What It’s Like

So the Emmy nominations are out.  I feel very cultured because I actually watch the drama series nominees (except “Boston Legal,” which I just couldn’t get into).  I’m also happy with the drama writing nominees.  Personally, I’m leaning toward the “Mad Men” pilot, if only because I love the story behind it.  Matthew Weiner wrote it years ago as one of those “I know it’s totally unmarketable and will never get made, but I love it” projects.  Then AMC took a chance on it, gave him the freedom to do the show right, and here we are at the Emmys.  It’s the kind of thing which helps you tolerate the messed-up, risk-averse way television usually gets made.

And yes, I did see “The Dark Knight” yesterday, along with several million of my closest friends.  It’s dark, all right.  It’s also a really interesting story of cynicism vs. hope.  With cool stunts.  And great acting all around.  It does run a bit too long.  And did I mention that it’s very dark and disturbing?  It’s hard to fathom that this movie and “Batman and Robin” are based on the same source material.

As a friend commented after the movie, you really see the money on the screen in “Dark Knight.”  It’s big and epic, with no expense spared on action and effects.  Which worked for this movie.  Other movies, in my opinion, have been ruined by their big budgets.  I definitely felt that way about last summer’s “I Am Legend.”  Whatever they paid Will Smith was worth it - he’s great.  Then they went CGI-crazy.  The lions and other wildlife roaming New York looked completely fake, and probably cost way more than getting a real damn lion for a day.  Even worse, they turned the infected humans into CGI creatures, which also looked fake.  And therefore, not very scary.  When one of them roars in Will Smith’s face, it’s not creepy because they clearly don’t occupy the same physical universe.  By contrast, the Infected in “28 Days Later” were much scarier- they were just people with red contact lenses, whom you truly believed would tear you to pieces.  “I Am Legend” was burdened with the expectations of a big summer movie, which probably made the producers feel obliged to spend obscene amounts of money on it, whether that actually improved the movie or not.

One of the most expensive shows on TV right now is “Lost.”  Like “Dark Knight,” you definitely see the money on the screen.  The Hawaiian location is clearly not some studio backlot, which I think makes the stakes and the isolation feel more real.  And putting actual plane wreckage on the beach was worth every penny.  These are obviously producing decisions more than writing decisions, but when you write a pilot, you do need to consider budget to some degree.  If you crash a plane in your script, it’s gonna be costly.  You’re also setting up audience/reader expectations that future episodes will have some large-scale action and/or special effects.  Which means the whole series will be costly.

If the series you envision is more of a “Brothers and Sisters” type relationship drama, then your pilot should be on that scale.  Sure, you want to kick off your series with a bang - but make it a dramatic bang for a talky show, as opposed to a literal bang for an action show.   And match the scale roughly to the budget.  For a small character drama, keep an eye on how many locations you’re using, how many speaking parts, etc.  When that studio exec reads your script, they’ll notice that kind of thing.  What you don’t want is a version of “Gilmore Girls” that will cost ten million an episode to make.  Even if you know it’s never going to get made.  Part of what you’re demonstrating in a spec, especially a spec pilot, is a basic understanding of how television works.  Don’t let this hamper your creativity - just take a read through your script and make sure you’re not being excessive.  Unless you’re J.J. Abrams - then you can do pretty much whatever you want.

Like just about everyone, I’m very excited for “The Dark Knight.”  In an interview with Time, Christopher Nolan made an interesting comment on his interpretation of the Joker - he deliberately avoided giving the Joker a backstory, instead treating him more like a force of nature.  Nolan compared him to the shark in “Jaws.”  It doesn’t matter where the shark came from or why it’s terrorizing this particular town.  It doesn’t have any “motivation” beyond being hungry.  I think it’s a good call to maintain an air of mystery around the villain.  Generally, attempts to explain why a bad guy went bad turn out to be oversimplified and unsatisfying.  I touched on a similar idea in my post “Setup and Letdown” - the mystery is often much more interesting than the solution.  In the same way, inexplicable evil is much scarier than any backstory a writer can devise.

