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Remember that scene in that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry and George sat down to write their pilot? They started with the first scene and tried to figure out the first line… it was a disaster. This is not only because they had no idea and no outline and were fictional characters. It’s also possible they were starting at the wrong end.

Often, there is a scene in a script that is the reason for the whole script to exist. And it’s often toward the end. If you’re having a hard time plotting out your spec, you might find it helpful to work on the story by stepping through it backwards from that crucial scene. What would have had to have happened right before it? And right before that?

It’s harder to get off course when you’re headed back to your home than when you’re headed away from it. (By the way, I recommend getting one of those little GPS deals to have in your car. I got one for my birthday and I adore it. But that’s really unrelated to script writing.)

Lunch: soy and flax chips and strawberry lemonade all from Trader Joe’s. Theoretically healthy and very tasty!

There’s a saying in television that you hear a lot these days, “Don’t save anything.” It’s generally used to mean “put your best moments on screen early in the run of the show.” So, even if you have in mind a tender three-episode arc that culminates in a STUNNING MOMENT… well, there are very few new shows that feel comfortable gambling that they’ll be around three episodes from now. So there’s a tendency to cut to the chase. Mix this with the network’s desire to air the episodes so that the strongest ones air first, and there’s a great tidal force pushing all the BIG EVENTS up early.

There can be a tendency to do something similar in a spec pilot too. I’ve got two supporting characters in the pilot I’m writing now whom I adore. I know that there is great fun to be had in giving them a scene together. But the pilot story doesn’t really accommodate it. So I keep telling myself that I’m “saving” their interaction for episode two. And yet “Don’t save anything” is echoing in my ears. What’s a writer to do?

Well, you’ve probably all already anticipated the problem with “Don’t save anything.” The STUNNING MOMENT that ends a three-episode build may not be as stunning without all the set-up. And the forced encounter between my two supporting characters won’t be nearly as much fun as it will be when there’s a legitimate story reason for them to be thrown together.

So, sure, don’t write a pilot that does nothing but promise thrilling encounters yet to come, but don’t feel, either, that you have to wring every possible drop of juice out of an unyielding orange. Sometimes, the story of the grasshopper and the ant is true, and it’s okay to save.

Lunch: A new idea. Drained a can of chicken noodle soup, saving just the noodles. Put that MRE-style packaged Indian bean dish over it. A new taste treat.

Time for another meeting of Jane’s Book Club! I am heartily recommending “Scott Bateman’s Sketchbook of Secrets and Shame.” It’s a collection of the most strange and wonderful little cartoons. If you don’t know the name Scott Bateman, I think you’ll recognize his cartoons when you see them: tiny little boxes containing static human figures, generally looking grave or worried and saying the most hilarious things. Sometimes they’re looking off to the side, as if to assure themselves that no one is listening in. The impression you get is that these statements are deeply confessional on the part of the character. Sometimes it’s a deep confession about shallowness, like this one: “I’m building a time machine just so I can go forward ten years and see VH-1’s ‘I Love the ’00s’.”

Some of the jokes are very traditional in structure, like: “You know your neighborhood’s getting too gentrified when you run out of a place to dispose of a dead body.” But most are very strange, like the haunted-eyed one that simply reads, “I suffer from moral fibrosis.”

It can seem like a challenge, especially in a spec pilot, to write jokes based on character, when the characters are brand new. You don’t have established traits to poke fun of. But these cartoons manage to be character-based jokes, and there isn’t even an actor fleshing out the role — just a sketch with an uncomfortable look on its face. There’s something about a quick reveal of an obsession or a fear or a transgression that creates an instant connection. I’m going to be thinking about these cartoons as I play with some dialogue over the weekend.

Lunch: A nice post table-read buffet from Chin Chin. (Is that a national chain?) There were noodles.

Adam in West Hollywood has sent in an interesting question, Gentle Readers. He asks for clarification on whether or not spec pilots should be, can be, or must not be “premise pilots.” He says he has received advice saying that premise pilot specs are problematical.

Hmm. I can’t say I really see why. A premise pilot, for those of you who don’t know, is a pilot in which the events occur that set up the dynamic of the show. A non-premise pilot has all the characters and relationships already in place.

Lost had a premise pilot. West Wing had a non-premise pilot as I recall, which is unusual, since most shows have at least some element of premise in their pilot. It was Carter’s first day of work in the ER pilot, although the other elements were in place. Rachel ran away from her wedding, and into her Friends and all their pre-existing relationships, in the Friends pilot. Heroes spread their character intros and premise-setting-up over the first two episodes, extending the premise pilot concept to Heroic new lengths. Having something new happen in a pilot, something that requires all the characters to adjust and act or react, is a great way to explain characters, relationships and situations. At the very least, having even one “new guy” requires the old hands to explain things to them, which facilitates exposition.

The argument against premise pilots, I assume, is that you’re not giving the readers a “typical episode.” But this, it seems to me, is a more potent argument against actual network pilots than it is against spec pilots. You guys, presumably, need your spec pilot to function mainly as a writing sample and as a contest entry. You don’t have to worry so much about whether or not viewers got a representative slice of the show that will bring them back next week. (And since shows that began with premise pilots seem to be the big hits right now, I’d say even this isn’t really a serious concern.)

So I say premise it up! Hire people, fire people, move people across the country, have people fall in or out of love, shake up their lives! When you’re specing an existing show, you don’t have the opportunity to change the basic dynamics of the show. So a spec pilot is your chance to demonstrate this skill — why not use it?

Lunch: scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese

Suppose you’re writing a spec pilot, and you’ve got a lot of characters whom you want your readers to keep straight. You’ve got Brian and Courtney and Flagg and Sharon and Henderson and Nigel… But let’s say that Henderson and Nigel are fairly minor. They’ve got names and all, they’d be regulars if the pilot somehow became a series, but let’s say they’re only in two scenes of the pilot.

In these circumstances, you might want to consider:

Committee-Head Henderson
Welcome.

And:

Nigel the Butler
Good morning, sir.

Now the reader will be reminded who they are whenever they speak, and the burden of keeping all those names straight will get a lot easier.

Whenever you make the reader’s job easier, you make your own job easier.

Lunch: In ‘n’ Out burger, Dr. Pepper

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