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Gentle Reader Julie in New Jersey writes in to ask about show bibles. She wants to know how they’re organized, what exactly is in them, whether they’re ever published for the general public, whether they’re updated as the show continues, etc. These are all great questions.

My impression is that this varies. Not all shows have bibles, and when they do, they can look very different. There is no standard format. In fact, there is no standard function.

Once, years ago, I got my hand on a copy of the “Frasier” show bible, and it was a wonderful and meticulous document that was scrupulously maintained to reflect everything known about the characters and their history. If something was established on air — the name of Frasier’s mother, Niles’ favorite professor, Martin’s favorite bar, it was reflected in the bible which then served as a resource for the writers to keep everything consistent. I remember with particular delight a list of Maris’ food allergies that must have been fifty items long.

That’s the only bible I’ve seen that worked that way, though. (It may be a half-hour vs. hour distinction.) The other ones I’ve come across (and there have only been a couple) have generally been sales documents used to help a television network or studio understand a new show, and are sometimes given to new writers as they join the staff, for the same reason. They discuss the characters, especially their back stories, and the world of the show. In the sales document version, essentially a much-expanded pitch, there may be a discussion of plot lines projected into the future of the show, perhaps in the “season one will be about…” form. But since shows often take off in unexpected directions, this kind of feature is quickly outdated and irrelevant. It’s possible that a bible may contain some firecracker of information about the way the creator envisions the eventual end of the series, but since everything is subject to change, that firecracker may be a dud. Especially if the fuse was lit many years earlier.

I haven’t seen this kind of bible get updated as a show continues. This means that they often contain information about the characters or their world that has been changed by subsequent scripts and is no longer valid.

Often, shows rely on their writers’ assistants or script coordinators to be walking bibles, in that they’re often tasked with remembering or researching questions like, “What did we name our lead character’s childhood pet hamster?” or “How much time passed between episodes two and three?”

Julie asks if show bibles contain “rules” for how that particular series’ universe operates. Yes, this is one of the things a bible can contain. I haven’t looked at it for a while, but I remember that the Battlestar bible has lots of detailed explanation for how the ship itself operates, including the function of various features of the hangar deck, and a discussion of the technical language used by the pilots, and even a neat little essay on why it’s not plausible for anyone to abscond with a viper.

As you’ve probably gathered, show bibles sound really cool — and they can be — but they just aren’t as important as you might think to the daily life of the staff. The truth is that once you’re living inside a show, you’re swimming as fast as you can from one island to the next, and there is neither the time nor the need to record decisions that have been made (these are in the scripts), or that are in the process of being made (these are in the notes taken in the room as the writers work).

I don’t know for certain of any show bibles that have been published the way that scripts are sometimes collected and published. If anyone has done this, it would probably be one of the Trek series. Let me run to Amazon… Yes, it looks like a version of the Voyager bible is included in the “Star Trek Voyager Companion.” You might want to look at that, Julie and other interested parties, to run your eyes across one of these in the flesh.

If I receive any emails from my friends on various shows saying that what I’ve written here doesn’t reflect the role of a bible on their show, I will let you know.

Lunch: avocado, lettuce and tomato on olive bread. The olive bread tends to dominate.

Recently, I was watching an old re-run episode of a series that I rather like, when a character said– okay, let me set it up for you. Imagine a detective, holding something. I think was an old book of mug shots. Let’s say it was. He carries it into the interrogation room where the suspect is pleading ignorance of some crime. And our detective says… no really, I swear, he says,

But, but… but walking down memory lane already means– Oh my. Try saying it out loud. Try emphasizing different words. It doesn’t get any better, does it? It’s a bad line. Well, actually, it could be a great line in the right context, if you specifically wanted to suggest a self-important but unintelligent character. I’ve talked before about incorporating awkwardly repeated words for precisely that effect. But that’s not what’s going on here.

I actually suspect that this might’ve been a case of a problem born on the stage, not in the script. Sometimes things change during the shoot and a line ends up being hastily re-written, or perhaps even mis-remembered by an actor. And then something like this can happen. This line has that kind of “place holder” feel to it, like the intended line would be in that semantic area, just not involving the odd redundancy.