The biggest example of this is, of course, Hannibal Lechter.  In “Red Dragon” and “Silence of the Lambs,” he’s one of the best villains ever.  In the films, Anthony Hopkins made him even better/badder.  The unspoken question about Hannibal was always “how could anyone do that?”  Then author Thomas Harris made what I consider a huge mistake by trying to answer it.  Worse, he made Hannibal the hero of the next two books.  Which required him to water down the character.  In “Dragon” and “Lambs,” Hannibal is like a force of nature.  He kills innocent and guilty alike, from Dr. Chilton (”I’m having an old friend for dinner”) to that unfortunate census taker who went nicely with fava beans and a nice Chianti.  Then in “Hannibal,” he started killing only people who “deserved” it.  Why?  Because now he’s the guy we’re rooting for, and we wouldn’t if he picked off random innocents.  But I don’t want to root for Lechter.  I want to get sucked in by his charm and refinement, then shocked out of my seat when he does something truly horrible, just like Clarice.  The more you explain him, the less scary he gets.  It’s even worse in “Hannibal Rising,” which I admit I have neither read nor seen - apparently it traces his evildoing back to the time he watched Nazis slaughter his family.  While I’m sure that would indeed mess someone up for life, it still seems like a very pat explanation for the complex and fascinating creature he becomes.

“Dexter” has fallen into this same trap a little bit, but the show as a whole is so good I’ll forgive them.  (Yes, Dexter is more hero than villain, but for purposes of this discussion, we’ll focus on his serial killer-ness.)  In flashbacks, we’ve seen how two-year-old Dexter (and, as it turns out, his brother) watched his mother get killed with a chainsaw then was stuck in a cargo container, sitting in a pool of her blood, for days.  Again, really horrific backstory, but somehow it still seems like too simple an explanation.  Unfortunately, plenty of real-life kids have gone through equally horrible traumas and not turned into serial killers.  So why Dexter?  The really fascinating part of his history is how Harry helped him channel his killer impulses.  The killer instinct itself, I’d rather leave unexplained.  Dexter works for me as a hero where Hannibal doesn’t because Hannibal was an extreme representation of evil, while Dexter has always been about the moral gray areas.

Dexter’s backstory comes from the novels the show is based on - which doesn’t mean they have to be slavishly faithful to the source.  The show has varied quite a bit from the books.  In good ways, in my opinion.  I really enjoyed the first two books by Jeff Lindsay, but the third one left me cold.  In it, the author turns Dexter’s “dark passenger,” which how Dexter refers to his own killer instincts, into an actual demonic force.  That, to me, feels like a total cop-out.  Dexter isn’t a sociopath - he’s possessed.  Ick.  I’m guessing the show won’t go there.

My general advice here is that if you’re creating an extreme villain (like Hannibal, the Joker or Anton Chigurh), don’t feel obliged to explain their psychosis - it may backfire on you.  Let them be like the shark - a force of nature no one can truly understand.  However, I think the opposite is true for more “moderate” bad guys (like a bank robber or kidnapper).  They become scarier the more realistic they are.  They have understandable motives like greed or revenge.  Often, you can sympathize with their motive - if not their methods.  The best thing in “The Rock” was Ed Harris’ bad guy, who was ultimately trying to get money for veterans screwed over by the government.  He was, of course, surrounded by more extreme baddies you could just plain hate.  And in “Live Free or Die Hard,” Timothy Olyphant’s character got screwed by the government (I’m sensing a theme here) and wreaked his havoc to prove them wrong (and get a bunch of cash for himself).

Sometimes the scariest villain is the one who seems to have a point.  Who just seems one or two steps over the edge.  Other stories call for a figure of pure evil.  It depends on the reaction you want your hero (and reader) to have.  Nearly normal villains tend to work in more procedural or technical stories - an intellectual equal for your hero, who might even make the good guy question himself.  Utter psychos invoke a more emotional dread response, which as you might guess, works better in thrillers and horror flicks.  Or, if very well done, in intense dramas like “No Country for Old Men” or “Angel Heart.”  So what kind of conflict are you looking for between your hero and villain - a clever chess game, or a tooth-and-claw struggle to survive?

You’ve probably heard some variant on the expression: “A hero is only as good as the villain he/she faces.”  Hearing a rule like this generally makes me start listing exceptions, but this one’s pretty useful.  It’s never a bad thing to have a great villain.  This is true in any genre, whether action, soap opera or comedy.  Strong opposition forces your hero to up his or her game.

