My Blog

What Does a Writers Assistant Do?

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That was the question posed on screenwriter John August’s lively blog today. He’s got a good answer, and so does his former assistant Rawson Thurber, who went on to write DODGEBALL.

It’ s a smart question to ask, since being a writer’s assistant is a good way to break into the business…which is probably why there is so much competition for the jobs (and why so many applicants are WAY over-qualified).  The pay is crap ($500-a-week), the hours are hell (9 am to as late as, well 9 am), and the work is menial (answering phones, running errands, typing scripts, printing revisions, organizing files, putting revision pages into scripts, etc.)… but the experience is priceless. You learn how a TV show works from the inside. You see how stories are broken. You read lots of scripts… not just the one that are written, and endlessly rewritten, for the show… but the specs that come in clamoring for the showrunner’s attention. You see how freelancers succeed… and how they fail. You see how the producers deal with writers, studio executives, network executives, managers, actors, and everybody else associated with making a show. You make lots of contacts…not just with the writer/producers on the show and the freelancers who come in but, if you are any good at what you do, with the network and studio executives who call the office 178 times a day. If you’re smart, you’ll also hang out with the editors, line producers, script supervisors, directors, assistant directors… hell, everyone… and learn whatever you can about production. A job as a writer’s assistant is a graduate school education in the television… and, in your down time (on the rare occasions when there is some), you can write.  And I know it works. Not only have a lot of showrunners I know started out as writers assistants, most of the our assistants have gone on to become professional screenwriters themselves… one even became a development executive (though I lost track of her years ago).

Who is the Tall Dark Stranger There?

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Maverick_logEd Gorman has been pondering, and remembering,  my friend writer/producer Roy Huggins,  creator of such classic TV series as MAVERICK, THE FUGITIVE, 77 SUNSET STRIP and (with Steve Cannell) THE ROCKFORD FILES. I contributed a few memories of my own experiences with Roy to Ed’s blog, as well as a short piece on MAVERICK. If you’re interested in a little TV history, you might want to mosey over there to Ed’s blog and check out the posts.

Gone Baby Gone

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Variety reports that Ben Affleck will write and direct, but not act in, a feature film adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s book GONE BABY GONE.  The movie, which will be released by Disney, will shoot in Boston this fall and could be the start of a "franchise." The book is one of a series that Lehane, back before MYSTIC RIVER, wrote about a team of private eyes.

Blog Spam

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The kid who emailed me for career advice the other day sent the identical email to lots of other TV & film writers who’ve got blogs.  And we all responded. On our blogs.

Here’s another one.

We all gave him more or less the same advice. And, in doing so, taught him a couple of other valuable lessons:

1) All writers procrastinate.
2) One of the best ways to procrastinate is to run a blog.
3)
The best way to avoid writing when you have a blog is to answer
questions about being a writer when you are in the midst of avoiding
being one.

All The Flowers Are Dying

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Lawrence Block is at the top of his game.  Then again, he’s written fifty or a hundred books (I’ve lost count) and as far as I know, he’s never been anything but at the top of his game. ALL THE FLOWERS ARE DYING is prime "Matt Scudder" and Block at his best.  The writing is lean and assured, the story fast-moving, the character strokes deft and memorable.  Some of the scenes are vividly violent and disturbing, but they never feel gratuitous, or ugly for  shock value. The plotting is tight, the  pace ratcheting up the suspense with skilled ease.  Block  isn’t called the Grandmaster at this stuff for nothing, folks.

The prose isn’t the least bit self-conscious or arty and yet stunningly effective. Once again, he reminds us that sometimes the old pros at crime writing do it a whole lot better than the new wave of writers who think they’ve reinvented the form.  I doubt there are many writers out there who consistently deliver the way Block does. The book is a lesson in writing…from a guy who wrote the book on how to write books (actually, he’s written three excellent how-to books, but who’s counting?).

ALL THE FLOWERS ARE DYING is crime writing at its best. Don’t be put off by the fact it’s number 107 or something in the Scudder series — you don’t have to have read a single Scudder tale get the wallop this one delivers (though the punch is stronger if you have).  You’ll be seeing this one talked about again come Edgar time next year…

It Isn’t Easy Being Dan Brown

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For one thing, there’s the $50 million you’re earned over the last two years to be counted, invested, tax-sheltered, and spent. Then there’s Lewis Perdue nipping at your heels.

As if that wasn’t enough, according to today’s New York Times, Dan can no longer travel on airplanes, because the aisles get
clogged with people lining up for autographs.  (And my favorite anecdote, he was in line at
airport security and realized he left his ID at home — so he borrowed a copy of
DaVinci Code from the guy in line behind him and used the author photo to get
on.  Of course, that does raise the question, what kind of moron goes to the airport, intending to leave town, and leaves their ID at home?) .  All of this is having a big impact on his work… a sequel to the DAVINCI CODE.

There are hints that the pressure to repeat his success might be wearing on
Mr. Brown. Long an author who worked in private, Mr. Brown now talks with his
editor, Jason Kaufman, often once a day, sometimes twice – far more often, Mr.
Kaufman said, than when the pair worked together on Mr. Brown’s three most
recent novels, including "Deception Point" and "Angels & Demons."