You don’t have to worry about that kind of stage-born problem in a spec script, but you do have to make sure that lines like this one don’t make it onto the page. Sometimes a line like this gets through because you yourself wrote it as a place holder and then forgot to fix it, or because the moment is so inconsequential that you never really looked at what you wrote to make sure it made sense. Keep an eye out. If a line seemed to write itself because you’ve heard similar lines a million times, it’s probably worth reviewing for several reasons: if it isn’t holding your interest as you write it, it probably won’t interest the reader either. And at worst, it might be nonsense.

Lunch: chinese chicken salad.

When is a clam born? How many times do you need to have heard a joke before it becomes too familiar to be used? I’ve thought of this question a couple times recently. Once was after I wrote my post of April First in which I jokingly used the phrase “I don’t roll that way.” Hmm… there’s almost certainly a whiff of clamminess there. I’ve heard people saying that a lot recently, and it’s always in quotes, never a genuine use of the phrase. That’s a bad sign, when the genuine uses disappear.

But what about this one? The other night, Stephen Colbert referred to his new Peabody Award as “…the turducken of awards,” because it’s “…like an Oscar wrapped in an Emmy inside a Pulitzer”. The word “turducken” immediately set off my clamometer. There was a time when no sitcom Thanksgiving episode was ready to air until a turducken joke had been included. But this metaphorical usage? What of that?

I did a quick search for “the turducken of” and found references to “the turducken of cycling,” “the turducken of monsters,” “the turducken of flea markets,” of cheese and politics and spy gadgetry and air travel. But the results were in the hundreds, not the thousands. And many of them referred specifically to Colbert’s usage. My verdict: not a clam. Not yet.

In fact, this specific trick, taking something hilarious that’s been overused in its literal sense, and retricking it out in a metaphorical sense, may be an excellent device for reviving worn-out jokes. Sure, the Thigh-master is a dead joke. But if a character was relating seeing an older woman “working the pool boy like he was a Thigh-master,” well then, ahem… that might be new territory.

You’re generally better off with references that are fresh all the way through, but if your perfect metaphorical reference is to something slightly less-than-fresh, you might just get away with it anyway.

A quick note to Gentle Reader Samiva — I got your note and I hope you found my recent posts about comic book scripts helpful!

Lunch: bean and cheese burrito from Poquito Mas. Doused with a combo of Red Rooster and Green Tabasco hot sauces. Spicy!

Have you given any thought to your writing style? Sometimes script writing teachers can give you the impression that a good script is as styleless as a blueprint, purposefully bearing no mark of an author in order to be an impartial conduit of what-the-viewer-will-see-and-hear.

Nonsense! Scripts can have as much style as a novel or short story. Stage directions are nothing less than you, whispering directly into the ear of the reader. That’s your voice. You can choose to be dispassionate and precise, to stay out of the way. Or you can be breezy and whimsical and conversational. Or poetic and evocative. You can choose a style that fits the scene, if you want, toning down the joking asides and turning up your inner Poe when a scene is dark.

Now, here’s the amazing part. You can even employ style when you’re writing for a show that already exists. Even if you’re on staff at that show. One of our Battlestar writers has a distinctive straight-from-the-id style that makes his scripts stand out from the rest of ours. Listen:

“The room is so quiet you could hear the sweat trickle.” That’s from a stage direction. And notice that although it’s got whimsy to it, it’s also incredibly economical. Stylish stage directions don’t have to be long-winded. I could give you a half-dozen examples from the same script with the same degree of conciseness and style. They don’t distract, they enhance.

In general, it’s usually good to try to write like the show runner, but if you’ve got a good light hand and a vibrant style, you should experiment with letting it shine through in your scripts. In fact, you may find that that nagging urge to put voice-over in all your spec pilots will go away, if you let the stage directions serve a bit of that need you feel to talk to the audience.

Lunch: hot dogs (no buns), cucumber salad

I hope you all already read the blog by Amanda The Aspiring TV Writer. In particular, check out this entry and, ooh, this one. This is amazing stuff from INSIDE AN AGENCY. Fantastic. Note that there’s material here that applies directly to the topic we recently discussed about the possibility of contacting agents directly through query letters or submissions.

And those of you debating whether to try to break into the industry in the come-to-Hollywood-and-make-connections way will learn a lot about the nature of that experience by following Amanda’s adventures. I certainly do.

Even though this humble blog tries to focus on the writing process itself, the getting-a-job-process is just as important, and finding resources like Amanda’s blog can be a big help.

Lunch: Get this. The cafeteria was offering a “spinach-strawberry salad” with a very yucky-looking pink dressing. I got them to give me my strawberries on the side, no dressing, and all was wonderful.

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