I think “Hancock” suffers from the lack of a great baddie.  The bank robber guy just isn’t very formidable.  What I find interesting is how the other two big superhero movies of the summer so far - “Iron Man” and “Hulk” - end up pitting their heroes against bigger, badder versions of themselves.  “Spiderman 3″ did the same thing, with Venom.  You could also argue that the Joker is a more twisted version of Batman, although that’s more of a stretch.  However, Superman’s main adversary, Lex Luthor, is his opposite - the brains to Superman’s brawn.  Of course, Superman has traditionally been the most uncomplicated, purely good superhero, so it makes sense that the villain would be nothing like him.  But that does seem to be the exception.  It’s also interesting that the classic horror movie creatures are, essentially, us.  Ghosts, vampires, werewolves, zombies and mummies are all former human beings.  Even the “new wave” of horror baddies, like Freddy, Jason, Michael, etc, were once human beings, who became warped and somehow indestructible.

In the non-supernatural realm, villains are still likely to be a dark version of the hero.  How many former agents have James Bond, Jason Bourne and Ethan Hunt faced?  Or Sydney Bristow on “Alias?”  There’s an obvious reason - you get a villain with the same skills as the hero, and therefore a real threat.  It also highlights the hero’s own dark side.  In “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Belloq literally tells Indy “It would take only a nudge to make you like me.”  Not exactly subtle, but interesting because it’s true.  You can also get a dramatic bonus if the villain starts off as an ally, then turns and betrays the hero (or reveals that he/she has been a baddie all along).  The best character on “Smallville,” IMHO, is Lex Luthor, for just this reason.  It was a terrific choice by the creators to make Lex start off as Clark’s friend, then show how a flawed but decent guy turns into a megalomaniacal villain.  When they reached direct conflict, there was a great emotional weight to every choice they both made.  The new “Star Wars” trilogy tried to do something similar with Anakin/Vader, but it didn’t work nearly as well.

TV shows have a greater challenge than films when it comes to villains.  In a film, there’s a climactic conflict, where the villain is usually defeated.  On TV, you can either defeat a different bad guy every week (like most procedurals) or find a way to stretch out one villain without making your hero look incompetent for never being able to stop him/her.  “24″ splits the difference by having one main baddie (give or take a few henchmen) per season, which gives them the chance to build up the conflict and also resolve it each season.  “Lost” also refreshes its villain pool every so often, like with the arrival of the freighter crew.  They also play around a lot more with who’s really good or bad.  The Others all seemed to be bad guys at first, then some of them became friends.  Even Ben has been an ally at times.  Same idea on “Battlestar Galactica.”  The Cylons seemed like pure evil at first (they did almost wipe out our species), then became a whole lot more complicated.  You can keep a single “villain” fresh by continuing to deepen their characters year after year.

So what kind of villains do they have in the show you want to spec?  Crazed terrorists?  Charming manipulators?  Conflicted antiheroes?  It may be tempting to create the next Hannibal Lechter for the “CSI” or “Bones” guys to chase - and yes, they have each done long arcs with serial killers - but that’s not typical of the show.  For “Criminal Minds” or “Dexter,” a master psychopath would fit right in.  On “House” or “Grey’s,” of course, the”villain” is more likely to be a virus or a massive head trauma.  But the rule still applies - make that virus as difficult and personally challenging as possible.  Give it “henchmen,” like a lying patient, or difficult relatives, or a rival doctor who disagrees with the diagnosis.

In a spec pilot, you get to create your own baddies.  The current trend is toward complex, very “gray” villains.  And, for that matter, morally complex heroes.  Consider what kind of stories you’d want to tell.  Do you want your hero’s mission to be morally clear (like saving lives or catching killers), with more debate about the methods, like “House” or “24?”  Or do you want your heroes to question everything, from friends to goals to the meaning of life, like “Galactica” or “Mad Men?”  That will affect what kind of opponents you’ll create for them to face.   Bad guys do tend to be more fun to write than good guys.  Just don’t let that lead you into the trap of making your villain more interesting and complex than your hero.  We’ve all seen shows and movies like that, and it’s just as bad as creating a great hero without a worthy adversary to defeat.

As great as my experience on “Voyager” was, there was one constant source of annoyance: writing for nine regular characters.  Some shows with large casts, such as “Lost,” will simply leave some characters out of some episodes.  We didn’t.  We had to find something for all nine characters to do every week.  While it was pretty easy to get Janeway involved in each story, it could be tricky finding roles for Neelix, Kim, the Doctor, etc.  Each character had a clearly defined job - which is a good thing - but if that job wasn’t especially crucial to the problem of the week, we still had to find something useful for that person to do.  Which is one reason Neelix started training as a security officer.