"We go over every plot point and twist," Mr. Kaufman said. "I function as a
sounding board for him."

Thrilling Thriller Writers

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The newborn International Thriller Writers Association has sealed a big-money deal with Mira books to release THRILLER, an anthology of thrilling short stories edited by the thrillicious James Patterson. The thrillful contributors include Ted Bell, Steve Berry, Lee Child, Lincoln Child, David Dun, Joe Finder,
Greg Iles, Alex Kava, John Lescroart, David Liss, Gayle Lynds, David Morrell, Katherine Neville, Michael Palmer, Douglas Preston, Eric Van Lustbader, Christopher Reich, Christopher Rice, James Rollins, M.J. Rose, Jimmy Siegel, Brad Thor, and F. Paul Wilson. The book will be out in hardcover in June 2006 to coincide with ThrillerFest, the  first convention for thriller writers and fans, in Phoenix. All proceeds from THRILLER will go the ITW to help get the organization up-and-running, though they seem be to up-and-running pretty thrillingly already.

Proving that TV Series Bibles are Pointless

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The NY Times reports that the producers of 24, LOST,  THE OC, and DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES have no clue how their seasons will end.  As if you didn’t know. We know they don’t know. The presidents of the networks seem to know it, too (if you believe what they say in the article). The only people who don’t seem in-the-loop on this are development executives, who often want to know before the pilot is written every detail of the hero’s life…who all his relatives are and what they do… and who is best friend was in preschool. But the fact is…none of that matters. And even if the writers tell you, it’s bullshit. They’re gonna toss the bible as soon as they get the series order.

After the
network ordered the first full season of "24," the writers presented a
huge map of the entire first season. The blueprint, however, didn’t
endure. "We used to obsess over that in Year 1," Mr. Cochran said. "You
know, Oh, God, let’s story out as many episodes as we can. We always
got in a lot of trouble with that because if you try it, you end up
locking yourselves into things that don’t really work and it gets
really contrived."

After his four seasons of "24," Mr. Cochran endorses the same approach:
save big decisions till the end of the season. The writers and the
audience, he insists, will then enjoy the benefits of a looser process.
"At the beginning of the season, we certainly don’t know," he said.
"Halfway through, we certainly don’t know. As we’re writing episode 16
or 17, we start thinking in a very general sort of way, where we’d like
to end the season."

It’s the same on shows with a far-less restrictive franchise.

"Lost" and "The O.C.," along with "24" and "Desperate Housewives,"
are high-profile serials with substantial, devoted audiences, but no
one – not writers, not network executives and not viewers – knows
exactly how they will end their seasons. Their writers, like others in
Hollywood, are trying to devise the perfect season finale – with little
time to spare.  According to interviews with writers from all four shows, their finales are unshot, and mostly unwritten.

So forget about "bibles." They’re pointless. What counts is a strong pilot script and a showrunner with a vision.

SeaQuest Meets Baywatch?

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I worked on SeaQuest, with an enormously phallic submarine, Roy Scheider, and a talking dolphin. I also worked on Baywatch, with an enormous collection of fake boobs, Monte Markham, and a talking David Hasselhoff.  So you can understand my miss-givings when I read in the NY Post that,  in a union spawned in hell, the two are coming together.  Steven Spielberg, exec producer of  SeaQuest, is bringing Baywatch to the big screen.  Save yourself while there is still time.

House as Dr. Sloan’s Son

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The folks over at  Toobworld are pondering who should play the father of  Dr. Greg House (Hugh Laurie) on Fox’s hit  HOUSE M.D.  They’ve settled on Dick Van Dyke… as Dr. Mark Sloan.  Here’s their thinking:

From a production viewpoint, [the] obstacles could be smoothed over.  It’s from the inner reality of the plotline that we might face a few arguments.  Most of all, it’s the fact that there was never any mention of a second son for Dr. Mark Sloan in all the years ‘Diagnosis Murder’ was on the air.
He had two children – Steve Sloan, a Los Angeles police detective who often worked with his dad in solving cases;  and a daughter who was tragically murdered.  Added to this is the obvious difference in their last names – Sloan and House.

I’m not the only one who can see the obvious answer, right? Greg House is the illegitimate son of Mark Sloan.

The days when our TV heroes were cast as exemplars of virtue are long gone. Nowadays they have flaws, and foibles, and failings – they are the F-Troop. They make mistakes in Life, but eventually they admit to them and they rise above them. (Unless of course we’re talking about Detective Vic Mackey of ‘The Shield’.) That’s what makes them human, what makes them real. And what makes them interesting to watch week after week. Having been the bastard son of a noted crime-solving doctor on the West Coast might be a great explanation for some of Dr. House’s acerbic attitude towards the rest of the world at large. And a chance to rectify that situation with a renewed relationship with the father he never knew might provide for as many episodes as they wanted to run with it; perhaps a once-a-year type of reunion.  And nothing says they HAVE to iron out all their differences. After all, we don’t want House becoming all sweetness and light – that’s not why he’s
become such an interesting character for the audience.

There’s only one excuse for someone giving this idea so much thought.  Procrastination. The same reason I am posting this instead of plotting my next (the seventh!) DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel.  How’s that for irony, eh?