Lee Goldberg

Battlestar Galactica

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I thought Friday night’s episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA was great fun…the best yet. The show gets better every week and is evolving, after a rocky start, into an entertaining cross between LOST IN SPACE and the original STAR TREK.

Like LOST IN SPACE, the heroes are wandering through the cosmos without a home and no idea where they’re going. Dr. Baltar has become an  insane, less-cartoony, version of Dr. Zachary Smith…injecting some much needed humor (and, in a strange way, humanity) into the show.  The robot from the Jupitor II has been updated into the sexy, imaginary Cylon woman who exists only in Dr. Balter’s head…or is she more than that?

Like the original  STAR TREK,  there’s no preaching, no grand space opera, just action, adventure, fun
and sex. That’s right, sex. This week, we actually saw two characters writhing
around and, get this,  having orgasms (though one of the characters
is a Cylon who’s spine glows when she’s climaxing, but let’s not get into that).  Capt Kirk used to get laid every episode…but in the
recent incarnations
of STAR TREK, the pompous, aren’t-we-so-noble-you-could-vomit crewmembers have either been celibate… or
dealt with sex like uptight teenagers (when the producers weren’t engaged in cringe-worthy leering… like  those  ridiculous spongebath scenes in early seasons of ENTERPRISE..or the skin-tight uniform that hugged Seven of Nine’s enormous Borg Breasts on VOYAGER). After watching STAR TREK for
the last 15 years, I was beginning to think "Abstinance" was the new Prime Directive.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA   is  such a refreshing change from the stilted, self-important, sanitized scifi we’ve been getting over the last few years. Each episode reinforces just how calcified the STAR TREK franchise has become. It’s no coincidence UPN finally mercy-killed ENTERPRISE the same season that BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is injecting new life into the genre. It’s as if showrunner Ron Moore, an ST:NG vet, is intentionally rebelling against all the sanitizing, drama-smothering restrictions and formulas he had to endure while writing for TREK. How anybody could endure ENTERPRISE after watching BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is beyond me.

To be far, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA isn’t the first post-STAR TREK show to re-energize the genre.  FARSCAPE managed to muddy space up a bit it’s first season…but then wallowed in melodrama and overly complicated serial storylines, taking all the fun (and almost all of the humor) out of the show, alienating new viewers and some of the old ones, too.

If the writers of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA continue having this much fun with the stories and the characters, the series has the potential to be the next great scifi franchise… and attract more and more new viewers every week.

(This is one time where the revival is infinitely better than the original series that inspired it)

A Writer’s Life

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This weekend was a good example of what life is like for a professional writer:

  • I wrote an article about writing DIAGNOSIS MURDER: THE WAKING NIGHTMARE for MJ Rose’s excellent Backstory blog.
  • I traveled to San Francisco to speak at a writers conference.
  • I  proofed the copyedited manuscript for my fifth DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel, which has to arrive in NY no later than Feb. 23.
  • I proofed the galleys for my novel THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE, which have to arrive on my editor’s desk no later than Feb. 23.
  • I revised the manuscript for my sixth DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel, which is due March 1, but that I need to finish by Feb 22, so I can stick it in the FedEx packet with the copyedited manuscript for DM #5… because I am leaving on Wednesday to attend & speak at Left Coast Crime in El Paso.
  • I drove back to L.A. from S.F…and thought about the plot for my seventh DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel.  I made  some notes when I stopped for lunch.
  • I posted some articles on my blog.
  • I wrote some notes for a network pitch meeting that’s set for Tuesday.

And this was a light weekend… I didn’t have to write a script or write a chapter in a book.

The Morons of the World Have a New King

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While I was up in the Bay Area, I clipped this story from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Jonathan Fish, a 20-year-old San Francisco resident, was cruising across the upper deck
of the Bay Bridge at 10:40 a.m., smoking a cigarette. When he got near the
Harrison Street off-ramp, he rolled down the window of his white 2004 Ford
Expedition SUV and tossed out the butt, authorities said.

Instead of bounding along the pavement, however, the still-lit cigarette
blew back in and set the interior of Fish’s $30,000 SUV ablaze.  Black smoke filled the vehicle. Fish pulled over to the far left-hand
lane about 100 feet from the Harrison Street exit and leaped from the
Expedition  —  leaving the SUV in neutral instead of park.  The flaming Expedition rolled driverless into a guardrail by the exit,
where it crashed to a stop and burned to the frame.

California Highway Patrol officers and fire crews arrived and closed the
off-ramp until 11:45 a.m., tying up traffic all the way back to the toll plaza.
Fish had his hair singed but was otherwise unharmed.

The guy is being charged with littering… and criminal stupidity.

