JaneEspenson.com

Interesting. I have now received two letters from young straight white male writers who have expressed (joking) frustration at a perceived interest from agents or managers in representing “diversity writers.” Both letters hinted around at the possibility of trying to present oneself as gay in hopes of appearing more desirable (as a client, presumably).

Clearly, this is a terrible idea and I will assume you guys were joking. But let’s look, for a second, at the assumptions behind the joke. One has to assume:

1. Gay writers are in demand. Is it true? I checked with writer and friend-of-the-blog Drew Greenberg for an informed opinion. Drew?

I have yet to be on a writing staff where the show runner said, “You know what this show needs? More gay men. Hire me some of those!” Never heard it. Not once. Even on shows run by gay men. We still live in an era where being gay is considered being an outsider. Even in television.

Plus, I will point out that sexual orientation is not currently one of the criteria that is even credited with making a writer “diverse”. So there’s that.

Then there is a second assumption:

2. White male writers have a hard time getting hired. Is this true?

One of the reasons that agents or managers may be looking for writers with different backgrounds is because there are so many white male writers. That must mean someone is hiring them. Drew?

Here’s the bottom line: I did some math. On the five staffs on which I’ve worked since Buffy, 77% of the writers were white men. 77%. That’s three out of every four people, with an extra, what, arm or something. So if your agents tell you that you’re less desirable as a client because you’re a white man, tell your agents to come hang out on my staffs. I have something to show them.

I can support Drew’s math here. In fact, I’m surprised he gets a number as low as 77%.

This is a hard business to break into. But it’s hard for absolutely everyone. And you can do yourself the biggest possible favor by just worrying about your spec scripts since that’s the part of this you can control. Be great and you will get noticed where it counts — on the page!

Lunch: the chicken Caesar salad at California Chicken Café. It’s got little toasty pieces of pita in it instead of croutons. Delightful!

Eddie in San Mateo writes in with two really good questions. First, he’s wondering why I referred to him as “Erik from San Mateo” when I addressed a previous question of his. Oops. Sorry, Eddie.

His second question has to do with politically incorrect humor:

Does this brand of humor satirize stereotypes and prejudices or promote them? If a joke is funny, does it matter whether it’s offensive or not? Should aspiring writers attempt to replicate this humor in their spec scripts at the risk of stepping into a minefield?

This is a really interesting area. I myself am not a huge fan of comedy that sets out to amuse us by shocking us. The humor, generally, is supposed to come from a jolt of recognition, a sort of “Hey, we’re not supposed to say that, but ain’t it the truth” kind of thing. Personally, I think this is pretty dangerous stuff, since it’s clearly promoting stereotypes or at the very least reinforcing cultural barriers. You might get a laugh, but it’s got a mean edge to it.

Of course, there are other types of politically incorrect humor. On The Office, Michael can say something absolutely appalling, and the purpose of the line is to reflect badly on him. I’ve got no problem with that.

And, of course, there’s the strange forcefield that surrounds offensive jokes made by members of traditionally oppressed groups. This might seem like a simple rule, but it becomes really complex when the character is a member of such a group, but the writer giving voice to that character is not.

I guess the key is in Eddie’s middle question, “If a joke is funny, does it matter whether it’s offensive or not?” It seems to me that if a joke offends me, I’m never going to find it funny. This is the risk you take with material like this — if you misstep, you don’t just have an unamused reader, but a pissed-off one.

If you’re writing a spec for an established show, you can, as always, use the produced episodes as examples. They should give you a good idea where the line is for that particular show. Veronica Mars, for example, draws the line in a very different place than, say, Family Guy, which has no line at all. You generally can’t go wrong doing what the show already does.

But if you’re writing a spec pilot or are otherwise in uncharted territory, I would tread very lightly. And not only for moral reasons, either. I believe that a lot of writers of specs try to use shock value to make their spec stand out. This backfires when others have the same idea. Your ultraspicy (and potentially offensive) chicken wings don’t stand out at the potluck when the neighbors brought the same thing.

Lunch: Indian food with tortillas. See? Cultures can collide in a delicious way.

More news from the front! Remember the friend-of-the-blog who is currently reading stacks of spec scripts as he sets about staffing a show? Well he’s moved on from reading crushingly unemotional specs of The Office to reading spec pilots instead. And you should perk up at what he’s found, gentle readers, since once again your work is improving by comparison with underperforming professionals!

