Palin...

...is beautiful satirized in this College Humor "trailer".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzCc1iyOeUw

Pass it on.

I knew this election was a movie! Regardless of your political affiliation, everyone can appreciate good satire.

The Story Spot...

...has graciously posted me as their featured blog today, so I feel as though I need to get a new blog up for all the story spotters out there.

Usually, I give advice but today I'm just going to tell you my plan for the next couple of months, and you can take it or leave it. Hopefully you'll comment on it.

I'm currently in an epic battle to get EVERY GOOD IDEA I've had percolating in my brain down on paper. And It's been a pretty decent experience so far. I've done 60 pages on 3 scripts, including one I hope to finish today, and the other two I hope to finish by the end of the week. That's right, almost 120 pages of script in one week. I may not accomplish it, but I'm gonna give it my best effort.

Afterwards, I'm planning on writing two more feature scripts, including my latest commissioned. I've been sitting on it for a long time, and it's due pretty soon, yikes. I've told my brain to have no more good ideas until these are all on paper. Finally, I'm going to finish it up with a tv script and a "comic book" pilot script.

Okay, I lied, a little advice.

It's easy for a writer to become bogged down with too many good ideas. You become paralyzed by the inability to pick which idea to start. All the characters start talking to themselves and making you even more confused. When that happens, sometimes the best thing to do is just start writing anything, or everything, to get it on paper and get the voices out of your head (the ones that aren't supposed to be in there at least).

It's also really easy for a writer to have a lot of great ideas, but not be actually writing anything. I'm sure you know writers, producer, directors, composers, etc. who have not been working on ANYTHING for the last few days, weeks, months, or more. It's easy to make excuses, it's hard to DO SOMETHING.

Okay, back to me for the kicker.

If everything works out, I will have written at least first drafts of 5 tv specs, 4 original tv pilots, 5 feature scripts, and a "comic book" pilot this year.

That's a lot of writing, how productive have you been this year?

Now, I'm going to write "I WILL NOT ABANDON MY READERS" 100 times in Final Draft before trudging along with my goal of 30 pages today.

I'm not ignoring you...

...well I kinda am, but I have a good reason. If I get through this project soon, I'll tell you stories about it. It might go down in screenwriting lore.

A Sad Commentary

I'm not a wonk, and I try to keep my political leanings to myself. But THIS, is disgusting:

http://news.yahoo.com/page/election-2008-political-pulse-obama-race

10 scripts...

To add on to my previous post, the old adage is that it will take 10 years or 10 scripts to get a sale. Which means, theoretically, you have 8 scripts which will be terrible. Now, hopefully one of those terrible scripts will be in your genre, but if not, it still gives you 2 scripts to get the sale.

My timetable is roughly as follows:

1-3 scripts - shite. Don't show them to people unless you are really secure with yourself.

4-6 scripts - average. Now, you've taken the good things you do and integrated structure into it.

7-8 scripts - good. You're coming into your own as a writer. You have a genre and a voice, and you know what you want to do.

9-10 scripts - sellable. Hopefully, you've mastered the little things, like action cues and formatting that kept your script from being sold before.

Congratulations, now you're a writer. get ready for a life of rejection and under-appreciation.

So, you see. there's plenty of time to write a whole lot of junk, to see if you like writing for that genre, and abandon it when you decide you don't like it, if you decide you don't like it. Remember, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Specializing...

I'm going to make this quick, probably.

I read a post on the Rouge Wave today and one of the tips she gives is for writers to specialize in a genre. This is something that is so important to a writer, because you want to be "typecast" as the go-to guy in a specific genre. This goes for writers, directors, producers, etc.

For instance, if Eli Roth's next movie was a period piece romcom, you would be very confused. The same if Martin Scorsese came out with American Pie. It's because you know them to be in a certain genre. An audience can say, Scorsese did that movie, and I like his movies, so I'll like this one as well. In fact, audiences become rather angry if they go to a movie that isn't what they expected, because they feel doped.