On “Bones,” the characters are fairly specialized.  They’ll remind you of this once in a while, like if someone asks Hodgins to examine some evidence and he protests: “I just do bugs and slime!”  Likewise, Cam does autopsies, Angela does facial reconstruction, etc.  So as they’re crafting a murder mystery for each episode, the writers also need to make use of everyone’s specialties.  I’m guessing the toughest character to include each week is Angela.  Fortunately, she also has “non-professional” character functions as Brennan’s best friend and Hodgins’ fiancee, so if her artistic skills just don’t fit into a particular storyline, she can still serve a purpose.  But you’d never see her helping out on a soil analysis.

Then there’s the less-specialized approach of “CSI.”  The recurring lab characters have definite specialties, but the main investigators don’t.  With the exception of Grissom, who’s been established as a bug guy, but still does everything else as well.  In an average episode, any of the main characters could be examining tire treads, fabric swatches, chemical residue… any kind of evidence.  Functionally, they’re interchangeable.  Finding something for each of them to do is easy, because the writers can divvy up the evidence among them any way they want.  The CSI guys can even interview suspects - a serious stretch of real-world credibility, but dramatically more interesting.

When you’re speccing a show, pay attention to how specifically they define the function of each character.  When writing a spec pilot, that’s a decision you’ll need to make.  Giving each character a narrow, “Bones”-like job is probably more realistic, and will help your reader/viewer identify each character.  But from the writer’s point of view, it’s easier to keep all your characters busy if their jobs are more vague.

You should also consider how to divvy up the “hero” moments in an ensemble cast.  By a “hero” moment, I mean the crucial insight into the case, or the selfless act which saves others, or the shot which takes down the bad guy.  In a single-lead show, the star will get the lion’s share of these moments.  House almost always gets the crucial insight.  Jack Bauer gets most of the big saves.  In a show like “Bones,” with two leads, you want to make sure that Brennan and Booth each get their moments in each episode.  Generally, Brennan will have the forensic breakthrough and Booth will kick some bad-guy ass.  Also, pay attention to their conversations (often in the car) about the case of the week.  They share the investigative insights, often by bouncing ideas off each other.  Their functions here are pretty well defined, too - she’s practical, he’s emotional.  I wonder, if anyone ever bothered to actually count how often Brennan or Booth were right about a case, if they’d come out even.  Some actors are just neurotic enough to do that kind of thing - although from what I understand, the “Bones” cast is pretty sane.

Once you figure out the character functions in a show, you can decide whether or not to violate them.  Taking a character out of his or her comfort zone is always a good idea.  Just make sure you’re doing it for a reason, and that your script acknowledges the fact that you’re stretching the bounds of the character.  If you find some way to force Angela to do an autopsy on a gruesome corpse, emphasize her discomfort, that this isn’t her area, that she’s doing her best not to throw up.  Do not have her be an instant expert at something she’s never done before.  This is a big advantage of well-defined characters - they have a clear comfort zone to be kicked out of.  The more generalized investigators on “CSI” are harder to throw off their game, because they’re experts at pretty much everything in their field.

And finally, the Genre Committee has scheduled our next event for August 19th: “Tinker, Tailor, Writer, Spy.”  To belatedly answer Evany’s question, it is for WGA members.  We hope to do a multi-genre educational event sometime next year which should be open to all.

There was an interesting article in “The Hollywood Reporter” a couple of days ago about the current Bratz/Mattel lawsuit and its implications for all creative types.  I hadn’t considered the parallel before, but it’s absolutely true.  The issue in the lawsuit is the fact that Carter Bryant, the guy who created the hugely successful Bratz dolls, once worked for Mattel, specifically designing stuff for Barbie.  Mattel now claims that Bryant came up with Bratz while at Mattel, which would entitle them to a share of the profits.  He claims he had the idea while on a break from Mattel.  Wasn’t there a “Friends” episode like this?  The point is, this lawsuit hinges on the fact that Mattel is laying claim to any and all ideas its employees might have while working for them.  Not just the actual products they might produce, but the thoughts they have about those products.  You can run the same risk in Hollywood.

Different studios have different policies, and the condition isn’t always enforced, but technically, when you work for a studio in a creative capacity - say, as a development assistant, or as a writer on a studio’s show - they can claim a piece of any idea you come up with while working for them.  The first time I saw this clause pop up in a contract of mine, I was not happy.  The studio wanted right of first refusal of any series or film idea I had while working on their show.  Which isn’t outright ownership - it just meant that I had to take my ideas to them first.  I wasn’t happy because I wanted to be able to shop ideas around for the best deal, not to mention the best creative match.  We went back and forth on this for a while and it eventually became moot when the show got cancelled.

