JaneEspenson.com

Back from my mini-vacation! Very refreshing! But it has gotten harder and harder to be out of touch with my life. I was emailing friends, getting calls on the cell phone, and feeling guilty about the times when I was genuinely unreachable. I recently changed vacation plans when I realized I’d have no internet access at my intended hotel. I couldn’t face such a thing. Breathing is input, and increasingly, input is breathing.

When I was getting started as a writer, I sought out support, eager for the input of the other writers in the Disney fellowship. But I thought that as I moved out into genuine employment, that I would begin swimming on my own, with less and less input from friends as I learned more and more skills. But that hasn’t been what has happened at all. I’ve actually become more collaborative as I’ve gone along.

When I was starting out I would NEVER have let a friend read an outline of mine. I would’ve felt like I wasn’t ready to be judged until I had some kind of finished script — that’s the point at which the “idea” started to feel like an “entity.” But once you’re employed on a show, the outline is treated as an entity, too. Your show runner reads the outline and gives you notes. Then it is sent on to the studio and the network, and they have input too. You rewrite the outline until it’s right. This process avoids lots of horrible huge changes after you’ve already fallen in love with dialogue. Even if I’m writing a spec pilot on my own, and have no boss, I will get input at the outline stage now.

If you have friends who know the show that you’re specing, have them read your outline. Even if they’re not writers, they are viewers, and they know if something feels like the show or not. This will encourage you to write a strong, clear outline, and it will help you catch story problems at an early stage. I know an outline feels like a private thing, and this is a little like bringing friends along to help pick out underpants, but if you can stand it, it can be really helpful. Have you ever regretted an underpants purchase? Then you know the kind of discomfort you’ll be avoiding.

Okay. I think I’m finally done with story-and-outline stuff. Soon we’ll get to dialogue! The fun stuff!

Lunch: A perfectly dreadful chicken wrap thing on the plane. The ingredients were fine, but they were wrapped in a flavorless white paste. Yuk!

Hi all! I’m heading out of town for a long weekend, so starting tomorrow the blogging will be slow for a little bit here. But know that I am thinking of you all. Special thanks to friend-of-the-blog Maggie for her continuing feedback on these humble posts. It is so helpful when I know what people need to know.

In that same flavor, another-friend-of-the-blog has registered a very interesting question. Take it, friend!

Friend: “When I first started writing, I pretty much only wrote what I wanted to write. Meaning, I wasn’t thinking of my portfolio much. Just concentrating on learning (still am). Now that I’m taking a more business-y look at my writing, especially as I read the pilots for this season, I notice what holes are in my portfolio. Now, obviously I wouldn’t write a Supernatural spec to get on Grey’s. But, I was wondering if it would be odd… if I were to write a Desperate Housewives where one of the women has to be in the hospital for the entire episode? Like a B or C story, if you will. But something that would showcase my medical range? Is this good business sense or is this the over-thinking of a neurotic writer?”

Fantastic question. One that really made me stop and think. She is referring to the fact that you never write a spec of the show that you are hoping to be hired on — let’s call it the “target show.” (Note that you may not have a target show. That’s cool, too.) Showrunners don’t read specs of their own shows for a number of reasons, some legal, some practical. That means that if you are targetting a specific show, you might want to get clever about it — think about what OTHER show will best allow you to demonstrate the skills that the target show will be looking for.

I bet the showrunner at House is given a lot of Grey’s episodes to read as specs, and vice versa. They’re an obvious pairing. And what do you want to bet the Commander in Chief showrunner read a heck of a lot of West Wing specs? But our friend is suggesting a way to mix this up. And it’s pretty interesting — giving a not-already-built-in spin to your spec to make it more deliciously appealing to the target show.

My inclination is that this is a pretty good idea, but one with a lot of possible pitfalls.

1. This should only be attempted if the show being spun isn’t twisted out of recognition in order to acheive the desired effect. I’m not a regular Housewives viewer, so I’m not certain if they would do a medical subplot. It certainly sounds possible, but this is a huge concern. If your spec House suddenly features Dr. House whispering to a ghost, then you’ve got a problem.

2. This depends on the assumption that Grey’s showrunner is actually looking for an ability to write medical stuff. They may not care. Shows with technical content have advisors. The ability to write characters is almost certainly a higher priority. But, of course, a person can do both…

3. Finally, story should come from character. Setting artificial requirements on the setting or subject matter of a story may make it harder to come up with a truly emotional story.

But if you’re satisified that what you’ve come up with is an emotional, non-distorted spec that shows off skills your target showrunner values, then I see no reason not to try it.

Lunch: Thai papaya salad. Spicy and tart!

Visual surprises occur in lots of different kinds of scripts. Someone on 24 rips open a cockpit door to reveal, I don’t know, maybe a dead pilot. Someone on The Office whips open a supply closet door to reveal, let’s say, a co-worker eating someone else’s clearly-labelled protein bar. These could be shocking and/or funny moments. Well, finding the dead pilot is probably less funny. But it could be effective nonetheless.

Question: When do these moments not work? Answer: When the reader skips the stage directions.

This happens A LOT. It used to frustrate me. And then I noticed I did the same thing myself, all the time. I’d come across a big undigestable blob of stage direction and I’d just blip right over it. I figured that I was rushing, that I was lazy, that I wasn’t giving the writer the respect she deserved.

But now I don’t think that’s what’s happening at all. I think that a reader who is really trying to let a spec script work its magic is trying as hard as they can to experience the episode as if it were filmed already, as if they were really watching it on TV. After all, that’s typically the way you judge the pacing and voices — by comparing them against broadcast episodes you have seen. And, when you’re actually watching a broadcast episode, you don’t pause the dialogue so that you can take in the visual. So when you’re reading, and you want that same experience, you tend to blow on past the dense little bites of description that slow you down.

