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Oh my. April already? By the way, have no concerns that there might be an April Fools prank here. I don’t roll that way.

Instead, I’m going to promote the annual April event, Script Frenzy! I recommend this event. Note that it’s not a writing contest, exactly, but more of a motivational framework that helps you write one hundred pages in thirty days.

If I were an aspiring writer, as many of you are, I would use this as an opportunity to write two spec pilots. (Or perhaps write one and then thoroughly rewrite it.) Often the hardest part of writing is the pushing-through of it. Don’t skip structure, of course, but often getting that first words-on-paper draft completed is the way to break through that writing bottleneck.

Go, check it out, and start writing!

Lunch: they had an omelet bar in the cafeteria today, but really, they were more like scrambles. It was okay.

Buy yourself a gift! G’wan, you know you deserve it. Here’s what I recommend. It’s a fabulous book called PANEL ONE: Comic Book Scripts by Top Writers, edited by Nat Gertler. I received it in my blog mail, along with a gracious letter from Nat himself.

In the letter, Nat supplies a nice addendum/clarification to my recent post on comic book script writing:

One thing that I’ll note is that you don’t always have to call the angle of the shot. Call the setting, call the action, yes. But calling the shot every time is setting aside one of the comic writer’s most useful tools: the artist. Always have a shot in mind — it’s the only way you can be sure that there is something that works. But only call the shot when you have a real specific vision, a specific effect that you’re trying to build toward. Otherwise, work with good artistic storytellers and let them do what they do well. Call the angle every time, and you’re apt to bore the artist, and the work shall suffer.

Great advice, and also, nice use of “shall”. We don’t get a lot of “shall” ’round these parts.

The book itself is fantastic, containing actual scripts presented in their purest form. Even if you’re not a comic book person, you’ll learn a lot and be entertained. In fact, it’s possible you may be MORE entertained by the script than the resulting comics, if you’re more of a word person than a picture person, and if you’re fascinated by process. There’s a lovely feeling of peeking backstage that you get with these scripts.

The first thing you’ll notice is that thing I told you about how the scripts can vary in the way they convey the content. Boy, do they ever. Some are dense blocks of prose, some are actual story-boards, most have some resemblance to other kinds of scripts, but with extreme variations in format. It makes me wonder what television and movie scripts would look like if they hadn’t been unified into one fairly uniform (although flexible) format. Even the font varies! Courier has been shed like an old school uniform. Wild.

Here’s a random sample of what you’ll get, from a Neil Gaiman script:

Page 6 panel 4

cap: Gwen sings, from time to time.

Mmm. Fantastic.

Lunch: leftover thai food. Roast pork just tossed into the same skillet with the papaya salad and reheated together. Can’t be beat.

A Friend of the Blog called me yesterday because she’d been given a note on a spec pilot that she’d written and it seemed strange to her. The note was to adjust her act breaks so that they all focused on the lead character. She’d heard notes before about breaking acts on story turns, but never about breaking them on a certain character. She wondered if she was getting bad advice.

She was right to ask the question. Any time a note feels like a formula is being applied to your script (“You should ALWAYS…”), you’re right to step back and ask if this is the blind application of some abstract rule instead of something that actually will work for your script. But, in fact, I think the note was probably a good one.

I wrote recently about the importance, especially in a spec pilot in which your readers are trying to grasp a lot of new things all at once, of making sure that every reader knows who the protagonist of your story is. Besides, the protagonist’s reactions during the developments in the story ARE the story. Since the act breaks are your story turns, they are the biggest opportunity to accomplish this.

Here’s an example. Let’s say your big act break involves a secondary character revealing a big secret to a huge audience that contains the protagonist. What’s the last line of text before the FADE OUT at the end of the act? It could be, “On the speaker’s face, knowing his political career is over, we…” or “On the crowd, gasping in surprise, we…”. But it’s probably better if it’s, “Among the crowd we find our hero. His jaw clenches as he realizes that this changes everything.” Or, you know, something in that area.

