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A blog letter just arrived in one of those little packets you get from the post office when their equipment mangles a letter. This envelope inside is missing about a third of itself, resulting in a letter that’s missing its corners, although not in that cool Battlestar Galactica way. Luckily for Gentle Reader Maryanne in [town name torn away], Australia, very little of the actual content of the letter was obscured.

Maryanne writes to ask:

Obviously, costumes are chosen by costume designers, rather than writers. But if the costume is actually mentioned in the script (like, for example, Riley’s “clown pants” in The Yoko Factor.), how much specific description would the writer give in [word torn away, assume “the”] script?

Well, I don’t have a copy of Doug’s script for The Yoko Factor. I’ve found one on line, but I can’t tell if it’s the actual script or a transcript. At any rate, the line of stage description that I found reads: “Riley pulls a pair of hideous multi-colored weight lifter pants from the knapsack,” which sounds about right. That’s the degree of detail you’d generally give.

Wardrobe description, by the way, was something I found very confusing as I set out to write my very first scripts. I knew that clothing was part of what defined characters, but once I started describing the characters clothes, I felt like I needed to do it for every scene in order to be consistent. So I went overboard. I recently read a script by a new writer who had clearly fallen into the same line of thought, telling the reader what everyone was wearing in every scene. That’s not only unnecessary, but it’s distracting, since it makes the reader think that these details are going to be important, raising expectations that don’t pay off.

Mention clothes when you first introduce someone, if it’s important to the character (“She’s the sort of young woman who insists on dressing like a teen-aged boy, right now in tennis shoes, jeans and a hoodie.”), and when something significant is happening with the clothes (“His suit is rumpled and a pair of women’s underwear dangles from his pocket.”), and when they help define a supporting character (“Men in white coats enter through both doors simultaneously.”)

Beyond that, if you assume your characters are dressed appropriately, given their characters and their surroundings, your readers will assume the same and it’ll be fine to leave everything unspecified.

And if, like Riley’s pants, you need to describe some oddity, do it clearly and succinctly, and don’t feel like you can’t convey an attitude about it, as “hideous” does in the example.

Hope that helps, Maryanne from mystery town!

Lunch: cup o’ noodles, fig newtons

I love it when people write in with concerns I never would’ve thought of. We all know the frustration of having some question that everyone else seems to know the answer to, so it’s never even discussed in the books.

Gentle Reader Carrie writes in with one of those questions. She asks:

After reading about copyrights regarding song lyrics not long ago, I got to wondering if there might be any copyrights associated with place names? For instance, let’s say San Francisco. Is there process I would need to go through to use a certain place in a script, or would it be okay to just plunk a story down in the middle of any given town?

Plunk! Plunk away! You can set your show anywhere you want, without fear of legal problems. From San Francisco to the Pope’s bedroom, you can use it all without fear.

Your main concern about setting should have to do with (imaginary, for a spec script) shooting expense. I mean that if you had a big exterior shot in which your actors have to interact with some big iconic piece of the landscape that cannot be recreated on a soundstage, that you might have a problem. For example, if your script called for your hero to blast through the canals of Venice on a jet ski, well, that sounds a bit pricey and it might be off-putting to a reader looking to see if you can write to a TV-sized budget.

The only other setting problem I can think of regarding locations is that U.S. network television has been traditionally wary of shows set overseas, but I’m not sure that should stop you from writing a London-set spec pilot (or wherever), if you’ve got a seriously brilliant idea. Just be aware of the bias because, again, it might, might, make a reader peg you as unsophisticated in terms of the preferences of the market.

Lunch: avocado, lettuce, tomato on olive bread. Too much mayo, but good.

Friend-of-the-Blog Jeff sent me this link which I’m delighted to find references not only an interesting script style, but also a couple mentions of moi-self. Heh!

The issue is the use of earthy expletives in the non-dialog portions of your script. Apparently this is done with frequency and enthusiasm over at Lost. There is some talk in the referenced piece about whether or not this is a good thing. Someone speculates there that I might not approve. Well, it depends. I like a script to have force and energy and enthusiasm. I dislike scripts that read like gas grill assembly instructions. And these certainly look like scripts with verve. If I were on that staff, I think I’d probably have fun varying my style by tossing in a few zesty words.

Friend-of-the-blog Jeff raises the even more important issue, however. What if you’re writing a Lost spec? Should you follow the general rule of making it look like a produced script, and thus “fuck” if all up? Or should you avoid the dirty talk?

My inclination is to either refrain, or to split the difference. If you’re comfortable doing so, you can certainly write your stage directions with rather more punch than you might otherwise do, perhaps even get profane here and there. But be very careful about going overboard, because while there is little cost to avoiding the profanity, there might be a big one to overdoing it. And I’m not talking about easily offended readers. I don’t think that’s the hazard. I’m talking about coming across as flippant about the contents of your own script.

Joss never liked it when Buffy was referred to as “camp,” because that word suggests a style that doesn’t take its characters seriously, and we always took our characters very seriously. Similarly, you don’t want to seem to be making fun of all the people and actions in your spec script, and if you think about how a script with flip and exaggerated stage directions might read, I think you’ll see how it could easily give that impression.

Lunch: those darn stuffed jalapenos at Jack In The Box again. I can’t stay away!

Someone reminded me, yesterday, of this moment from “The African Queen.” My recollection was that there was a moment in which, even in a tense situation, Katharine Hepburn’s character was charmingly concerned about having possibly used the wrong word. Just now I looked up the relevant exchange.

They’re talking about repairing a broken boat part — about how to reattach it after it’s fixed.

He laughs again. At first, Rose is afraid that his laugh is
caused by desperation, but when she sees that it is not, she
laughs with him.

This is an amazing example of sneaking character moments into plot moments. This is my favorite kind of writing in the world. They’re focused on finding a solution to their problem. Really, really focused, and yet look at all the character stuff — first, it says something about her that she misses the irony, and then there’s more character because she’s embarrassed about having possibly used the wrong word, and EVEN MORE about her that she thinks the two of them can attempt a solution on such a large scale. On his side, we get to see, first, his ironic inclination, and then his reaction to all those quirks of hers that I just mentioned. My god, this is dense. (Also note the wonderfully specific stage direction at the end. Perfect.)

Analyzing it that way makes it look impossible to write, I know. But it’s not. Just always think, even when you’ve got characters frantically pushing through the moves of your story… always think about what they’re really thinking and feeling, especially about the other characters in the scene, and let them express it in some little way. Are they nervous or confident? Who feels subservient to whom? Is someone playing dumb, being coy, or trying to impress? If you let those considerations come out in how they talk, you’re going to end up with lovely dense character-rich exchanges even when the plot is galloping along.

Lunch: chicken quesadilla

Guess what happened in the room today? The nature of the episode we were breaking caused someone to say, “Hey, you know what we should do? Go back and look at the show bible!” So, well, there you go. Sometimes it really is used in the room. How ’bout that?

Lunch: grilled cheese sandwich, tomato soup.

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