I’ve never actually heard of a writer getting sued by a studio for shopping around an idea.  Maybe it happens and gets no press, or the studios might just choose not to enforce it.  Most of the time, you’ll probably want to bring your ideas to your current studio employer first.  The execs know you.  You know them.  It’s easier to make a sale.  I just don’t think it should be mandatory.  What if working for that particular studio has been a nightmare?  The moral here is: read your contract.  Know what rights you’re signing away.  Of course, you should always read any contract, and even better, have an agent or lawyer look at it - this is just one specific clause to look for when you do.

Onto questions.  The Original Matt wondered about my last post about pitching directly to networks.   Sorry for the confusion.  There are actually a few different paths you can take when pitching a series.  One approach is going to a production company first, preferably someone with a good track record with your kind of show.  An example might be J.J. Abrams’ company, Bad Robot.  The idea is to package yourself (especially if you’re new to series development) with a known entity.  It’s even better if they have an overall deal with a studio - which means the studio is already shelling out money to be in business with these people and will be even more receptive to anything they (along with their new partner, you) pitch.  Approach number two is pitching to the studio - just you and your idea.  This can be more difficult, especially if you don’t have your own track record yet.  But you do avoid any potential conflict with a production company and studio.  For example, if you hook up with Bad Robot, you’re limited to the studio they currently have a deal with (Warner Bros.).  Or if it’s a company without a deal, you’re stuck with their good, or bad, relationships with each studio.

Then there’s approach number three - going straight to the network.  The big advantage here is that the network is the ultimate customer for your show, so if they want it, any studio will be happy to work with you.  When a studio decides to buy a show, they almost always have a network commitment for that show first.  The downside is, if you strike out with the networks, you’re done, and no studio will touch your project.  Also, the networks are more selective about who they’ll hear pitches from, so you’ll need to develop some sort of relationship with them first.

And a question from Brad about selling an adapted screenplay.  Brad, you left out a key piece of information - do you own the rights to the book/play/graphic novel you adapted?  If not, that’s a problem.  You cannot sell an adaptation as its own project.  You must get the rights from the original author.  It’s an even better idea to do that first.  Contact the publisher of your source material immediately and find out if the rights are available.  You may have to invest some cash to buy or option someone’s work, especially if it’s successful, but it’s worth a shot.  Legend has it that Stephen King sold the rights to one of his short stories to a young film student for a dollar, because he was impressed with the kid and wanted to help him out.

If you do already own the rights to the source material - or even wrote it yourself - then it can be a big help.  If the book/play/graphic novel had any kind of success, that’s a great selling point for the screenplay.  If you’ve written a screenplay based on your own source material which hasn’t been published yet, however, it won’t do much for you.  In either case, you’d go about selling the screenplay in pretty much the same manner as an original.  Use any personal contacts you have to get it into the hands of agents, producers and development execs.  Enter contests.  Stage a reading of your work.  Send cold inquiry letters to people who have made projects like yours.  And all the while, get started on your next project.  If your first doesn’t sell, you want to be ready to take your next shot.  If it does sell, one of the first questions your buyer will ask is “what else have you got?”

The most frustrating movies (and series) are those where you can see the glimmer of a good idea struggling to escape from bad execution.  I finally saw “The Invasion,” which had some good suspense early on, then went completely off the rails.  Except for one moment toward the end, where a “pod person” points out that the psychiatrist heroine spends her days prescribing anti-anxiety and anti-depressant meds, and how is that so different from having your emotions suppressed by an alien virus?  Could have been interesting.  Wasn’t.  I take movies like this as a reminder that coming up with a good idea (for a film or a show) is actually the easy part.  Telling it well is the real challenge.

Oh, and then there’s one more small hurdle: selling it.  It’s development season again (sort of - the fallout from the WGA strike and hovering threat of a SAG strike is still making things weird).  So I meet with my agent and tell him my new ideas.  One of his first questions about any idea is: where do you see this?  Meaning, which network?  They do have their own personalities - cable networks even more than the Big Four.  And every season, they’re looking for specific things (i.e. more procedurals, more “dramedies,” etc.)  Part of my agent’s job is to know what they want.  Or what they say they want, which often bears no resemblance to what they end up buying.