Of course, there are exceptions. Maybe your act break scene is a reveal that your protagonist is being betrayed by his best friend, and the protag isn’t even in the scene. If you remain convinced that you’ve got the act break in the right place, you don’t need to agonize over the fact that we’re not close on his big glorious face when you head into the commercial break. Never panic if your script doesn’t fit every guideline. But given the choice, if you’ve got a character that you want the audience to hook into… hook into them early and often.

Lunch: hummus on a tortilla with shredded parm cheese on top. Impromptu and fabulous.

Oh, such a wonderful letter today, from Cristobal in Puerto Rico! Isn’t that cool? He’s absolutely fired with determination to be a television writer. Well, that’s an excellent first step and I’m wishing you all the luck in the world.

Cristobal asks about the amount of latitude that a writer on the staff of a show gets… “when assigned to plot out the beats of a certain story arc. [As in…] how much of what happens is theirs and how much is the showrunner’s?”

A great question without a great answer. It depends a great deal on the culture and methods of the particular show.

On most shows this is the work that is usually done as a group by the whole staff. On some shows it’s done on a more individual basis, but even then the writer isn’t entirely on their own. They work with the showrunner and can ask for help from other writers on the staff.

As to how much of the story that results from this process is “theirs,” well anywhere from all to none. Some shows, for a variety of reasons, are made up of episodes that fall from the brains of their creators and the staff finds itself having the job of helping midwife the ideas. Other shows are more collaborative, a great meeting of cooks around a cauldron. Interestingly, there need be no difference in quality between these two approaches. And even more interestingly, you may discover you don’t even have a preference as to which kind of show you find yourself on. Both have their joys.

I think you’re getting the message that TV is a really collaborative medium. Every now and then some writer on a staff may pitch their own story that is so perfectly crafted that they get to write it exactly as they imagined it, but that would be rare. And then, of course, in both features and television, there are more voices, generally from executives, that have influence over the story.

I think you’ll find that the collaboration is a good thing. Being surrounded by experience and talent doesn’t dim your own star, it actually makes it brighter.

Lunch: some kind of chopped salad. Remarkably slippery, wouldn’t stay on the utensil.

This is going to be a messy post, I can tell. No theme, no arc. Ah, well.

First: I’m looking at a letter sent to be on behalf of something called Zhura, which is billed as “a new online screenwriting tool.” The idea seems to be that you can write in professional script formats without paying for Final Draft. I have no idea if it works (everyone I know already has Final Draft), but if you’ve been saving your pennies to buy screenwriting software, you can check it out and find out if it works! (It’s at Zhura.com.)

Second: Thanks to Gentle Reader Lila who kept me company on the picket line and who writes thank me for the invitations I issued for aspiring writers to come out and walk with us. Thank you, Lila and everyone else!

Similarly, Matt in England, who is starting what sounds like a rip-snortin’ comedy career over there, writes to thank the blog for guidance in writing a comedy spec script. You’re welcome, Matt! I’m thrilled to hear I helped!

Finally, I’ve been meaning to thank some Gentle Readers for some gifts. Lilia, thank you very much. Also, I have received several interesting books. One of them is at home and I have forgotten the name of the G.R. who sent it, so I’ll add that here when I get a chance. The other is a fine book called “Comedy by the Numbers,” by Eric Hoffman and Gary Rudoren. There is a lot to love in this book, but my favorite bit so far is a list of “Novelty Items That Never Caught On,” which includes, “never-light emergency flares,” “sexy edible shoe insoles” and my all-time favorite, “vomit bikini.” Hee! Vomit bikini. In a way, these items work a bit like that joke we’ve been discussing, in which only part of a story is overheard. Like those story fragments, these items force the listener to construct a whole scenario in which these items are a sensible part. Interesting.

Lunch: avocado, lettuce and tomato sandwich. I’m more and more convinced you don’t really need the bacon.

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