The problem this time? Voiceovers. Now, a voiceover can sometimes be a stylish choice, often used to good effect in stories where you want to feature an unreliable character whose internal monologue doesn’t actually match the events around him or her. And of course, there have been many successful and/or well-written shows with voiceovers: Sex and the City, Wonder Years, and Arrested Development, for example. But it takes a very specific situation or a very light hand to do it well.

The problem, of course, is that it can be a tempting way to avoid the inherit limiting feature of what we do. We are not novelists; we have chosen to work in a branch of fiction which takes an external, not an internal, look at characters. We get the tricky but rewarding task of giving viewers/readers clues that allow them to infer inner motivations, rather than making them explicit. We’re just brimmin’ with subtext and that’s on purpose. Voiceovers often make it too tempting to just make the subtext into text. Which makes for a very boring and obvious read.

But let’s imagine that you’ve managed to do it well. You’ve used a light touch, some ironic touches, a bit of magic, and you’ve employed a voiceover effectively in your spec. But you’re going to be sending that script out into an environment that, for whatever reason, seems to be unusually full of voiced-over scripts right now. Our friend-of-the-blog reports that the concentration of them is as at an all-time high; he’s finding one-third of the scripts he’s reading have voiceovers. It’s not going to be easy to make your use of the device stand out in that talky crowd. So think hard about it.

Writing your script without voiceover may seem dauntingly difficult, but that’s actually a good sign. Every time you up the degree of difficulty, you’re giving yourself a chance to show off. And the scripts that show off best get the jobs.

Lunch: instant noodle soup with added hot sauce, followed by an apple

Is there conflict in your spec script? Yes, of course there is. You might even have a scene of two people disagreeing, arguing, maybe even screaming and throwing punches. Great stuff. But here’s a little trick to make that scene even better:

Imagine that at some point in the scene, you are required to give one of the characters this line:

Fightin’ Guy
Oh my God. Is that what this is really about?

Don’t actually give them the line, just imagine that they had to say it. What would the “that” be? What is the underlying emotion that’s being expressed in the conflict between the two characters? Is there one? It’ll be a much better fight if there is. They don’t have to comment on it explicitly, but if you go into the fight knowing what underlies their animosity – beyond the immediate issue of the script – you’ll find all sorts of tricky little ways to let the audience in on the fact that there’s something deeper going on, without having to actually use the on-the-nose line above.

And remember that the “that” which the fight is “really about,” doesn’t actually have to be a conflict in itself. It can be a denied attraction, or a self-hatred, or a too-long-suppressed secret, or whatever. If you’re writing a spec for an established show, then you can draw on existing dynamics for the “that.” If you’re writing a spec pilot, a fight like this in which the deeper motivation is exposed can be a great way to clue the audience in to a history between two characters — exposition and backstory are always better if fists are flying when they come out.

Deeper! It’s good for pizza and it’s good for scripts.

Lunch: In ‘n’ Out burger, fries, Dr. Pepper

Let’s talk about underwear lines. No, that can’t be right. Here it is. Let’s talk about underlines. You have to be careful with them. Produced scripts usually don’t have a lot of them, possibly because actors don’t like them. (They’re too much like giving an actor a line reading, which actors really don’t like.)

Now, in a spec script, you don’t have to worry about actors, but you do want to look like a produced script. So you probably don’t want to throw too many underlines around all willy-nilly. Besides, underlines can tend to run away with you. Once you start selecting a few words for emphasis, you start measuring every word in the script against that standard. If I underlined “do” in that sentence, how do I not underline “am” in this sentence? (Or, to put it another way, “If I underlined ‘do‘ in that sentence, how do I not underline ‘am‘ in this sentence?”)

Here’s a little trick if you want to make sure something reads as emphasized, but you don’t want to spend an underline: eschew the contraction.

This line can be read with emphasis on the word “got” or “biggest” or “world”:

I’ve got to be the biggest fool in the world.

But this line simply must be read with emphasis on the word “got”:

I have got to be the biggest fool in the world.

Neat, huh? It’s like a sneaky way of giving the virtual actors of your spec script a virtual line reading.

Lunch: quesadilla

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