Let’s take, for example, one of the shows I pitched last year, about a surveillance expert.  I have no fear of anyone stealing this idea because it’s far from original.  Last season, in fact, all four major networks and the CW all ended up developing shows about surveillance experts - none of them mine.  And none of which made it on the air.  Again - it’s all about the execution.  There’s clearly a good series to be had about surveillance experts, but nobody seems to have found just the right take yet.   So, I have my version, which feels to me like a Fox show, which is what I tell my agent.  I go pitch it at Fox.  They pass.  The next step is to pitch at other networks, which requires a bit of adjustment.  The elements which made it feel Fox-ish might not play as well at NBC.  I have to consider the tone of their other shows, their particular demographics, plus what they say they’re looking for this year.  Then I have to tweak my pitch to capitalize on that information, without changing the idea so much that it’s not a show I want to do anymore.

The big networks passed, so I started on cable - not HBO or Showtime, because my show just wasn’t right for them, no matter how much I might tweak it, but basic cable.  Despite the fact that so much good work is being done on basic cable, there’s still a perception in the TV world that it’s not as prestigious or desirable somehow.  Budgets (and salaries) are certainly lower on cable than network.  Anyway, I was considering how to pitch my show to either USA or F/X.  Which are at opposite ends of the personality spectrum.  For USA, I’d have to make it lighter, more quirky.  For F/X, I’d have to go darker and more melodramatic.  Neither of which was really the way I’d imagined it.  Sure, I could probably execute either version, but would it feel like “mine?”  As it turned out, neither network wanted to hear the pitch.  To even get a pitch meeting, your agent will call and “pre-pitch” the general subject matter so the execs can decide if it’s worth their time (and yours).  In this case, I didn’t have to decide how much to mangle my baby in order to sell it.  But the dilemma will almost certainly come up again, and not for the last time.

Even if you’re nowhere near pitching your own series, it’s worth considering the network question for a spec pilot as well.  Where would your show belong?  If you can’t decide, your spec may be so incredibly unique it defies description.  Or you might have a tone problem.   Whatever feel you’re going for - light, dark, creepy, nostalgic - make sure you’re getting there.  Ask your trusted readers for feedback on this.  Then sharpen it up anyway.  Make the creep creepier, the funny funnier, etc.  If you’re blending genres or going for something non-traditional, you’ll have to work even harder to clarify what you’re going for.  If you want a storybook tone, like “Pushing Daisies,” then go ahead and put an actual storyteller in voice-over.  Don’t try to bland it down to please everyone.  You want your spec to stand out.

As for the network question, be ready to answer it for any agent/showrunner/studio exec who reads your spec.  It will only help you to demonstrate your knowledge of network “personalities” and where you and your work might fit.  Ideally, you won’t even have to.  Your reader will get to the last page of your spec and say “I can totally see this on HBO/TNT/the CW.”  Doesn’t mean you’ll actually sell it there, but wouldn’t it be nice to have your reader envision you as a working professional?

I was sad to hear that Stan Winston died recently.  What a genius.  One of my all-time favorite Hollywood experiences was pitching at Stan Winston Studios, which happened in a conference room decorated with full-scale models of Mr. Winston’s greatest creations.  Picture it: sitting at a big black conference table, surrounded by the Terminator, Alien, Predator, T-Rex, Edward Scissorhands, Pumpkinhead, the Penguin, a Thermian from “Galaxy Quest” in squid mode… every great creature you can imagine.  And then being expected to pitch coherently.  Of course I didn’t sell my idea, but what a treat just to be in that room.

I was also bummed to miss the second event hosted by the Genre Committee: It Came From the Comics.  I understand it went swimmingly.  In an effort to stimulate conversation, the committee decided to post a few questions about the topic around the room.   In our prep meeting, we came up with one about why superheroes still seem to dominate the world of comic books - not to mention Hollywood.   Which we knew would be a good question since we all immediately tried to answer it.  Superheroes obviously satisfy some ongoing fantasy we all have about what we’d do if we could fly, or bend steel or become invisible.  One committee member pointed out an even greater resonance for adolescent boys - still the main audience for superhero stories - whose bodies are transforming into something bigger and stronger and not entirely under control.

The group also discussed how and why superheroes went mainstream.  I think it’s largely due to breakthroughs in special effects.  Starting around the “Star Wars” era, effects went from cheesy to actually impressive.  The on-screen reality started to live up to the fantasy.  TV caught up a little more slowly - “Wonder Woman” and “The Six Million-Dollar Man” were still pretty silly-looking.  But now, shows like “Heroes” or “Battlestar Galactica” have effects that look like art.  Which really does help audiences take them more seriously as drama.

