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Gentle Reader Julie in New Jersey writes in to ask about show bibles. She wants to know how they’re organized, what exactly is in them, whether they’re ever published for the general public, whether they’re updated as the show continues, etc. These are all great questions.

My impression is that this varies. Not all shows have bibles, and when they do, they can look very different. There is no standard format. In fact, there is no standard function.

Once, years ago, I got my hand on a copy of the “Frasier” show bible, and it was a wonderful and meticulous document that was scrupulously maintained to reflect everything known about the characters and their history. If something was established on air — the name of Frasier’s mother, Niles’ favorite professor, Martin’s favorite bar, it was reflected in the bible which then served as a resource for the writers to keep everything consistent. I remember with particular delight a list of Maris’ food allergies that must have been fifty items long.

That’s the only bible I’ve seen that worked that way, though. (It may be a half-hour vs. hour distinction.) The other ones I’ve come across (and there have only been a couple) have generally been sales documents used to help a television network or studio understand a new show, and are sometimes given to new writers as they join the staff, for the same reason. They discuss the characters, especially their back stories, and the world of the show. In the sales document version, essentially a much-expanded pitch, there may be a discussion of plot lines projected into the future of the show, perhaps in the “season one will be about…” form. But since shows often take off in unexpected directions, this kind of feature is quickly outdated and irrelevant. It’s possible that a bible may contain some firecracker of information about the way the creator envisions the eventual end of the series, but since everything is subject to change, that firecracker may be a dud. Especially if the fuse was lit many years earlier.

I haven’t seen this kind of bible get updated as a show continues. This means that they often contain information about the characters or their world that has been changed by subsequent scripts and is no longer valid.

Often, shows rely on their writers’ assistants or script coordinators to be walking bibles, in that they’re often tasked with remembering or researching questions like, “What did we name our lead character’s childhood pet hamster?” or “How much time passed between episodes two and three?”

Julie asks if show bibles contain “rules” for how that particular series’ universe operates. Yes, this is one of the things a bible can contain. I haven’t looked at it for a while, but I remember that the Battlestar bible has lots of detailed explanation for how the ship itself operates, including the function of various features of the hangar deck, and a discussion of the technical language used by the pilots, and even a neat little essay on why it’s not plausible for anyone to abscond with a viper.

As you’ve probably gathered, show bibles sound really cool — and they can be — but they just aren’t as important as you might think to the daily life of the staff. The truth is that once you’re living inside a show, you’re swimming as fast as you can from one island to the next, and there is neither the time nor the need to record decisions that have been made (these are in the scripts), or that are in the process of being made (these are in the notes taken in the room as the writers work).

I don’t know for certain of any show bibles that have been published the way that scripts are sometimes collected and published. If anyone has done this, it would probably be one of the Trek series. Let me run to Amazon… Yes, it looks like a version of the Voyager bible is included in the “Star Trek Voyager Companion.” You might want to look at that, Julie and other interested parties, to run your eyes across one of these in the flesh.

If I receive any emails from my friends on various shows saying that what I’ve written here doesn’t reflect the role of a bible on their show, I will let you know.

Lunch: avocado, lettuce and tomato on olive bread. The olive bread tends to dominate.

Have you given any thought to your writing style? Sometimes script writing teachers can give you the impression that a good script is as styleless as a blueprint, purposefully bearing no mark of an author in order to be an impartial conduit of what-the-viewer-will-see-and-hear.

Nonsense! Scripts can have as much style as a novel or short story. Stage directions are nothing less than you, whispering directly into the ear of the reader. That’s your voice. You can choose to be dispassionate and precise, to stay out of the way. Or you can be breezy and whimsical and conversational. Or poetic and evocative. You can choose a style that fits the scene, if you want, toning down the joking asides and turning up your inner Poe when a scene is dark.

Now, here’s the amazing part. You can even employ style when you’re writing for a show that already exists. Even if you’re on staff at that show. One of our Battlestar writers has a distinctive straight-from-the-id style that makes his scripts stand out from the rest of ours. Listen:

“The room is so quiet you could hear the sweat trickle.” That’s from a stage direction. And notice that although it’s got whimsy to it, it’s also incredibly economical. Stylish stage directions don’t have to be long-winded. I could give you a half-dozen examples from the same script with the same degree of conciseness and style. They don’t distract, they enhance.

In general, it’s usually good to try to write like the show runner, but if you’ve got a good light hand and a vibrant style, you should experiment with letting it shine through in your scripts. In fact, you may find that that nagging urge to put voice-over in all your spec pilots will go away, if you let the stage directions serve a bit of that need you feel to talk to the audience.

Lunch: hot dogs (no buns), cucumber salad

Oh my. April already? By the way, have no concerns that there might be an April Fools prank here. I don’t roll that way.

Instead, I’m going to promote the annual April event, Script Frenzy! I recommend this event. Note that it’s not a writing contest, exactly, but more of a motivational framework that helps you write one hundred pages in thirty days.

If I were an aspiring writer, as many of you are, I would use this as an opportunity to write two spec pilots. (Or perhaps write one and then thoroughly rewrite it.) Often the hardest part of writing is the pushing-through of it. Don’t skip structure, of course, but often getting that first words-on-paper draft completed is the way to break through that writing bottleneck.

Go, check it out, and start writing!

Lunch: they had an omelet bar in the cafeteria today, but really, they were more like scrambles. It was okay.

