Television

Is a Story Really Necessary?

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While I’m away, here’s another golden oldie from the early days of the blog…


    

Not too long ago,
I spoke about screenwriting and breaking into television at a writer’s
conference in San Francisco. Afterwards, I mingled with the attendees 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 that day.

He 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."

   

A Set of Jumper Cables for Your Script

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Here’s some great writing advice from Jane Espenson:

                                                                                        SHADY GUY
                                            I promised you a half-ton of frozen fish.  That’s a
                                            half-ton of frozen fish.

When
we hear that, we know that the previous line was some kind of protest
about whether or not Shady Guy met his end of the bargain. We’ve
established the attitude of both characters by the end of line.

As
you look through your own writing, you may very well discover that
you’ve been doing this automatically, too. If not, try knocking off a
few opening lines, see if it doesn’t jump-start the scene!

Dem BONES

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Variety reports today that Fox has picked up BONES, based on the Kathy Reichs novels, for a full 22-episodes next season… but the future isn’t looking so bright for the new midseason crime dramas HEIST, CONVICTION or THE EVIDENCE, which are suffering from anemic ratings. HEIST was partially undone by poor lead-in from LAW AND ORDER, which reportedly had it’s weakest ratings in 15 years, presumably thanks to its new 9 pm Wednesday timeslot.

Breaking CHEERS

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Emmy-award winning writer/producer Ken Levine talks about how hard it was breaking stories for CHEERS.

For every story we used there were always twenty or thirty we threw
out. The core of every story had to present a substantial problem for
one or more of the characters. And it had to have some comic spin. When
an idea is on the table and the writers are able to come up with
possible scenes and twists and jokes that’s a pretty good indication
that we may have hit gold. And very often a story will evolve into
something completely different from what you started with. You begin
with Sam has to hire a new bartender and an hour later it somehow
becomes Lilith’s pet rat dies and she keeps it in her purse…

[…] Once we had an area we liked this is how we generally broke the
stories: Our first question was always “what’s the act break?” Then
“what’s the ending?”. Then "when’s lunch?" Once we had the big midpoint
turn and the ultimate conclusion we’d go back and fill in the acts.
Sometimes we would lay out a story and see that two or three characters
would be excluded. So in order to service them we would do a B story
that usually could be told in two or three scenes.

Another Great Way to Procrastinate

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Spenser_credit
AOL is offering a bunch of old TV shows from the Warner Brothers vault for free download…among the offerings is the SPENSER FOR HIRE episode "If You Knew Sammy," guest-starring William H. Macy. This is the episode that launched my TV career. It’s the first  script Bill Rabkin and I ever sold… we wrote it on spec and the folks at SPENSER actually bought it and shot it without changing a word (our first TV experience was blessed in a lot of ways). Among the other offerings on AOL Television are episodes of MAVERICK, BABYLON 5, KUNG FU, THE FBI, and THE FUGITIVE, to name a few.

Not So Wonderful Wonder Woman

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Mark Evanier tells the story behind a five minute WONDER WOMAN demo-pilot that producer William Dozier produced during the 60s heyday of TV’s BATMAN.  You can watch the whole demo on his blog, too.

Why didn’t his version of Wonder Woman sell? Well, watch it and
see. What’s usually the case when a network commissions a brief demo
film instead of a full pilot is either (a) they have so much faith in the premise and creative team that they don’t feel the need to waste the time or money…or (b)they have so little faith in the project that, though they’ve been
pressured into giving it a try before the cameras, they don’t want to
waste the time or money. Guess which was the case this time.

The Sopranos Effect

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TV Critic Chuck Barney talks about the impact THE SOPRANOS has had on TV…and he asked me for my take on things.

"The networks used to be so deeply afraid of offending people that what
they typically turned out was tepid and dull," Goldberg says. "’The
Sopranos’ showed that the audience is smarter and more sophisticated
than what they give them credit for. It proved that you can do a crime
show with more nuance than ‘Matlock.’"

[…]But just how "real" is television willing to get? It’s no
coincidence that most of the complex, rough-edged dramas are still
mainly the province of cable channels, which cater to more niche-type
audiences. Yes, the broadcast networks are taking more risks, but
because they’re obligated to aim for larger audiences and please
advertisers, they still tend to hew to the safe side, according to
Goldberg.

"Just look at James Spader’s character on ‘Boston Legal.’ He started
out as a real scummy type of dirty-dealer, but he’s been softened up,
watered down and made more cuddly," he says. "Even Andy Sipowicz on
‘NYPD Blue’ started out as a despicable boozer and a bigot. But over
time, his edges were so sanded down that he became an animated
character. He might as well have been Scooby-Doo."

Facing the Firing Squad

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TVSquad, via MediaLife Magazine, has posted a list of shows that media buyers (the folks who purchase advertising time on the networks) believe are facing cancellation. There are a couple of surprises — like the inclusion of LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT and GEORGE LOPEZ and the omission of CLOSE TO HOME and INVASION (cable series, like THE DEAD ZONE and MISSING, aren’t covered on the list).

  • Four Kings, NBC
  • Law & Order: Criminal Intent, NBC
  • Joey, NBC
  • E-Ring, NBC
  • Fear Factor, NBC
  • Surface, NBC
  • Scrubs, NBC
  • Stacked, FOX
  • War at
    Home    , FOX
  • Still
    Standing    , CBS
  • Yes, Dear,
    CBS
  • King of Queens, CBS
  • Out of Practice, CBS
  • Courting Alex, CBS
  • Crumbs, ABC
  • Freddie,
    ABC
  • Rodney, ABC
  • According to Jim, ABC
  • Hope & Faith, ABC
  • George Lopez, ABC
  • Commander in Chief, ABC

It’s a Mystery

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Here’s another true story from the archives of the blog (I’m deep into writing MR. MONK AND THE BLUE FLU, so the blog has been suffering).

We had a pitch meeting a few years ago at a basic cable network, before MONK
burst on the scene. I pitched a mystery series, a blend of reality and
scripted TV, to the new development exec. He interrupted me in middle
of the pitch.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “You want to do a mystery every week?”

“Uh, yes,” I said.

“It can’t be done,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, genuinely confused.

“I mean, you can’t tell a new mystery every week,” he said. “It’s just not possible.”

“Of course it is,” I replied. “I’ve done it. Diagnosis Murder was a mystery.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yes, it was,” I argued.

“Nobody can do a mystery every week,” he said. “It’s ludicrous.”

“Murder She Wrote, Law and Order, CSI, those are all mysteries,” I said.

“No, they aren’t.”

“Okay,” I said. “What is your idea of a mystery?”

“Scooby-Doo,” he replied.

“That’s an animated Saturday morning cartoon,” I said.

“Exactly,” he said.

(By the way, this was the one pitch meeting in my career where I actually lost my temper…surprising my agent, my writing partner, and a cop-friend who was pitching with us).