Whether or not you agree on that analysis, the truth remains that many readers over-rely on the dialogue to tell them what’s going on.

So how does the writer of a spec script handle this? I’m going to go out on a limb here and advocate a spot of bad writing.

Well, not BAD writing, exactly. Just over-writing. Something along the lines of:

Character
Ohmigod. We lost the pilot.

or

Character
Hey! That’s Michael’s protein bar!

I know it’s not pretty. And it shouldn’t be used to the extent that characters are talking to themselves — that’s bad. But it is super-duper clear.

In my spec Frasier with its big visual scene of Frasier and Niles up on a billboard platform painting out the quotation marks on a promotional ad that read “Doctor” Frasier Crane, I used something similar to the following exchange:

Frasier
Look as us, up here with our spray paint, like a couple of
young rebels, using an act of defiance to tell the
world “We are here!”

Niles
We’re correcting punctuation.

Just in case a reader missed the staging of the scene, I made sure they got it (“up here with our spray paint”), and I got a mild joke out of it in the process.

As a test, try reading your spec without reading a single stage direction. If you can make it read well this way, without making it sound clunky, it’s worth a try.

Lunch: A surprisingly good avocado salad from the cafeteria at the gym.

In rereading yesterday’s post, I see that in my attempt to write in a whimsical manner about car repairs, I may have mistakenly given the impression that I wasn’t talking about a car at all, but rather a poorly-typed cat. But it wasn’t a cat. It was a Camry.

So. Enough nonsense. Didja hear about the WB and UPN? I didn’t even know they were dating, and now this! An elopement! An elopement between a frog and a circle! Nature recoils.

If I had a writers’ room to go to today, I promise you, no work would be getting done. This is all anyone would be talking about. In fact, I would guess that no writing is being done in Hollywood today. Especially on WB or UPN shows. There, the showrunners will be on the phone with executives, trying to find out if their shows will survive the merge, and the other writers will be on the phone with their agents, worried about their employment. And just imagine all the writers who are in the first year of multi-year development deals with one net or the other! What happens to them? Yikes! And, even worse, what about writers with pilot scripts under consideration at one place or the other?! Cell phones are going to burst into flames across town today, toasting ears at every level of the industry. Chaos!

I’m going to have dinner tonight at a very industry-heavy hotspot. I’ll report back and let you know if there are any Ear-nfernos nearby. I’ll be very interested to overhear the other tables.

Today’s Lunch: tabouli and rye-crisps and almonds!

Hello everyone! This is the inaugural entry in my brand new blog. Welcome!

If you’ve found this blog, you probably already know who I am. My claim to semi-fame is that I wrote for Buffy the Vampire Slayer for five of its seven seasons, leaving only when the show came to an end. The episodes I wrote included “Band Candy,” “Harsh Light of Day,” “Intervention,” “I Was Made to Love You,” “Earshot,” “Superstar,” “Storyteller,” “Same Time, Same Place,” and others. I also co-wrote “Conversations with Dead People,” which won a Hugo Award. Writing for Buffy was unusual among TV writing jobs, in that it actually results in writers — not just performers — having fans. This is, I must say, lovely. It also resulted in other work, including writing assignments on Angel and Firefly, and a lot of comic book writing, which I have enjoyed a great deal. Joss Whedon changed my life and is every inch the genius you suspect he is.

Since Buffy, I’ve done a variety of different kinds of writing: more sci-fi, on Tru Calling, hour-long comedy on Gilmore Girls, procedural writing on The Inside, and now half-hour comedy on Jake in Progress. My goal is to stick my nose into every bowl in the buffet, tasting every flavor they’ve got.

So right now, I’m on Jake in Progress. Here’s the latest. We had a table reading of a script that I wrote a couple days ago. Lori Laughlin is going to play the part of John Stamos’ love interest in this one, and OHMIGOD, she’s fantastic. It was a really tricky role and she nailed every moment of it. I hope the series stays around long enough for you guys to see this episode, because — amusingly — it’s got a bit of a Buffy flavor to it. Can you believe we’re doing an alt-universe episode? I was so delighted, you can’t imagine. Anyway, I love how it turned out, and if the show survives long enough, I’ll let you know when it’s going to air.

Our offices for Jake are at Fox studios in Century City. A few weeks ago there was a lot of noise and teamster-style shouting outside our writers’ room. Turned out, it was burly men taking down all of the Arrested Development sets. Terribly sad. Our other neighbors on the lot include Stacked, which shoots very near to our offices, and How I Met Your Mother, which shoots across the lot from us. That means Aly’s right there… I should walk over and find her. Such a good woman. One of those comedic actors who’s funny even when the camera turns off.

In other news, late last night I hit the “send” button and mailed the newest draft of my latest pilot script off to the appropriate executive. This is the funniest little project, my own personal brainchild and I’m desperately proud of it. Clap your hands if you want to see a half-hour comedy about the lives and loves of Las Vegas showgirls. I know I do. So I wrote one. If it doesn’t go, and you still want a really interesting insight into a unique job that may not be around much longer (in my opinion), take the back-stage tour at Bally’s Jubilee in Vegas. It’s cheap and fascinating. If you watched E!’s reality series “Nearly Famous,” you already know what I’m talking about. Great stuff!

In conclusion, you were promised you’d hear what I had for lunch. This is will indeed be a regular feature. My Latest Lunch was:

A hot pastrami sandwich!

Thank you. See you soon!

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