JaneEspenson.com

I did a little checking with my agenting team (yeah, they sometimes form teams), to find out the hottest, latest, up-to-datest info on what specs they’re seeing in the drama world. They agree with me that there is very little in the way of specable drama shows right now. House seems to be the most popular one-hour spec of the moment, they tell me. With some action also happening with Nip/Tuck and The Shield. Nip/Tuck? Still? Really? Huh. They’re a little skeptical about Grey’s, due to the serialized nature. It’s hard to keep it current. (Frankly, I worry about that less than they do.)

So what do they recommend after you’ve written your House? They suggest writing a play, a screenplay or a spec pilot to demonstrate your skills. Certainly not a terrible idea.

(An aside: Following up the spec pilot idea, I had a kind of a neat thought yesterday. Part of the problem with a spec pilot is that the reader doesn’t get to see how well you do at capturing someone else’s characters and tone. So what about a spec pilot that takes off on a well-known movie? You know, as if you’d been hired to write the tv-series version of X-Men or Platoon or whatever? Personally, I think this could be a very interesting project.)

Anyway, this blog — this humble blog — is going to continue primarily to be about writing spec episodes of existing shows. I still believe this is considered the currency of the town by so many people — and by the ABC Writing Fellowship — that it can’t be discounted.

But I’m also going to start throwing in a little advice on spec pilot writing as we go along. Not all the time, but here and there. I’m not qualified to speak to writing features or plays, but I’ve written a few pilot scripts now, and they present some unique challenges that are totally different than anything I’ve talked about. So hang on, because suddenly we get to talk about conceptualizing a whole show, creating major characters and setting a tone… And even naming the series! Fun!

New vistas!

Lunch: that cannellini bean salad I sometimes make. I’m starting to be a little bored by it. We need new vistas in all areas of life.

Remember when everyone was saying “my bad”? It had a brief popularity, totally blowing the equivalent form “mea culpa” right off the charts. Now I hear neither much. I suspect that self-blame is just out of fashion.

And yet I should note the fact that I let the closing date for the ABC writers’ fellowship slip past us uncommented-upon. My culpa, seriously. Especially since I got a big packet of blog-letters delivered to me today, some of which are from people asking pressing questions about their fellowship submissions – how to compose the bio, and that sort of thing. Oops. The mail is collected for me and sent to me in batches, so there can be a substantial time-lag. Sorry about that. I hope you all feel happy and comfortable with what you ended up submitting. Besides, I have no inside knowledge of what the ABC people look for in a bio: diversity, I guess, so I hope everyone stressed the things that make you different, culturally and otherwise. Ever been in jail? Mention it. It’s different and it’ll go better than if they find out later.

I also hope everyone took the day off after dropping their scripts into the mail. Because the day after *that* should be devoted to starting the next spec script! Yay! A new show to pick, a new world to learn, new voices to master!

In fact, one of the letters asks a great question about selecting the show to spec next. Austen from New York has written a spec “The Shield”. She has been told that she should have “two spec scripts that complement each other and one ‘wild card’ script.” Good advice.

So now she wants to know how to pick a script to “complement” the Shield. It’s tempting to think about a show that is “opposite” to the Shield and come up with… what? “Reba”? But the fact is that what you want is opposite, but not too opposite. She’s going to want a drama.

She asks if it should it be network instead of cable? Or a show that draws more female audience members, like Grey’s or Medium?

Yeah. Pretty much, Austen. There aren’t a ton of specable options right now, and I think you’ve done a good job of pointing at two choices. Grey’s Anatomy and Medium would both complement the Shield. “Veronica Mars” would provide even more contrast, but I’m being told that it’s still considered a bit out of the mainstream. It could work as your “wild card” spec.

Speaking of which, that wild card could be anything from Veronica to a mainstream show like House to something SciFi like Battlestar to something bizarre like a novelty Bonanza or Columbo spec or a spec pilot or whatever.

