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I was lucky enough recently to get to hear the writers and producers of The Colbert Report talking about what they do. Stone Phillips moderated, asking Stephen (I like to call him ‘Stephen’) and the others questions of his own and some submitted by those of us in the audience. It was absolutely fascinating. The very idea of putting together a new show four days a week is stunning to me. I know how long a half-hour can be.

But anyway, there was an answer to one of the questions that I thought you’d enjoy hearing about, Nation. Stone (I like to call him ‘Stone’) asked about what they look for in a guest. The answer was “someone with a strong opinion.” That, more than issues of subject matter or position on the political spectrum or degree of fame, is what guides their choice. It makes perfect sense. They want a guest who comes on with something to advocate, a position to argue.

It occurred to me that spec scripts are like that. A spec *pilot*, especially, is populated with people we’ve never met before. One of things that’s going to power that script is a good guest-screening policy. No one gets on that page until they’ve got a position to take.

This doesn’t have to apply to Waiter 1 in the restaurant scene, but your major characters are going to work together really well if they’ve got strong clashing opinions and a willingness to let you know about them. Battlestar Galactica is a great example of a show that seems to have an infinity of stories to tell, because every character on there has passionate beliefs, often about things as important as how best to ensure humanity’s survival. Big beliefs, big stakes.

If your spec pilot is feeling pale and wobbly, reconsider your booking policy.

Lunch: cold meat and cheese selection, white wine, fresh-baked cookie. High-class lunch.

Ever recommend something even though you know it’s probably a mistake? (Anchovies? You’ll love ’em! You don’t? Oh.) Anyway, I recently heard an interesting idea for novel way to approach writing a spec script. It’s challenging, fun, attention-getting and probably a really bad idea.

The idea is to do a crossover episode as your spec. You know what I mean — Dr. House is brought in to help the young doctors of Grey’s Anatomy with a tricky diagnosis! Or Ugly Betty’s magazine hires the lawyers from Boston Legal!

It’s a tempting notion because it cuts right through the confounding problem of spec scripts: they have to be both typical and extraordinary. How do you capture the *exact* feel of a produced episode of something, and still have the script stand out? Well, a crossover spec stands out by virtue of the concept, and gives you twice the opportunity to capture tone and voices, therefore showing off your ability to emulate. If it was done well, a script like this could be quite the showpiece.

But it would be SO HARD to do well that I just can’t recommend it. Both shows would need their own emotional arcs (probably one as A-story, the other as B-story). So both, say, Gregory House and Meredith Grey have to be emotionally affected by their contact with the opposing team of characters. And they have to be affected in ways that feel natural and even inevitable. And they have to do it in such a way so that the two arcs don’t fight each other, don’t radically affect the status quo of either show, and aren’t tonally discordant with their home show.

The idea is supposed to be that you can have guest stars who bring with them all of the beautiful baggage of established characters, but I fear that the effect will be the opposite: every single character you’re writing will feel like a guest star. And you’re likely to end up feeling like you’re directing traffic, trying to give a double-sized cast their individual moments in the spotlight. And all of those introductions? No one wants to make an audience sit through that. And how DOES one stay true to the tone of both shows, anyway?

So, I’m not recommending it. And yet… it’s worth thinking about if you’re really confident in your skills. Which shows would you combine? Is there anything themic that connects them in an interesting way? If you were *creating* a show, would you ever have put these characters together? If you think you’ve found a story worth telling, some value in crossing the series other than novelty-value, then give it a try. Because, if I understand genetics at all, one out of every ten times you manage to breed a horse and a narwhal… you get a unicorn.

Lunch: A chicken and swiss cheese sandwich, hot and melty.

I hope you guys enjoyed my Battlestar Galatica if you happened to check it out. Hope you weren’t too traumatized. There was some “Espenson brings the funny” anticipation for this that had me a bit concerned since the ep wasn’t so much, ya know, funny. But I did get to write the line “You’ve got goo in your hair” which I find hilarious in a Cylon context. Anyway, I’m just as proud as a proud thing to have been involved with that show, so… Thank You Ron! Whooo!

All right, back to our business at hand, the business of writing spec scripts. Here is more of what I learned at the round-table discussion at the Writers’ Guild. The question on the table is about the dramatic build of your script. It’s all right, isn’t it, to let the script start out slow, setting things up for a big finish where everything pays off in a big meticulously conceived action/comedy sequence. Right?

