JaneEspenson.com

Is there a moment in your spec script in which your main character takes a big decisive action that changes everything? Probably, huh?

If your spec script were being filmed, the actor and director and editor would extend that moment. Music, camera work, acting would all come together, and the audience couldn’t possibly miss that something huge was going on.

But unless you get lucky, and the person reading your spec happens to be listening to a providentially synched-up iPod, you won’t have the advantage of any of that great stuff.

So here’s a great place to use a big obvious stage direction. Something like:

Ralph takes a breath and squares his shoulders. His moment has come.

Or

Tony picks up the shovel and turns slowly to face Marjorie. He knows what he has to do.

Or

Bethany whirls toward the door, her eyes wild. For the first time, she’s acting without thinking, doing the right thing without overanalyzing it.

I know these examples sound a bit over-dramatic, lying here all defenseless and out of context. They may even seem to violate a principle of screenwriting as taught to you by others, in that they essentially tell the reader what to feel. So what? Telling a reader what to feel *is* telling them what to see, because these directions are the equivalent of heroic camera angles and all those filmic tricks. They help a reader understand your story.

And they can have a bit of poetry to them, as well, which gives you a chance to show off your confidence with manipulating prose. And any time you can demonstrate confidence, your perceived competence goes up. Niiiice.

Lunch: focaccia and hummus from California Pizza Kitchen.

Well, well, well. I was doing some housecleaning today, and lookee at what I found. Some of my old spec scripts. My Frasier, my Larry Sanders, and the best of my three Star Trek:TNG scripts. The Trek spec is dated January 15, 1991. Yikes! Can that be right? Holy cow.

Looking through the Trek (titled “Ruling Passions”), I was both gratified and horrified. The dialogue is pretty good, with some humor that made me chuckle, although the lines are way too long. And the ideas are solid — the concept of the episode works. But the script is so darn talky!!

Which leads us to the main problem. (Drumroll…) Nothing happens! The A story is about Data the android being given a guided tour through a set of emotion-building exercises by a hologram of the man who created him. Fun, but full of theorizing about emotions and neural pathways and the role of irrationality in evolution. A story this internal and analytical needs to be put together with an action-packed B story to provide the thrills and chills.

The B story is about Captain Picard and the other bridge officers trying to extract a stranded Vulcan scientist from a small battle-damaged research vessel. They talk, and puzzle, and futz around with this and that, until they finally succeed in beaming the entire small ship into the cargo bay, where it is revealed that it was in fact a disguised Romulan warship! Pretty exciting no? Pretty exciting yes, except that this happens on page 43!! In the middle of an act! The only surprising event in the whole story, and I didn’t even get an act break out of it.

This happened because I did not adequately outline my story. I didn’t have a developed sense, yet, of how many pages it would take to cover the events I had picked. So I wrote things too long in the front part of the script, and rushed them in the back part, and simply popped the act breaks in where the page numbers dictated them. Oh, I blush to think of it.

This would all have been avoided if I had studied produced episodes with more care. I should’ve converted produced episodes back into an approximation of their original outlines. Then I could have made sure my outline had the same amount of “event,” spread out over the same number of scenes.

The bright side is, this script was good enough that I got that magic phone call from Trek that started my career. So as bad as this spec was, structurally, there must’ve been plenty that were worse. Which leaves you, gentle readers, with two options: work hard to perfect your specs, or gamble on the incompetence of others.

Or both. There’s nothing wrong with doing both!

Lunch: A BLT from Johnny Rockets and a chocolate coke. (For our Croatian readers, that’s a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, a traditional and beloved combination. It’s like meat-salad on toast!)

A fellow named Steve from Nantucket… sent me a letter recently. He makes a very good point about writing. It is hard, as I have pointed out, to begin a television-writing career if you are either mature in years or distant in geography. But Steve reminds me that there are other kinds of writing. Prose, for example: novels, articles, short stories, non-fiction books of all kinds. It’s an excellent point. And I should tell you that I meet people all the time who mention that they read my blog, even though they are writers of other types. They claim that they can find things in my discussions of script writing that resonate with their very different pursuit. If this is the case, then I’m thrilled and I pat myself on the back so vigorously I risk harm to my elbow.

So, for those of you who are simply not positioned for tv writing, welcome to the table, pull out a computer, and, please, write whatever shakes your tree! I’ve had a few (mostly Buffy-related) short stories published, so maybe I’ll even tell a few stories about my own experiences writing prose. (First observation: It’s hard. Right away, there are so many choices! First person? Present tense? I’m not used to having to make those decisions!)

Another great letter also arrived recently, from Branko in Croatia! Don’t you love that?! He points out something I hadn’t consciously noticed, which is the tendency of aspiring television writers to get hyper-critical about television. Good point. This does happen. In order to acquire tv-writing skills, you have to start applying critical thinking to those shows you want to emulate. And the side effect of critical thinking is that you start thinking critically. You notice things: Hey! That important event happened off-screen! Hey! That moment sold out that character! Hey! That act break didn’t leave me wanting more!