But, I want to make a word of warning. Make sure you are relatively certain that:

a- You can write scripts that are sellable. (If your movies are esoteric David Lynch movies, the audience is smaller than Ben Stiller movies).

and

b- Make sure you will be happy writing for this genre for a long time, your career actually.

I will leave with one final idea. Just because you write one script in one genre, doesn't mean that you HAVE to write another script in that genre. When you are a baby writer, it's fun to explore ALL the possibilities. So, if you don't know what "fits" yet, write a horror, write a comedy, write a drama, or a period piece, or a kid's movie. I actually learned after writing a kid's pilot that I really love to write kid's sleuthy detective movies/tv.

It's sort of like college, some people go in knowing exactly what they want to do, others are gen ed for a while. Once they find something that suits them, then they declare. However, you should always feel free to abandon these projects after a garbage or first draft. Who knows, it's possible in 5-10 years you'll pull that draft out because someone is looking for a Polish immigrant script set in post WWII Denmark.

Personally, write(get it) now, I'm working on a broad spectrum of scripts from a crime drama, to a romcom, to a snarky independent, just because I want to see what fits FOR ME. I'm writing a TV pilot, a comic book, and five movies. I'm doing this because my main genre, independent, quirky movies doesn't pay very well and I am looking to see if there is a sub-genre or other genre that fits me better.

Once you find that genre, stick with it. Keep doing specs in that genre. I have a friend who writes really sick, twisted stuff. But she has 5 scripts right now and they're making the rounds and are being well received. When an agent looks your way, they will want to see 2-3 samples of work in a specific genre to make you sellable as a writer. It's much harder to sell a jack-of-all-trades writer than one that specializes in something.

Stand alone vs. serial episodes

Clients always inspire the best blog posts.

So, I have a new client, paperwork pending, that is creating a web serial after years of film and plays. the idea is solid, but I'm teaching her how to write for TV from the ground up...she's never even watched 30 Rock for goodness sakes.

Anyway, yesterday I went to view her read-though and we got to talking about the difference between TV series. Basically, there are two types of television series-- Stand alone and Serial. The difference is based on how each EPISODE operates, not whether the series is continual or a one-off.

Standalone
(Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, Simpsons, Family Guy, etc)

In these series, every episode is contained into itself. You could watch any episode of the Simpsons and not need to know anything about the shows previous. The characters never change, even to the point of being the same age perpetually. However, it's not just animation. In a show like Seinfeld, the character always end up at the same place they started at the beginning of the episode. Yes, they may get new jobs, or have a new boyfriend, but the characters do not develop and evolve from episode to episode emotionally.

These shows work because a conflict is introduced that cause the characters to react, grow, and change throughout each episode, but that change is not carried over into the arch of the series. Watch an episode from season 2 and season 9 of Seinfeld. It's the same people with the same issues, who have not grown in the slightest in the past seasons.

Serial
(Brothers and Sisters, West Wing, any SOAP EVER)

This works in the opposite manner of a stand alone episode. Each episode builds on the previous one. The characters change, develop, and interact with the world in a different way over the course of the season, and the arch of the show. For example, The women in Desperate Housewives look at the world much differently now that she did in episode one. When the character develops , the show changes into something new. The story comes from that change as much as the conflicts in each episode.

Now, I should mention that standalones are not necessarily comedies and serials are not necessarily dramas. For example, Scrubs is a Serial comedy and Law and Order is a Stand-alone drama.

The important thing to take away from this is that in serials the character's development is carried over from episode to episode, and in stand alone the characters start and end as the same person, even if they have emotional epiphanies in the episode.

(My classic example is the Seinfeld episode where Jerry learns to have feelings. He starts off like the classic Jerry jerk. Then, he is taught how to feel by his then girlfriend, proposes to Elaine, makes George tell him all the darkest parts of himself, and finally in the end George "scares" him straight. He winds up exactly where he was before.)

So you see, while there may be personal or professional growth for characters, there is never any emotional growth.

When dealing with your show, you MUST know whether it is a standalone or a serial.