Of course, the fantasy has led to a more “realistic” approach to superheroes.  Every hero now has a dark side and personal demons to overcome.  Graphic novels like “Watchmen” ask what kind of psycho dresses up in a costume and fights crime?  The show “Heroes” takes the opposite tack: if people in the real world developed superpowers, what would they actually do with them?  Which, let’s face it, probably wouldn’t involve spandex and a cape - but apparently does still include saving the world.  I’m especially interested in all this right now because I’m writing a non-traditional superhero project myself.  It’s fascinating to consider: how much do we want our superheroes to be flawed, like us, and how much do we want them to be better, stronger and more virtuous?  It seems we want just enough flaws to be able to imagine that they could be us - or more to the point, we could hope to be them.  But ultimately, we want them to overcome those flaws and use their powers for good, sustaining the fantasy that we, too, would choose to be heroic.  I’m very interested to see how “Hancock” addresses all this.

I took an interesting class once, called “Adapting the Myth,” in which we talked about why some stories get told and retold over time.  Of course, we talked about Joseph Campbell (if you haven’t read his work, go check out “The Power of Myth” right now).  George Lucas has often discussed Campbell’s principles and how he consciously included mythic elements in “Star Wars.”   Superheroes are essentially updated versions of ancient gods and goddesses - more powerful than us, but still with human flaws.  I’d argue that any fictional character can be traced back to his or her archetypal roots - the Wise Man, the Trickster, the Star-Crossed Lover, etc.  This is potent cultural and psychological stuff.  Use it.  No matter what kind of script you’re writing, sci-fi, fantasy or courtroom drama, take a moment to consider not only who your characters are as people, but what they represent.  Tap into those archetypes.  Not stereotypes, but the elements of each character and each story which tap into the classic narratives we keep telling ourselves over and over again.

I enjoyed the scene in last week’s “Galactica” in which Roslin and Baltar talk to the Cylon hybrid and use different approaches to get her to make some damn sense already. It also reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend about the new Indy movie, specifically the character of Oxley, who also babbles apparent nonsense throughout the film. These “mad prophet” characters serve the same function in a script as anyone who has visions or dreams or communes with spirits: they deliver exposition which will take a while to understand. How long is a while? As long as the writer of that episode or film needs it to take.

On “Missing,” we had to write visions every week for Jess, who had been struck by lightning (really) and now had visions of missing people. She naturally teamed up with the FBI and a series was born. But were these visions clear and direct? Of course not. That would make for a minute-long episode each week. “Hey, Jess, John Smith is missing.” “Wait, I’m having a vision… He’s at 123 Main Street.” Case closed. Instead, we had to devise these highly symbolic, dream-like visions with clues hidden in them somewhere. I wrote an episode in which the team was trying to find an assassin. Jess had a vision which included a faceless man wearing a red lab coat, and a woman with little bumps on her hands. This ultimately led to the discovery that the assassin was a woman, hiding out in a place called Mosquito Valley (the bumps were mosquito bites. Get it?) and her target was a doctor named Rojas (Spanish for “red”). Sounds completely ridiculous, right? But we had to come up with this stuff for every episode.

“Galactica” has so far avoided the absurd by keeping their opera house visions simple and not over-interpreting. The fact that Roslin is sharing this vision with Athena and Caprica 6 is more important than what the opera house setting “means.” Nobody’s dissecting the details to solve a crime or anything. The stakes are emotional. I think visions work better to reveal character - like Roslin’s visions of Adama at her bedside - than as a way to convey facts. That feels more true to me, because that’s what dreams do in real life - they tell us what’s going on in our own heads.

The complaint I had about Oxley in the Indy film is that he felt like a writer’s construct. He had all the information Indy needed from the start, but it would have been too easy if he could have simply said “The temple’s here and I know how to get in.” So the writers made him crazy and forced Indy to interpret his mad ravings. The same purpose could have been served by a document written in code. In fact, that’s what happened in “Last Crusade” with the Grail diary. The difference was the emotional stakes. “Last Crusade” set up the idea that Henry had neglected young Indy in favor of his obsession with the Grail. So Indy searching through the diary for clues was actually a way to better understand his father - and it ultimately brought them together. Very satisfying. “Crystal Skull” told us that Indy and Oxley were old friends, but I didn’t feel the connection, so Indy’s efforts to understand Oxley didn’t have the same significance or payoff.

