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Kill your babies!

So there’s this writer who’s trying to break an episode.
He’s spending every waking hours thinking about it.
Suddenly, this brilliant scene comes to mind. And, ‘oh my God!, I finally found a way of putting in that great catchphrase! It fits so perfectly!’
From breaking it, the writer moves on to actually penning the script.
As always, everything continues to evolve. Characters grow, scenes get trimmed, dialogues get sharper.
Except for that one brilliant scene with the great catchphrase. It sticks with the script no matter the context. Even during the rewrite, and despite everyone telling him how problematic the scene is, ‘I can’t bring myself to remove that brilliant scene with that great catchphrase. It’s so iconic, it transcends storytelling, or acts. You don’t get it.’

Sounds familiar?

If that writer were to step back, he’d see how obvious it is that nor the scene or the catchphrase have their place in the script anymore. (And actually they’re not as groundbreaking as he thinks they are)
These words are his babies. And if he’s not willing to kill them now, they’ll kill his work later.

We all have them in our scripts. Great ideas/scenes/lines/characters that were so inspiring at the moment of their creation that we can’t even think about ending their existence. You know the ones.
They have quite literally become our babies, our children. We feed them our excuses for keeping them in the script, even though deep down we know they don’t serve any purpose.
The more you let them hang around, the more you grow attached to them, the less you want to delete them, and the more you let them hang around.

If there’s one lesson from the Lost finale to be had, it’s this one: you need to let go and move on.
Take a harsh look at your script and be ready to make some sacrifices in slashing your words.

So what can you do to ease the pain?
I hate deleting my words as much as the next guy.
Subconsciously (or maybe I’m plain aware of this), I think that if I cut something out of the script, it’s gone forever.
To eliminate the doubt I have a ‘limbo file‘, a separate text document where I cut/paste into it all the stuff I’m removing from the script.
This is certainly not the greatest idea ever. It’s not organized, and actually it’s pretty random. But at the back of my mind, I’m somewhat comforted by the fact that if push comes to shove, I can always find again the things I deleted.
Truth is though, I will never open this file to read back my aborted content, but it does the trick since the words are gone from the finished product.
What this ‘limbo file’ allows me to do is cut the BS, and more importantly move on with the work.

Those kinds of scenes you think are vital but are not were never meant to be permanent.
Yes, even if you can’t consciously realize it.
At best, they were like crutches; supporting your other beats until you found a better solution.
At worst, they were buoys sent by your wondrous mind to keep you afloat and avoid getting script-stuck forever.

As a wise man once said (paraphrase alert): be attached to the meaning of your words, not the words themselves.

Your sentiments are keeping you from growing, evolving, shielding your skin (perplexing imagery, I know).
It is time for you to take a step forward and embrace changes in your script.
After all, we’re talking about a rewrite; and that doesn’t come without a few pains.

So whether you need a ‘limbo file’ or not, do yourself and your work a favor: kill your babies.

Around the comedy spec

I am not a specialist when it comes to comedy specs.
After all, I’m no funny man.
With that said, I did want to shine a light on several very interesting articles that can undoubtedly be helpful to fellow comedy/sitcom speccers out there (and actually everyone else too).

Let’s start with one of the masters of classic sitcom, Chuck Lorre.
He recently did an interview for Esquire entitled ‘How to Make a Successful but Critically Ignored Sitcom.’
Though you might not be interested in creating the next Two and a Half Men, don’t let the title of his article fool you. Chuck Lorre does give some helpful advice that every aspiring sitcom writers should, if not follow, then at least know of.

Over at the [eventual] sitcom writer, Evan has made a must-read in doing an extensive ‘Spec Script Toolkit‘ for not one or two, but three sitcoms (and he’s keeping them coming).
– Community
– Modern Family
– The Big Bang Theory
Pick your poison.
All of them are broken into several parts; namely Homework (Part One), Story & Structure (Part Two), Characters (Part Three), Numbers (Part Four), and I’m guessing other stuff to come.
This reminds me a bit of my Spec Flashpoint series (way back when), only this time for sitcoms, and better.
Currently Community is the farthest along in the breakdown, but Evan is much more awesome than I when it comes to updating his blog. So don’t go far.
And even if you’re not planning to break a sitcom spec, there are tons of things to learn from this process.
This is pretty much the same state of mind you should be in before starting a spec (based on a TV show), that is: research, research, research.
You’re not getting into the head of the writers or the characters if you’re not first trying to find a way inside.

Last but not least, HWAS interviewed writer Ron Rappaport in a piece called ‘From Assistant to Sitcom Creator: Writing for Tweens.’
Who cares about tweens you might say.
Well I always like linking interviews of writers because, whatever their field, you will always learn something new and will always get a piece of life experience. After all, everyone has a different H-Wood experience.

And to borrow Evan’s ‘Lesson learned while writing this blog entry‘:
It is never a bad thing to be open to new things, regardless of your genre of choice. Read, listen and be aware.
What’s the worst that could happen? You learn something new?