Austen asks a further question. Given that she is a woman writer, should she be conscious of the fact that her spec is for a show as aggressive as The Shield – a show that is assumed to be very masculine? Strangely, no. For a town that is in some ways very hidebound and traditional and sexist, I have found no resistance to women writers on even the most violent and male-dominated shows. Although women are still under-represented, it looks to me like we’re under-represented in a very even-handed way. This is just my Jane’s-eye view. Stats could show me to be wrong. Mea Badda.

But I do know for sure that lots of women writers have spec “Shields” or “Sopranos.” And lots of men wrote “Gilmore Girls” and “Buffy” specs. Which is good. Of course, that also means it doesn’t really set you apart. You can’t sell yourself as the girl-who-writes-tough-specs. Maybe a lot of us had the same idea.

So everyone out there, boy or girl, slip on a skirt and write some Grey’s Anatomy. You’re going to want something to contrast with your cop shows.

Lunch: cherry yogurt, granola and coke-with-grenadine.

Yesterday, I drove to the wrong place. Most of my meetings lately have been at Universal Studios. The one you’re thinking of, the one attached to the theme park with the Jurassic Park ride. It’s become very automatic to drive to Universal. But yesterday my meeting was actually at NBC. The one you’re thinking of, the one with Jay Leno inside. This led to a very confusing exchange between me and the guard at the gate at Universal. In the end, I got where I was going, and I wasn’t even late. If Jay Leno ever wants to go on the Jurassic Park ride, he can comfort himself knowing it’s only about ten minutes away. (I *knew* the meeting was at NBC. I can only blame motor programming. And my own general hilarity as a person.)

So, let’s talk about the guard at the gate at Universal. How important is it for you to know that his name was Jimmy? Not at all, I’m guessing. In fact, if I had told you this, you might have wondered if there was a reason for my mentioning it. Is he going to show up again later in Jane’s life? (So far… no. He hasn’t.)

When you’re writing your spec, you sometimes need to create incidental characters. Maybe it’s a guard at a gate. Or maybe one of the regular characters goes to the hospital, so you write a scene with a three-line-having doctor in it. A doctor whose lines should probably all be slugged with the name DOCTOR. Even if all the characters in the scene are calling him “Dr. Franklyn,” this is still my personal preference for how to label his lines. He might have gone to fictional medical school, but he’s not very important. Writers will differ on this, but that’s how I do it. Jimmy the guard is named: GUARD unless he pulls a gun and is revealed to be a much bigger part of the story than I thought. Then, he gets a name.

I was recently asked about a different kind of minor character. What about the kind who are introduced, not because your regulars go to a new venue, but because they’ve been there all along? For example, what if you need a Viper pilot for your Battlestar spec beyond those who have been established? Or another doctor we’ve never met before for your House or Grey’s spec? Or a sibling for one of the characters on Veronica Mars? I’m talking about someone whom the regulars are assumed to know, but who will be new to the readers.

Again, if they only have a few lines, I would still slug them as: PILOT or LITTLE SISTER. But if they’re going to be a significant part of the story, which is more likely now that they have an assumed pre-existing relationship with your main characters, then you are getting into the area where they will need a name.

Here’s how I would do it. (Others may disagree.) The stage directions would introduce the character, and they would also make his status clear in the following way:

INT. LAB – DAY
House is looking over the shoulder of the staff urologist, let’s call him DR. PATEL.

That little phrase “let’s call him,” tells the reader that this is a character you are introducing and naming. The dialogue that follows will make it clear that this is someone House already knows. This way, no reader will be confused into thinking that *they* should recognize this person.

The question I was actually asked about these characters had to do with how many of them you can have. A certain friend-of-a-friend-of-the-blog spec writer is finding that they’re having trouble keeping these people out of the story. Well, you don’t want to create bunches of them. If the actual show generally gets by without them, then your spec, ideally, should do so too. If you find yourself needing lots of extra people, lots of extra-canon relationships, then you might be going a bit astray. Cling to your produced examples, cleave unto them and do as they do. What has your show done in the case of stories that require these sorts of introductions? If you can’t find out that they’ve ever done stories that require them… uh-oh. Cleave! Cleave before you drive off the road!