Grumpy Goldberg

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Ian Hamet over at Banana Oil regularly reads my blog and thinks I’ve been grumpy lately (though he thinks I wasn’t  grumpy enough with the people I met at the San Francisco Writers Conference. Did I mention that they didn’t have a single copy of any of my books for sale in the conference bookstore? Grumpier writers than me would have walked away from the conference in a huff… but I’m not prone to huffs).

So I did a quick scan of my posts here over the last few weeks… and Ian is right.  It looks like I’ve been using my blog mostly to whine and complain (which proves, I suppose, that I really am a professional writer).  I’ll try to be more upbeat in future posts.

The Lit Nazis

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These are some very scary people.  Let’s hope nobody ever teaches these morons how to rub two sticks together and make fire, or lots of books are gonna be burned.

Among the books they think are "vulgar titles" and "pornography" include I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, ALL THE PRETTY HORSES,  BELOVED, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE,  and CATCHER IN THE RYE.

If they think those are bad, let’s hope they never get around to reading THE BIBLE.

Is a Story Really Necessary?

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Today, I spoke at the San Francisco Writers Conference about screenwriting and breaking into television. Afterwards, I was cornered by a senior citizen who showed me his scrapbook from his days in Hollywood and rambled on endlessly about all the stars he met. I don’t know why he wanted to share this with me…but we had to go through every single page, clipping and photo. Then I mingled with the attendees,  got asked some incredibly stupid questions and had some bizarre conversations. Here’s a sampling…

"I’ve written a novel and everyone tells me it’s a script," one woman said. "How do I turn it into a script?"

"Well, you write a script." I said.

She stared at me. "How do I do that?"

"You get a book or take a course, learn the principles of screenwriting, and then you write a script."

"That’s too much work," she said. "Isn’t there software that can do all of that for me?"

"Yeah," I said. "The same way Microsoft Word wrote your book for you."

* * * * * *

Another person came up to me and asked me if I wrote for television. I said yes.  She then asked, "How do you do that?"

"You mean, how do I write for television?"

"Yes," she said.

"I write screenplays," I said.

"Which is what, exactly?"

"The story, the action, the words that the characters say," I replied.

She stared at me. "Somebody writes that?"

"Yes," I said, resisting the urge to strangle her. "It’s like a writing a play, only for the camera instead of a theatre audience."

She shook her head.  "No, it’s not."

* * * * * *
"I’ve written  a book but everyone tells me it s a TV series," the man said.  "How do I make it into a TV series."

"You can’t, " I said, and gave my standard speech about how ideas are cheap and execution is everything, how networks go to people with TV experience, or who have written hit movies, or who have written bestselling novels, blah blah blah.  And when I got done, he stared at me. I got stared at a lot today.

Hee said:  "How can I get around that?"

"You can’t," I said.

"Why not?"

"Because you haven’t established yourself  as a writer in any field," I said. "Why would a network, studio or producer buy a TV series idea from you?"

"Because I’m smarter and more talented than they are," he said.

"It’s not going to happen," I said.

"Is it because I’m black?" he said. "That’s it, isn’t it. It’s because I’m black."

* * * * * *

"Did you have to sleep with a lot of people to get into TV?" a woman asked me.

"Just my wife," I said.

"You were lucky it wasn’t someone else," she said and walked away.

* * * * * *
"I have a great idea for a movie," a woman said to me. "What’s the market like for true stories about black lesbians in the 1880s?"

"I don’t think studios are looking for scripts to fill that particular niche," I said, "but there’s always a market for good stories that are told well."

"Oh," she said. "That’s going to make it a lot harder to sell."

* * * * * *
"Mysteries are hard work,"  a man said to me. "Could I write an episode of a mystery show but leave out the mystery for someone else to do?"

"No," I said.

"But my talent is character and I’m brilliant with dialogue," he said. "I really don’t know how to plot a mystery."

"Then don’t write a mystery," I said.

"But that’s what’s selling," he said.

"Don’t try to write what’s selling," I said. "Write what you enjoy. Write the story you want to tell."

"The thing is, I don’t know how to tell stories," he said. "But I write killer dialogue. Is a story really necessary?"

"Yes," I said.

"You people in Hollywood don’t make it easy, do you? That’s  the problem with the Industry. They are constantly creating obstacles so people can’t get in."