Turns out, you’ve got fifteen pages. If you haven’t gripped the agent, executive, or whomever in those fifteen pages, they’re not going to bother finishing the script. There is nothing requiring anyone to whom you send your script to read the *whole* script. So you’ve got to work hard to keep them turning pages. The 15-page cut-off is one person’s yardstick by the way, others will give you more or, often, less — maybe even just the Teaser. It’s not that they don’t want to like your script, they do want to. But if they don’t like it right away, the thing they want more than anything else is to pick up the next one on the stack, hoping that *this* one is the winner. And then there’s one on the stack beneath that…

Now, that isn’t to say you can let everything fall apart in the second half of your script. You still have to bring it on home. But pay special attention to the opening. If you’re writing a spec pilot, consider all the different ways to introduce your characters — if you just start with them waking up in the morning, well, it’s classic, but you might want to see if you can find some other situation, some image, that tells us who they are right off the bat. If you’re writing an existing show, think of all the episodes produced so far — which one had the best opening? Is yours as good as that? As gripping? As tantalizing? Is there any way to start in the middle of some action? Consider playing with the time line of your episode to bring action to the front. If your show has jokes, pay special attention to the early ones, they’re going to set your reader’s expectations for what you’re capable of.

Fifteen pages. Count ’em off and look at ’em. Make ’em sing.

Lunch: leftover cucumber salad and edamame from last night’s sushi dinner. Even better than when they were fresh.

Okay, everyone. Tonight’s episode of Battlestar Galactica is, indeed, mine. I have not, myself, seen the final cut, so we’ll all be watching it together. Hope you enjoy it!

In other news, I got to be part of a roundtable discussion at the Writers’ Guild this morning about spec scripts, and I got some new insights into things I can tell all of you. I’ll be sharing them over the next few posts, but here’s a little one to get us started: original material. Make sure you have something in your portfolio, alongside the specs of existing shows, that is entirely in your own voice. It can be a screenplay, spec pilot or a play. (Some also say short stories will work for this, but I think something in script format is more likely to be useful, myself.) I heard an agent, a show runner and an executive all stress the importance of having something that demonstrates that you can create your own world, your own characters. So take off those shackles and run free through the fields of… um… making stuff up!

Lunch: boneless chicken wings from Johnny Rocket’s. Could’ve been spicier.

Hi! I got a great letter today from Lisa in Indiana, who is new to the notion of writing television specs, and who is asking all the right questions. This made me realize that it’s been a very long time since I’ve covered the basics of this strange little enterprise.

1. First off, Lisa, yes, it’s true that spec scripts are not usually submitted to the show they represent. In other words, you don’t generally use a spec “The Office” to get hired at The Office. This is because it’s simply too hard to execute a show so perfectly that your mistakes will go unnoticed by someone on the inside. It’s like trying to do an impersonation of someone to their face. But, as a beginning writer, your scripts are unlikely to get to a show runner anytime soon anyway, but will instead be submitted to contests and to programs like the ABC Writing Fellowship. So write the show you love best.

2. Your instinct is right, not to use a spec to change the status quo of the show. Don’t get the romantically-sparring couple together, for example. You want your episode to look like a typical episode of the show, only better, because you will have more time to work with it than the staff writers do. Think a lot about what the show’s actual writers are going to do next.

3. A “shooting script” will work fine as an example script to teach you formatting. The only difference is that you shouldn’t number your scenes, nor should you include a cast or set list. (And if the script you’re looking at has asterisks in the margin, or pages printed in different colors, those are used to indicate changes made during different drafts. Don’t worry about them.) There are lots of books out there, too, that will help you learn proper script format. Final Draft, which is the screenwriting program most commonly used by real shows, also does a good job of helping you pour your story into the proper format. But keep trying to get all the example scripts you can. Some shows publish their scripts in book form — Buffy and The Sopranos both did this, and you can learn a lot from reading them.

4. And finally, Lisa asks the question that just keeps coming around, more and more. How do you spec a show with on-going arcs? You know, when I started writing this blog, I was convinced this didn’t have to be a problem. I used an out-of-date Roseanne spec for years when I was getting established — my spec had Darlene graduating high school for years after she was out. So I advocated simply picking a moment in time and not worrying when the arc continued past your show.

However, Roseanne was very different than, say, Heroes or Lost or 24 or even Grey’s Anatomy. Shows with fast-moving arcs that affect the heart of the relationships you’re trying to capture can be very hard to spec. Some agents even discourage the attempt, as they’re worried that the script will start very quickly to look old. And I guess I now have to grudgingly accept that that is true. Certainly readers of scripts can’t expect you to be psychic. But they also are going to prefer reading something that feels fresh and new.

I’ve heard various solutions to the problem. For example, I met someone who was writing a spec 24 — by writing the first hour of a new adventure. I think that’s brilliant. And although there is plenty of arc-driven stuff in House or Desperate Housewives, a story could certainly be chosen that starts and finishes off some stand-alone crisis. As for The Office, my instinct would be to ignore all the office re-org stuff, and settle everyone back into the relationships they had last season until and unless a new steady-state emerges.

But if a show persists in feeling unspecable, and you’re throwing out everything you wrote every week when the newest ep airs? Then it just might not be the right show to spec.

Okay, Lisa! Those are the basics! Start writing!

Lunch: a BLT from The Daily Grill. So much bacon! Are they trying to kill me? Kill me with love?

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