It’s possible that a show might develop a special non-standard technique for this, so make sure you do whatever they do. But in the absence of other information, I’d do it the way I just did.

And for a flashback within a flashback? I would use the same kind of header, but then add a stage direction:

INT. U.C. BERKELEY STUDENT CO-OP – FLASHBACK
That’s right. This is a flashback-in-a-flashback. Twenty-year-old Jane slices furry bits off an enormous block of cheese.

For something like this, clarity trumps elegance. I saw a brilliant Simpsons recently with a whole series of nested flashbacks, and they actually had a character make a comment. Something like: “Wait, in the story you’re telling me, someone is going to tell another story?” You know that line was put in just to assure the audience that they were following what was going on. Clarity. Because confusion is the enemy.

Lunch: Int./Ext. Burger, animal style, and a Dr. Pepper. Mmmmm.

I was bopping around on Amazon yesterday, and I came across something funny that I thought you would enjoy, gentle readers. I was looking at the “how to write” books and I came across one on comedy writing. “Interesting,” I thought. “I wonder if this fellow discusses some of the same joke types that I have discussed on my blog.” But before I could even determine that, I came across this part of the Amazon page:

What do customers ultimately buy after viewing items like this?

38% buy
The System: How to Get Laid Today! by Roy Valentine $11.69

38% buy
How to Succeed with Women by Ron Louis $10.37

12% buy
NLP The New Technology of Achievement (New on CD) by Charles Faulkner $12.97

7% buy the item featured on this page:
Comedy Writing Secrets by Melvin Helitzer

5% buy
The Guide to Picking Up Girls by Gabe Fischbarg $9.60

Well! If nothing else, this certainly tells me something about the sorts of people that are interested in learning about comedy writing. You’re clearly fascinated by the technology of achievement! Good for you!

Lunch: Pre-packaged Indian “beans masala” over scrambled eggs. Fun new taste combo.

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