Your one advantage over every other kind of writer is that you have a road map. Reread your produced examples until they fall off their brads. I cannot say this enough.

Lunch: poached eggs on canned artichoke hearts with a layer of taramosalata (that Greek whipped caviar stuff). It was an experiment. Not bad, a little weird.

Okay, I just checked out “My Super Sweet 16,” the show about real teens and their ornate parent-funded coronations. My God! The waste of money! The waste of energies! Imagine if those kids put that kind of effort into their college applications, into their creative pursuits, into reading and learning! And the whole enterprise is counterproductive. They think they’re making their peers like them, but instead they’re clearly fostering resentment.

It’s one of those counterintuitive things. What you think makes you likable makes you unlikable. What you think makes you funny makes you unfunny. Which brings us looping around to an important principle relating to the nature of comedy. I was prompted to notice this principle, which I will unveil in a moment, by a question that came in the mail from Jerome in Chicago. He’s looking for techniques like the one I discussed on April 29, (about writing past the punchline,) techniques that work well for using humor in otherwise dramatic spec episodes. I hope you read the previous post, Jerome, about settling for the soft joke, it’s another good trick to creating humor without creating “jokiness.”

Well, Jerome’s note got me thinking. What is the ESSENTIAL difference between comedy-comedy and dramatic-comedy? And what I came up with startled me! It’s crazy, but here it is:

DRAMATIC CHARACTERS ARE INTENTIONALLY FUNNY. COMEDIC CHARACTERS ARE UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY.

Isn’t that interesting? And counterintuitive? I never noticed it before, but it’s really true. Did everyone else already notice this? The more comedic the character, the less they (successfully) crack (funny) jokes.

Michael on The Office, is a comedic character. He is not usually trying to be funny. And when he does try, he isn’t. Which is an unintended result, and thus… funny. House, on the other hand, is a dramatic character. When he is funny, it’s because he is making a dry observation about something, and he intends it to be funny. The more a character cracks intentional jokes, the less “jokey” a show feels. Wild!

Now, this isn’t a strict half-hour vs. hour distinction. M*A*S*H is one of the most dramatic comedies ever made. Full of intentional humor — Hawkeye cracks jokes constantly, and comes across as war-bruised as a result. While an hour like Boston Legal can be packed with sincere nutjobs — packed with them! As a result, BL ends up feeling, at times, more broadly comedic than the comedy.

Even within the same show, you can see the difference clearly. Some half-hour shows, like Taxi, Bob Newhart or Seinfeld, have a character at the center who is more serious, sane and grounded than the characters around them. They don’t tend to get themselves stuck in bathtubs as often as the whack-a-doodles surrounding them. So how are these characters made funny? By giving them joking comments about the hijinks around them. Jerry comments to George about how crazy Kramer is – that’s intentional humor, making Jerry a more serious character. For me, Phoebe on Friends was at her best when she would suddenly manifest an unexpected awareness of the world that would allow her to make a joke about someone else’s behavior before she would slip back into her own bubble. Joey, the other oblivious, broadly comedic character on that show, rarely made the same jump… UNTIL HE HAD HIS OWN SHOW. Then, suddenly, when required to have depth, to be more serious, he was making jokes like the great one from the pilot where he poked fun at his sister, pointing out that you don’t often hear “the argument *for* teen pregnancy.” With that line he became a different, more serious guy. (Show didn’t work, but in that moment, I had hope.)

Conversely, sometimes hour dramas have one comedic character, or a series of comedic subplots. Again, these are things that happen, funny circumstances unintended by the characters, or ludicrous sincere behavior by those characters, while the supposedly more serious parts of the show are the parts with characters making witty observations. Baltar is unintentionally funny. Adama, making a wry comment about Baltar, is intentionally funny. A combo that works together to bring the house down. (Have I mentioned I love this show?)

Have I over-explained it enough? Sorry. I’m actually just working this through in my head. So how can you use this surprising fact? Use it to modulate the tone of your spec.

