JaneEspenson.com

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.

“Espenson” is a tricky name. People don’t know how to pronounce it. They either stress the middle syllable (instead of the first), or they say “Epsenson” which is unpleasant to the ear and the mouth. If I were reading a novel and a character had such a stopper of a name, I would hesitate, unsure of how I was supposed to imagine it being pronounced. I remember reading The Color Purple and being bothered by the first occurrence of the name “Shug” — was it intended to rhyme with “shrug,” as the spelling would suggest, or was it supposed to represent the first syllable of “sugar”? I figured it out, but still, there was a moment of disconnect.

Your spec script isn’t centered around a guest character, but it is likely to have some guests in it nonetheless. You’re going to get to name these characters. Keep in mind that you’re constructing a very strange document: a script which is not intended to be performed, but simply read to oneself. If your script were being produced, you could name a character “Espenson” — as my friends at Boston Legal did this season to my giggling delight. Since it was heard by the audience, not read, no one was troubled by the pronunciation issues except the poor actors. So even if you promised to name a character after your Aunt Cacille — well, maybe not.

Another thing to look out for is a character name that looks too much like another character name. A guest character in a Buffy episode was originally named Harper. Then we realized that Harmony was in the same episode. So Harper became Parker. The two “Har-” names would’ve looked confusing on the whiteboard as we broke the episode. And if this had been a spec script, destined to be read and not said, it might have been confusing on the page as well.

Similarly, I wrote a “Jake” episode this season featuring a guest character named “Jordan.” I needed her name to be the name of a country for a certain joke I had my heart set on. So I decided I could live with the two J-names. But it only took one day in the rewrite room before her name became Lindsay. The Js just made the page too hard to look at as we were working with it, and we anticipated confusion at the table read as well. Even this far into my career, I’m trying to learn some of these lessons. (By the way, the bigger lesson here is to never compromise anything for the sake of one joke you have your heart set on.)

A tiny technical point: Avoiding two characters with names that start with the same first letter will also save you some frustration as you work in Final Draft. It’ll keep Smart Type from continually offering you the option of both names as you’re trying to swiftly capture a run of dialogue.

Back by Popular Demand! Lunch: A selection of Australian crackers and candy given to me as a gift by my Aussie friend Jono. Especially good: Jaffas (“choc-orange in a crisp shell”)!

We’re talking about novelty specs. Those comically oversized eyeglasses you get in gift stores. Hee! Also, that’s how I’m referring to any non-standard spec script. The examples we’ve been talking about are specs written for shows not currently on the air. I contacted showrunner friends about this.

So, Tim Minear (Angel, Wonderfalls, The Inside), what do you think of novelty specs? Like, say, a brand spankin’ new Bonanza?

Tim: “It’s so funny you would ask this — I did a seminar at the screenwriting expo and when asked about specs I said write an I Love Lucy. Maybe even a dark hour version. I’d sure read that! But not Bonanza. No, no. Classic Trek, sure! An old Night Stalker? Okay! Alias Smith and Jones, even! But not Bonanza.”

Notice that Tim went right away to the postmodern version of the novelty spec. It really does seem to be the only version worth considering. It’s the dangerous option that Joss spoke of above — I mean, below. You know, in the previous post. This kind of spec is difficult. It’s risky. But…

Big risk, big possible payoff. Here’s a story as related by show-runner Jeff Greenstein (Will and Grace, Jake in Progress).

Jeff: “I once hired a young writer based on a spec That Girl, a very cleverly written script that boasted what was possibly the best cold open I’ve ever seen in a half-hour comedy. We open in a grim, squalid whorehouse in a bad part of New York City. A fourteen-year-old punk is doing shots at the bar as the madam shows him one filthy crack whore after another, and the kid just keeps turning them down: “No. Nope. Nah.”

Meanwhile, over at the front door, an anxious-looking Anne Marie enters and looks cautiously around. She turns to the bouncer. “Hi,” she says brightly. “I’m here for my audition.” (then, looking around uneasily) “Um… is this 336 West 86th Street?” “No, Sissy,” grunts the bouncer. “This is 336 East 86th Street.”

At that moment, the punk spots Anne Marie across the room and levels a finger at her. Turning to the madam, he barks, “I want… THAT GIRL!!”

CUT TO: Main titles.

Really, really funny script. I met the writer and hired her on the spot.”

Jane here again. With a little story of my own. I once read a spec Caroline in the City in which a sexually-transmitted ass-rash was passed from character to character throughout the script. It’s the only spec I ever kept. It’s in a cabinet in my home right now. If I were in a position to hire writers, I would want to meet that writer.

