JaneEspenson.com

Last time I was in New York, I thoroughly enjoyed a performance of “The 25th Annual Putnum County Spelling Bee.” The play contains several intertwined stories of the various children in the bee, with the stories given differing degrees of time and focus. That means, of course, that there was a B-story in the bee story. Mwuph! (That’s the sound of my muffled laughter. Oh, I love the wordplay.)

So let’s talk about B-stories. The B-story is the secondary story in your episode. It’s the thing that Toby and Oscar are doing while Dwight and Michael are carrying the A-story, to put it in Official terms. You might have more than one story in addition to your A-story, and sometimes you’ll hear the term “C-story,” but often all the non-As are called B-stories. (Unless a supporting story is so small that it’s really just a few moments here and there — then it’s called a “runner”.) If two stories share an episode and are of equal importance, they’re sometimes called “Co-A-stories.”

Developing a B-story is often a matter of playing with negative space. It’s determined to some degree by whatever the A-story is not. It involves the characters you have left over, and it often takes on an opposite tone: it’s humorous if the A is dark, it’s talky if the A story is full of action.

In other ways it’s similar to the A-story. It has to take place in the same amount of time, for example. I remember a very tough story breaking session at Gilmore Girls because we had an A-story that played in real time that for some reason we really wanted to pair with a B-story that took place over a series of days. Something, ultimately, of course, had to give. It’s also often the case that the B-story and the A-story share a theme, sometimes dealt with in a contrasting way. If the A-story is about someone dealing with grief by becoming grim and self-destructive, the B-story might be about someone dealing with the same loss by becoming manically life-affirming.

The key, as always, is to consult the produced episodes of the show you’re specing. This is one you can do using the scripts, and also just by making close observations as you watch. Make a chart of the A and B stories in each episode and note how they relate to each other. Do they share a theme? Do they explicitly comment on each other? Does one story influence the events in the other story? As always, try to emulate whatever your show is already doing.

If you’re writing a spec pilot, you can decide to combine your A and B-stories in whatever way you find the most effective. (You might want to think about how your favorite show handles the issue and try doing it how they do.)

And remember that the B-story might just be more important than the A. Because it’s often the more emotional, more internal story while the A story has the action and explosions, it’s often the B-story that ends up being the more memorable, more affecting story. In my old NYPD Blue spec, it was the comedic Martinez-and-Medavoy B-story that caught everyone’s attention. The same thing can happen with that funny little Chase-and-Wilson story you’ve built into your “House.”

Lunch (yesterday’s): hot fresh char sieu bao in Chinatown, SF. Wow.

Do you have someone to brainstorm with? Someone who is willing to just idly toss around ideas with you in an unstructured setting without time pressure? Dinner with creative friends talking about stories is probably the closest you’re going to get to simulating the actual writers’ room experience.

I have two close friends I acquired in the ABC/Disney writing fellowship. They were there on the “feature side” of the program while I was on the “TV side”. To this day, they’re my closest friends, willing to play endless games of Scrabble and accompany me on slot-happy Vegas vacations.

They’re also brainstorming fiends. I always try to take the start of an idea to Vegas with me, because I know that by the end of the weekend they’ll have helped me turn it into something real and workable. My friend Kimberlee is an expert at cutting to the heart of a story and asking the hard questions that make me figure out *why* I’m telling the story. It’s like taking an idea to a therapist to figure out its hidden motivations. Having your own personal story doctor is as good as having a medical one. Unless you have literal pneumonia.

If you’ve joined a writers’ group or enrolled in a class, try organizing some after-class dinners. See if you click with any of the other participants. And be generous with your help on their projects too. Don’t hold back on your ideas or make sly suggestions about how they can pay you back with a staff job once their spec pilot is a show. Give your suggestions freely, and take your only pay in the form of the ideas they’ll contribute to your projects. If you can get that kind of dynamic set up, you’ll have a resource you can draw on for years and years.

Lunch: avocado, blue cheese, sourdough roll

Remember Amanda? She’s the one who sent the great letter I mentioned earlier this week, about landing an agent. Well, I wanted to give you a little bit more of her letter, because it was interesting all the way through. She’s referring to some information I related a while back from my agents about how they’re no longer recommending that writers spec episodes of existing shows.

Amanda: “And you are absolutely right re: original material. The first thing [the new agent] asked me for was anything original: short stories, one acts, pilots, etc. Apparently, the spec scripts are Step 2. After a show runner reads the original stuff THEN they ask for the spec.”

She goes on to mention that this doesn’t seem to be a hard and fast rule, which is certainly the case. And I will mention again that the ABC/Disney fellowship wants traditional specs of shows currently on the air. But it’s very interesting to hear that more than one of the big agencies is pushing hard for original material. At least once you’re repped by the agency. Remember that Amanda got the agent with a spec of The Office. So hmm.

I know it might seem like I’m grinding this topic into the ground, but it’s crucial to your specing careers, so I’m working hard to give you up to the moment info on this one.

Lunch: Koo Koo Roo — chicken with yams and cucumber salad.

How do you break your stories at home? Do you write out the content and order of the scenes on a whiteboard, in a notebook, or on index cards? For years and years I worked on shows with whiteboards in the writers’ rooms. But recently I’ve found myself in rooms with corkboards and cards. And I have to say I’m starting to get it. The ability to move scenes around effortlessly… well, say, that’s not bad.

But when I’m not in a room with other writers, if I’m breaking the story for a pilot script, for example, I just plot it out on sheets of notebook paper. Unlike a whiteboard, it’s totally portable. My notebook has accompanied me into every restaurant in town. And although you can take your stack of cards with you anywhere, you then can’t see the whole episode at a glance.

Sure, sometimes I have to rewrite the whole thing because I’m making changes and the page is filling with arrows and scribbles, but the process of rewriting it is actually one of the steps in the process that I find most productive. Rewriting the descriptions of scenes is one of the best ways for me to start to *see* them.

Ultimately, do whatever works for you. Don’t get married to any one method because it’s what your teacher, friend or writing idol does.

Lunch: goat cheese salad

Okay, I just had an interesting realization. I don’t know why this is only now occurring to me, but it’s huge, and I have to apologize. This whole thing about writing original pieces instead of specs for existing shows? This whole thing that turned our world upside down? Forget it. Forg. Et. It.

Know why? Because I’m an idiot, that’s why. Because I forgot that the ABC/Disney Writing Fellowship Program still only accepts specs for shows currently in production. And that’s one of the only open doors in town. It’s the BEST open door in town. It’s the door I want you, gentle readers, to storm en masse.

The advice about writing spec pilots, short plays and short film scripts is for those of you who either already have an agent, or those of you who are submitting material to prospective agents. Most of you, however, are not doing that yet. Most of you are trying to get that first foothold. And the name of that foothold is still, “Wanna read my Grey’s Anatomy?”

To you, gentle readers, I apologize. And to ABC, may I just say that you might want to consider changing your submission policy. If the pieces you’re asking to see no longer reflect the material that young writers will need in order to get work… well, then.

Lunch: scrambled eggs with hot sauce and tortillas

« Older Entries

Newer Entries »