Want a character to seem smart… even serious? Make his first line intentionally funny. When Parker was introduced in a Buffy episode, we had to make it instantly clear that she could consider this guy worthy of her. So the first thing he did was ask Buffy if she had any hobbies….

PARKER
…You know, like solving crosswords or spitting off the world’s tallest buildings.

He’s making a joke. So we accept him as intelligent, grounded, not ridiculous and jokey. A serious candidate for Buffy’s affection.

But a character like Principal Snyder says:

SNYDER
Call me Snyder. Just a last name. Like Barbarino.

It is a similarly ludicrous thing to say. But he is sincere, not joking. And therefore the line is jokier. Perfect for a thoroughly comedic character.

Want a really complex character? Mix the two. Jason Bateman’s character on Arrested Development had both kinds of jokes. He was simultaneously appalled by his own family, and just as appalling himself. He could function as a serious character, making aware asides in one scene, and then be the oblivious boob in another. Frasier was a similarly complex character who used both types of funny. Complex and wonderful. High degree of difficulty, that one.

So, to sum it up for Jerome. Give jokes to your dramatic characters, and sincerity to your comedic ones, and you won’t go far wrong tonally. That’s it!

Lunch: Green Corn Tamales at El Cholo on Wilshire with my parents. Sweet and terrific!

A few posts back, I was talking about the use of repeated words in dialogue. A few of the examples I used were also Reference Jokes — a mention of Stratego here, a mention of Bob Barker there. Reference jokes are one of the easiest things to do, and yet so often they’re done poorly. People pick the wrong objects and people to reference. Go for the quirk! Chess is not as funny as Stratego. iPods aren’t as funny as Stratego either. Stratego is non-obvious, which is what you’re striving for. Also, it is a funny sounding word, which is hugely important.

Which would you find more interesting? If I told you that I saw Rob Lowe placing a very specific order at a Starbucks? Or if I told you that I saw Leonard Nimoy having a pair of sunglasses repaired? Personally, I’d be a lot more excited about Nimoy and his eyewear. And it’s not just because Spock is dreamy. Nimoy may have a lot more restful pilot season than Lowe, but he’s inherently more interesting as a reference. He’s got nostalgia value, and surprise value and a funnier name. (The right answer is that I saw Rob Lowe at Starbucks. Too bad, really.)

If you’re writing a spec Family Guy, and you’ve been studying their scripts, you’ve already noticed how they delight in the off-beat references (The Proclaimers? — my my). But even in a much more traditional show, it’s really worth making the effort to find the perfect reference instead of just putting in one more mention of Elvis or Michael Jackson or Kobe or that girl that disappeared in Aruba.)

Here’s a joke from a Jake in Progress script, with some redacted material:

ADRIAN
I thought things were going so well.

JAKE
I thought they were, too! And then she made it clear that in her eyes I’m about as sexy as _______ in an ill-fitting thong.

I thought for a long time before I picked the name I picked. First let’s talk about the wrong answer. Do not pick a name from this list:

Rosie O’Donnell, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Oprah, Bea Arthur

Not only are these names kind of expected, but they’re kind of mean. All the joke boils down to is: “she’s fat” or “she’s old.” But there’s so much more fun to be had if you pick a name from this list:

Winston Churchill, The Ditech commercial guy, Alan Alda, Clint Eastwood, Haley Joel Osment, the poorly-preserved body of a frozen Viking, Porter Goss…

By making it a man, you automatically get the cross-dressing funny. Better (well, sure). And by avoiding obvious options like “Homer Simpson” and generic options like “a sumo wrestler” and too-obscure options like “Morey Amsterdam,” you guarantee funny of a much richer sort. And, what’s nice is that all of the options are funny in a different way. Haley Joel is funny in his little off-center thong in a completely different way than that poor desiccated Viking is!

The name I actually used in the script was Bruce Vilanch. In retrospect, I’m not happy with it. The cross-dressing is too literal. I wish I’d gone with Alan Alda.

Lunch: another one of those weird tofu shakes. Gakk!

« Older Entries

Newer Entries »