If you do it well, a novelty spec can get you noticed. It will certainly get you read. ALL the showrunners said they’d reach for something, anything, different. But if you do it poorly, if it’s unclear, crude (the ass-rash was walking a very fine line), unfunny, if it doesn’t demonstrate your skills, it can burn you bad. Because if you guaranteed that someone will remember your name… make sure you want them to remember your name.

So what’s a writer to do? Next entry, we’ll sum it all up.

Hi. I have received a special request (from friend-of-the-blog Maggie) to talk about what I call “novelty specs.” What I’m referring to are specs written for shows not currently on the air. For example, a spec I Love Lucy or Mary Tyler Moore Show or Taxi or Dragnet or Hill Street Blues. The first thing to note, is that these cannot be used to apply for the ABC Writers’ Fellowship. Their rules clearly state that your spec has to be for a show currently on the air. But the fellowship isn’t the only fish in the supermarket. Specs are also used to get actual writing jobs.

I have yet to be in the position of reading spec scripts with an eye to hiring a writing staff. But a lot of people whom I know have done exactly that. So I sent out an email to a selection of show-runner types, asking for their opinion of novelty specs. Their answers were so interesting and thought-provoking that this is going to be a multi-posting discussion. It’s just so fun!

First up, (ta-da!) Joss Whedon! Joss, what’s your opinion on novelty specs?

Joss: “The problem is, no matter how good the show might have been, it’s bound to be a bit archaic in its dialogue (and possibly subject) which leads to the question: is this person just aping an era that’s over, or are they writing a postmodern reaction to their perception of what that show (and era) was like? The first is just a stunt, and the second could be interesting but requires explanation. Most show-runners don’t have time for explanations. So while it’s always fun to read something that’s not what everyone else is writing, this scenario is dangerous for anyone who’s not damn sure of themselves.”

It’s crucial to understand the two approaches that he’s talking about. Suppose you decide to write a Mary Tyler Moore Show episode. You could write a sort of “lost episode” (this is the “stunt” option). The story could be something like, “Mary and Lou temporarily change jobs, creating a hilarious shift in power in the newsroom.” Or maybe something better. That was off the top of my head. The point is, this is an episode the original staff COULD have done, but did not (unless they did and I missed it). This would demonstrate your abilities, but not in as relevant a way as if you’d just done the same thing for a contemporary show.

It’s the second option that makes things interesting. The postmodern option. It’s not for the faint of brain. It’s a risk. It’s a challenge. It is, as Joss points out, “dangerous.” And even if you pull it off, it couldn’t be your primary spec. And yet… mmm… there is allure.

Maybe you’re wondering what such an effort would even look like. You will find out in my next blog entry, which will have other show-runner insights and which will contain a description of a scene from a very dirty spec episode of “That Girl.” You know you don’t want to miss that.

Lunch: a veggie burger. Not bad. It wasn’t trying to pretend to be meat. It was doing its own thing.

I had dinner with fellow ex-Buffy Doug Petrie last week at a popular Beverly Hills steak house. So much butter! From where I was sitting, I had a view of an aging woman with piles of jet black hair held back by an exotic-fur hair accessory that framed a taut face with dramatic eye-liner and shocking plump glossy red lips and a beauty-mark as big as a toenail. The effect landed somewhere between Cruella De Vil and Cruella De Vil’s mother.

Again, this is relevant to the topic at hand. I was talking about the problem of writing spec scripts for a show with arcs in it. A lot of writers who are just starting out worry, more than they need to, about trying to keep their spec scripts totally up-to-date. And there’s an approach they sometimes take that I didn’t talk about yesterday.

Here’s the trick I’m talking about. Sometimes writers will make an effort to keep their spec fresh by making frequent changes to it. After each new episode of their show airs, they adjust their spec to reflect what just happened. That way, whenever they get an agent to agree to read it, it’ll smell like a freshly-picked flower. This is trick I used myself, by the way, early on.

But there’s a problem. Sure, a script that looks fresh is a plus. But reaching for freshness quickly puts you into the land of diminishing returns. Eventually the script will suffer from the repeated intrusions. You’re sticking things into it that aren’t organic. And it’s often not as seamless as you think. One line added to a scene usually looks very much like one line added to a scene.

It’s better to let a spec show a few of the signs of aging than to keep fattening its lips and lifting its keister until even you can’t recognize it anymore.

P.S. More lovely letters! A huge Thank You to Ingrid in Germany and Leona in Alabama!

Lunch: a fairly nasty egg-salad sandwich from a gas station and a Kinder Bueno candy bar. Transcendant!

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