A Friend of the Blog called me yesterday because she’d been given a note on a spec pilot that she’d written and it seemed strange to her. The note was to adjust her act breaks so that they all focused on the lead character. She’d heard notes before about breaking acts on story turns, but never about breaking them on a certain character. She wondered if she was getting bad advice.

She was right to ask the question. Any time a note feels like a formula is being applied to your script (“You should ALWAYS…”), you’re right to step back and ask if this is the blind application of some abstract rule instead of something that actually will work for your script. But, in fact, I think the note was probably a good one.

I wrote recently about the importance, especially in a spec pilot in which your readers are trying to grasp a lot of new things all at once, of making sure that every reader knows who the protagonist of your story is. Besides, the protagonist’s reactions during the developments in the story ARE the story. Since the act breaks are your story turns, they are the biggest opportunity to accomplish this.

Here’s an example. Let’s say your big act break involves a secondary character revealing a big secret to a huge audience that contains the protagonist. What’s the last line of text before the FADE OUT at the end of the act? It could be, “On the speaker’s face, knowing his political career is over, we…” or “On the crowd, gasping in surprise, we…”. But it’s probably better if it’s, “Among the crowd we find our hero. His jaw clenches as he realizes that this changes everything.” Or, you know, something in that area.

Of course, there are exceptions. Maybe your act break scene is a reveal that your protagonist is being betrayed by his best friend, and the protag isn’t even in the scene. If you remain convinced that you’ve got the act break in the right place, you don’t need to agonize over the fact that we’re not close on his big glorious face when you head into the commercial break. Never panic if your script doesn’t fit every guideline. But given the choice, if you’ve got a character that you want the audience to hook into… hook into them early and often.

Lunch: hummus on a tortilla with shredded parm cheese on top. Impromptu and fabulous.

I’ve had a request to talk about pitching. Not the kind of story or joke pitching one does in the room, but the kind of prepared pitching that’s used to sell a pilot, or sometimes a freelance episode of a show.

I should tell you that my own ability with regard to this varies widely. If I stay calm, I can do very well indeed, but if I get too nervous — oof — I can crumble entirely. So the most important thing for me is to stay calm. You already know if this is going to be a problem for you, so plan accordingly.

Now, everyone likes to pitch differently. Some people read their pitch, others have no notes at all, most are somewhere in between, with notes that they consult, but don’t read directly from. I’m an in-betweener myself. I like to have practiced the pitch, but not to the point where it’s lost all meaning… if I’m doing it right, I’m actually thinking about the story as I’m telling it, and will sometimes change something as I go along. Sometimes, for example, they’ll tell you something about what they’re looking for that affects how you want to position your show, so you have to adjust on the fly. If they tell you all about how they really want family shows, you may want to emphasize the family scenes, for example, and downplay the role of the hooker.

To a certain extent, you get to choose how the pitch goes. If you want it to feel more like a conversation, then give a very short pitch and spend your time answering their questions. If you want more control, maybe you’ll give a more detailed pitch, which requires you to talk longer to preempt some of those questions. Even the longest pitch, however, shouldn’t be terribly long. I’m sure there are writers who talk for twenty minutes or more, but I think you’d be far better off concluding your main comments after five or ten.

Some writers start by naming and describing their characters, but I don’t like that approach. Listeners just aren’t good enough at remembering the names and attributes and fitting them into the story. Instead, I describe each character very briefly when they first appear in the story.

I start by talking about the genre and feel and point of the show. I might say,

“My pitch is for a show called ‘Giants’ and it’s a gritty adventure show that feels a bit like Schindler’s List meets Alien. It’s the story of how a rural farm wife becomes the leader of a resistance movement when disaster comes to the United States.” Or whatever the show is.

There is never a reaction, by the way, to this first introduction. I’ve recently realized that that’s because agents pre-pitch the idea for you. So the execs will already know that much. Anyway, I then either talk a little more about the series in general, or, often, I jump right into the events of the pilot episode:

“Okay. We start out on a farm in Nebraska where Tom, a 35-year-old farmer, is giving a tour to a bunch of Ag students from the local college when suddenly… “

I tell the story briefly, pointing out each act break and exciting revelation. I try to be animated and smiling and funny where I can be. I get excited and sit on the edge of the couch and wave my hands around a bit. I try not to let the story get bogged down in details, but to emphasize the emotional turns: “This is the moment when she realizes that no other leader is going to step forward. She reaches out and shakes the hand of the lead Alien and offers the use of her farm, gambling that she just made the Resistance stronger, not weaker…” — that kind of thing.

At the end of the initial bout of talking, I complete the story of the pilot, and maybe give a little glance forward: “We end the episode with that first thread of hope — communication with another small community that’s also been converted to an Alien arms factory. Ruth has grown into a true leader, although one faced with an overwhelming enemy.”

Then I say, loudly, “AND THAT’S OUR SHOW.”

It’s only after that that I mention that I have ideas for many sample episodes. They will ask to hear one-sentence versions of those.

Soon, it’s a genuine conversation and they’ll start giving real feedback mixed in with more questions. Sometimes it’s a quick “no,” sometimes it isn’t, but I’ve never been treated rudely or unkindly.

Believe in your idea. Be proud of it, excited by it, and put effort into showing it off. You might want to practice your pitch for friends, or practice out loud to yourself. But the most important thing I do, I think, is just to keep asking myself, as I prepare the pitch — what’s frakkin’ great about this story? Then sell that point. See? Easy!

Lunch: leftover Persian food: stew over crispy rice. Mm.

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