Everyone is Writing a Script

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Today, I drove up to San Francisco to speak at a writer’s conference this weekend. There’s a Borders next door to my hotel, so I went over to their coffee house  for a cup of tea while I proofed the copyedited manuscript of DIAGNOSIS MURDER: THE PAST TENSE, which I received yesterday and is due back in NY on the 23rd. Talk about "last minute"…

Anyway, I couldn’t help noticing all the folks around me with their laptops… working on their scripts.  There I was, 300 miles from Hollywood, and still everybody is toiling on a screenplay. It’s not like I was sitting in Vancouver or Toronto or New York, where there’s lots of production going on. This was San Francisco…

If that wasn’t disconcerting enough, I heard a woman (let’s call her Sally) and her friend (let’s call her Betty) talking over the script on the laptop. Sally was getting Betty’s advice… and the advice was absolutely terrible. Everything out of Betty’s mouth was wrong, lame, and screamed that she was an uneducated, uninformed, unschooled wanna-be.  For instance, she advised Sally to add a lot more elaborate and detailed camera moves, angles, and editing suggestions or "the director won’t know what to do."  She also kept recommending that Sally add exclamation points to her dialogue to make it "urgent and important."

It took tremendous willpower not to jump out of my seat, scream at Betty that she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about and urge Sally to delete  the camera moves and exclamations points and every other stupid thing her friend told her to add to her screenplay.

Instead, I moved to a different table…and silently prayed Sally never sent her script to me.

Extreme Make-Over for Bugs Bunny

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Bugs Bunny just isn’t hip anymore. So he’s getting a make-over and becoming Buzz Bunny. The "reimagined" Bugs Bunny will have "laser beam eyes" and incredible martial arts skills… and will star with other "reimagined" cartoon charactersBugsoldnew (Daffy Duck will have "built in sonar")  in a new series called "Loonatics." The only only Loonatics are the execs at Warner Brothers animation who think anybody is clamoring for this abomination.

"The new series will have the same classic wit and wisdom, but we have
to do it more in line with what kids are talking about today," says
Sander Schwartz, president of Warner Bros. Animation. The plots are
action-oriented, filled with chases and fights. Each character
possesses a special crime-fighting power.Buzzbunny

Oh goodie, ’cause that’s what was missing from those classic cartoons. Special crimefighting powers.

What’s next, Minnie Mouse with huge breast
implants and bionic limbs? How about Woody Woodpecker with a Titanium
pecker and incredible mud wrestling skills? Maybe Popeye’s eye could really pop out and maye fly around the room and shoot rockets…and instead of eating Spinach, wouldn’t it be so hip if he snorted coke instead?

(You can read more about this  here, here and here.)

Situations I Never Want to be In…

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The SFWeekly’s Harmon Leon visited a porn set and had this awkward experience.

On set, the tempo builds. It builds! It builds! It builds! Then the
rotund sound guy barks, "Let’s change the tape!" Everything comes to a
grinding halt. Harv dismounts. Still fully aroused, he takes time for a
cigarette and shares his mainstream aspirations to be a stand-up
comedian.

             
Being in the comedy industry, I offer advice to nude, aroused Harv.
 

             
"When at a comedy club," I advise, "be sure not to hump anything onstage!"
 

             
Harv takes this in, then pulls out a tube of lube and lotions up his Calvin Coolidge. I could really do without that.
 

             
"OK guys, we’re back to work again!" commands the director.
 

The Power of “Yes”

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Craig Mazin at The Artful Writer offers this piece of advice to working screenwriters:

If you’re a professional screenwriter and you’re asked to make a change that you think is awful, say “Yes.”

Always say yes.

Destroy the main character? “Yes!” Change that brilliant ending that
brings everything full circle with a twist-and-a-half? “Sure!” If the
producer or director has an idea that’s just god-awful, death-dealing,
movie-wrecking, story-killing, your answer to the request should be a
charming and pleasant “Okay!” Say it with pride. Alacrity, even.

Why?  Because saying yes costs you nothing, and gains you much.

When I say “yes,” I’m not agreeing to be slavish.  I’m simply agreeing to try.
If I determine that their suggestion is not to be done, I can explain
why. When you remove that initial “no,” you remove 99% of the hostility
and disfunction from the writer-employer relationship while ceding 0%
of your authority and power. And it’s funny. Ever since I began saying
“yes” a few years back, two interesting things have come to pass.

I haven’t had to write anything I didn’t believe in…

…and no one’s fired me.

I don’t agree with this advice… and I’ve never been fired.  What I don’t do is say "No." What I might say is "That’s an interesting thought, but here’s what will happen to the story if I do it," or "I don’t think that’s a good idea, and here’s why," or "Let me think about it."  But I never say yes to a note I have no intention of doing. But that’s if I’m writing a TV movie or a feature or a pilot. 

On the other hand, if I am writing a freelance episode of a TV series, I might respond to a bad note by saying  "if I do that, here’s how it will impact the story," but I won’t press the point if the executive producer disagrees. I will always say "Yes." I will always do the note, gladly and with no argument, no matter what. Why? Because your job on a TV series is to do what the showrunner wants. It’s his  show, his  characters, not yours. You are a carpenter. You have come to do a job in his house.  Your job is to do what the customer wants to the very best of your ability.