Keeping Steve’s letter in mind, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the same thing happens to writers of other kinds as well.

For all the young writer/gripers out there, I just have to caution you that a negative attitude can seep into your spec and be detectable there. And it might seep into your other interactions, too. I once — years ago — got a letter from an aspiring writer who wanted advice, but who also pointed out that he didn’t think it could be very hard to write an episode of something like “Yes, Dear.” Hmm. In fact, it is hard to write an episode of “Yes, Dear.” Sit down and try it.

The truth, of course, is that our ability to detect flaws is far stronger than our ability to avoid producing flawed product. So gripe if you will, but avoid feeling superior until you’ve got that shiny sparkly spec script finished. It’s harder than it looks.

Branko also asks for more detail in the lunch descriptions. I think the “butter lettuce salad” conjured up some slippery images. Butter lettuce is a kind of lettuce with a lovely soft leaf, not a two-ingredient melange. So this one’s for you, Branko:

Lunch: In-n-Out burger, animal style! (This is a burger from a very prestigious burger place, prepared with grilled onions and a tasty sauce.) Mmm!

P.S. A hearty wave and thank you also to Margaret from LA, who also sent a great letter! She wasn’t able to come hear me speak at a local bookstore a few years back — don’t worry, Margaret! I don’t recall saying anything especially good. Besides, there were visible traces of some kind of missle test in the sky that night, which make the sky look like it was literally ripping open. Some people were understandably distracted by what appeared to be an impending apocalypse.

Hi all! I’m visiting my parents and their new puppy this weekend. While Zia the Tiny Fuzzy Bundle slept, we ended up watching two episodes of a British sitcom called “My Hero,” on BBC America. I hadn’t seen the show before, and it was quite by chance that the first episode that was on tonight was the series pilot. The second episode was clearly from a later season. I’m guessing from the hair length of the lead female that it was perhaps two years later.

The show is about a relationship between a normal woman and a superhero. Already I’m smiling. The pilot was nice. Superhero approaches woman and woos her in his goofy naive non-hero guise, charming her, winning her. Then, he loses her when his Superheroism is revealed, and has to convince her that he’s not as “super” as she fears. Simple, sweet, romantic, silly. And it was about something; about recognizing the person you’re meant to be with no matter what the obstacles are. Not Earth-shaking news, but it was relatable as a metaphorical mismatched relationship.

But the later episode was a mess! They’re married now, and have a freaky talking baby that needs to eat more vegetables, so Super-dad brings him alien radioactive veggies, which makes Wife think he’s not concerned enough about the environment, which leads Superdad to enter into wacky proenvironment activities, which all backfire on him until he, out of desperation, is led to move the planet farther from the sun, thereby eliminating global warming. (I know, I know. We shan’t even discuss the science of that.) And that’s not even bringing the B stories into it! Yikes! It felt like there wasn’t an outline, like the writers simply jumped from joke to joke, from scene to scene, without a sense of telling a coherent story. Imagine a chain, zigging or zagging with every link. That’s what the structure felt like. What were the writers saying about environmentalism, the force of public opinion, or the loyalty and support of a spouse? These were all touched on. Picked up, held into the light, and then put back down as the chain linked off in a new direction.

I suspect it wasn’t the writers’ fault. Time pressures, notes, rewrites, and the inevitable empty story well that you can fall into on a show with this kind of premise… I sense all of these were at work. However, as the writer of a spec script, you don’t have those excuses.

When you come up with a story for your spec, try very hard to contain it. Make it about something. Don’t make it about nothing. Don’t make it about everything.

When you describe the story of your spec, try to come up with a single, complete sentence that says what it’s about. A single sentence to ensure simplicity. A complete sentence to ensure coherence. It’ll keep you out of the chain gang.

Lunch: chicken salad sandwich with cranberries mixed in. A nice surprise!

My parents got a new puppy this week. She’s a teeny baby Bichon Frise whom they have named Zia. Can you believe these are the same people who came up with “Jane”? I suspect I’d’ve had a different life if I was named Zia Espenson. Not better, but different. Names can be like pins that attach us to our lives.

Or, sometimes, they make things realer. When nothing got named “zero,” people started thinking about numbers in a different way. Nothing became something.

A similar interesting thing happens when you’re breaking a story and you give a name to each act of your script. I find it to be totally helpful. At the very least, it makes you more aware of the overall shape of the story. Here’s an example of how you might label the acts of a spec script.

ACT ONE: The building storm
ACT TWO: Self-deception adds to the trouble
ACT THREE: We strike back
ACT FOUR: Double-cross!
ACT FIVE: We win!

Or whatever. These are for demonstration purposes only.

Label the acts with whatever you feel best describes the thrust of the story in that act. I find that once I’ve settled on these names, I’m far better able to tell if a given scene is doing what I need it to do. If I have to let go of one of these guide ropes to reach for a scene, then I know I’m in danger of losing my way.

Lunch: a nice tongue sandwich. Loosen up! Try it!

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