Focus on Writing for Genre Television

On Friday evening was a round-table at Meltdown Comics featuring some of the greatest minds behind the best genre TV series currently on the air.
The panel was hosted by Sax Carr & Tim Powers and entitled ‘Writing for Genre Television.’
It was comprised of the following awesome people:
– Amy Berg
– Josh Friedman
– Bob Goodman
– Javier Grillo-Marxuach
– Deric A. Hughes
– Ashley Miller
– Benjamin Rabb
– Laura Valdivia

Since there wasn’t much to do on a Friday afternoon, I decided to come to Meltdown Comics way earlier.
Turns out, that was pretty pointless, though I did buy a couple of comics and graphic novels.
Anyhow, once it was finally time to sit down into the Meltdown Gallery, it quickly became clear that we were going to wait some more as Josh Friedman hadn’t yet arrived.
Fortunately for everyone already present (and especially Javier’s appetite), a deliciously disgusting food truck was present on the scene of the crime.

And once everyone was ready, it was time to shine.
The panel was very fun and informative with a lot of awesome writing advice.
Probably (one of) the greatest and most memorable was undoubtedly Ashley Miller’s three rules every writer should abide to:
1) Write every day.
2) If you can’t write, read.
3) Finish things.

Javier had his own version of these same rules:
1) Write every day.
2) If you can’t write, read.
3) If you can’t read or write, then you’re illiterate.

A few writing debates were raised throughout the night.
The first was about the (non)inclusion of inside jokes into a genre show.
Josh Friedman apparently got mad one day after one of the writers snuck the name of a fan inside a script.
Why?
Constructing a believable genre world takes a lot of time and credibility, which can be instantly ruined by a mere ‘wink’ to the audience. This is tantamount to breaching the fourth wall.
It’s however a totally different thing if the in-jokes are part of the world itself and pop-culture talk is relevant to the characters (the example given was that of two characters talking about red shirts on Warehouse 13).

You are also doing something very wrong if you are stating the obvious in your dialogue.
If someone says either “Listen. Everybody knows that…” or “Now let me get this straight…”, rethink your entire scene. Josh also said the same about someone reading a case-file (therefore listing a person’s background to the audience).

Then came the delicate subject of killing off (regular) characters.
Sax Carr kind of wrongfully used Doyle’s death in Angel as an example of a gutsy move to kill a main cast member so early on in a series. Though that was quickly proven to be a bad choice as Doyle was in reality killed for practical (read: on-set) reasons, not creative ones. The point is that certain decisions made by writers are not always made solely for the sake of the story. They can also be done because of contractual or even personal obligations.
Another on-screen death discussed was Derek Reese being (randomly) killed by a Terminator (in The Sarah Connor Chronicles). In my mind, this still represents one of the greatest and balsiest deaths on a TV series.
If you’ll recall the episode in question, Brian Austin Green’s character was swiftly killed in action by a Terminator. No dramatic music, no smash cut to black, no heroic sacrifice. Just one minute he’s there, and the next he’s gone.
And we move on.
This is exactly why this death is so memorable. As explained by Josh himself, Derek was a soldier, and not all soldier die in the glory of battle. Derek knew he was going to die at some point and he accepted that.
If anything, his death made the world even more real.
Unsurprisingly, this gutsy decision had to be battled for by the writing staff (which even before that had a debate about it amongst themselves, raging for weeks).
The writers on the panel did tend to agree though that now act breaks and cliffhangers are not really about ‘life or death’ situations, rather about personal character stakes (see Breaking Bad).

This doesn’t bring me to the next topic, but I’ll talk about it anyways: anciliary online materials during the hiatus of a show, such as ARGs or webisodes. Is it becoming an obligation?
There again, the consensus seemed to be that it was a two-way street. The networks want it, and the writers love it. It’s just a question of finding the right balance between the two needs.
It is also difficult to make the ‘extra-curricular’ content canon. Case in point with The Lost Experience. Javier talked about his experience crafting, arguably, the best TV ARG made and how, even though the story explained the true meaning of Lost‘s numbers, fans just wouldn’t accept this as an answer.

The panel continued with a question about the zombie (sub)genre and if there is anything left to tell in it.
The bottom line of the discussion that followed was this: Regardless of the genre you want to work on, your story needs to be about something. You can’t say “my story is about vampires,” but maybe it’s more a coming-of-age story? (akin to Jessica in True Blood) It is also not because you’re introducing X or Y into the pot that you’re “elevating” the genre, that’s just ridiculous.
If the allegory works then go for it, but you shouldn’t start a project just to use a creature.

Last but not least, there was also some talk about…exposition.
I know, it’s a pain for us all.
Exposition can sometimes be delivered successfully by actors, but everyone agrees that it is best not to write an expository scene or dialogue. Rather, do both exposition and character at the same time. Every scene in your script should hold more than one piece of information.
On the same line of thought, Javier added that every scene and every story can potentially be brought back to the same basic rhythm of three (beginning, middle, end). He used as an example an early scene in Saving Private Ryan that used the same principle as a joke (set-up, development, pay-off) but wasn’t necessarily one to begin with.
If a scene isn’t working, maybe that’s one of the reasons.

So there you have it.
I’m sure there’s a lot I didn’t put down here, so once a video of the event is online, I’ll be sure to edit it in.
Until then, happy writing.