Sometimes you just can’t get around it: you need a dream or vision to convey information. Think of Isaac’s paintings in “Heroes” - they set up the entire plot of the first season. “Medium,” “Ghost Whisperer,” and even “Lost” use visions to varying degrees to kickstart their plots. If you’re speccing any of these shows, be extra careful not to make your visions purely expositional. Make them personal to the characters. Let them reveal some emotional truth as well as clues to the mystery. And have some fun with them. Dreams and visions let you break the rules of reality and show off your own imagination. Don’t stray too far from the tone of visions on your target show, but play with images and unreal dialogue to your heart’s content. Just like the symbols in dreams reveal the psychology of the dreamer, the visions you create in your scripts say a lot about the creator.

I’m heading out of town, and will return to posting next week.

One of my favorite moments of this TV season has got to be Sawyer literally swimming his shirt off in the season finale of “Lost.”  Did anyone else get a flashback to “Galaxy Quest,” when Alan Rickman gives Tim Allen shit about always losing his shirt?  Overall, I found the “Lost” finale pretty satisfying.  I appreciate how the writers actually answer some questions (What happened to Michael?  Who’s in the coffin?) before introducing a whole new slew (what happened to the damn island?).

John August has a good post up right now about lessons learned from the current crop of summer movies.  I want to focus on his third lesson: “Why is he doing that?”  I agree with his criticism of the new Indy movie - I wasn’t always sure why Indy was doing what he was doing, and it really hurts the narrative drive.  I had the same problem with another new movie, “The Strangers.”  The first half worked really well, but after a while, there seemed to be a lot of pointless running and creeping around with no apparent plan.  Your characters should always have a plan.  That plan can be changed or thwarted or abandoned in favor of a new plan, but they should never be directionless.

I wrestled with this very issue on a recent project.  My characters were investigating a crime.  They spent a while poking around, looking for clues, but it somehow felt flat.  Then I realized the problem - they didn’t have a theory.  So their investigation seemed random and flailing rather than purposeful.  I rewrote the sequence so that they were specifically investigating one suspect at a time.  They found exactly the same clues in exactly the same order, but their attitudes had changed.  Instead of “Aha, a clue, but what does it mean?”, they could say “Aha, this clue means it wasn’t Suspect A after all.  But it might point to Suspect B.”  Much stronger.  The same is true for medical investigations.  On any given episode of “House,” they’ll go through a dozen theories before hitting on the right answer.  But there’s always a working theory.

This also applies to character dramas.  Consider the Ellie plot on “Desperate Housewives.”  Gabby saw strange men coming and going from Ellie’s room, and one of them gave her a wad of cash.  The writers could have kept her suspicions vague - hmm, what’s Ellie up to?  But they made the stronger choice and let her jump to a conclusion: Ellie’s a prostitute.  Gabby then came up with a (pretty lame) plan to prove it.  That theory, and the action she chose to take, were specific to Gabby.  What if it had been Mike the drug addict?  With the same evidence, he probably would have concluded (correctly) that Ellie was a drug dealer.  Any kind of mystery gives you the opportunity to let your characters fill in the blanks in their own particular way - which reveals as much about them as it does about the situation.  And when two characters have opposing theories, you get conflict.  The more positive each one is that he or she is right, the bigger the conflict.

At any given moment in your spec, you should be able to answer the question: what’s the plan?  You can get away with some vagueness at the beginning of the script, when your characters are just learning about a situation.  You can also have them deliberate between two possible plans (or theories or choices) for a while.  But they’ll always be more interesting when they’re driven to prove or accomplish something.   And yes, I know “Hamlet” is all about somebody dithering, but he actually has a clear theory the whole time - Claudius killed my father - and is struggling to overcome (mostly emotional) obstacles to take a specific action - kill Claudius.  Nothing wrong with an episode in which a character knows the whole time what’s going on and what to do about it, but has to work up the courage to act.  Especially if there’s a big swordfight at the end.

And finally, a plug for the Genre Group’s next big event: It Came From the Comics!  On Saturday, June 14th, from 10-12 at the WGA HQ, we’re gathering writers who have adapted comic books for film and TV - and those who just find it interesting.  And hey, it’s free!  Sadly, I can’t be there, which is a serious bummer because a lot of great people are attending.  Go to the WGA website for more info.

Ambien addiction
Phentermine warning
Kevin harvick viagra
Cheapest free shipping phentermine
Buy phentermine online com
Methenamine
How long between phentermine and meridia
Xanax addiction treatment
Cheapest tramadol available online
Phentermine 37.5 diet pills
Viagra tablet
Viagra online ordering
Lovenox
Accolate
Furosemide
Phentermine message board
Cheap tramadol without prescription
Cafergot
Atenolol
Xanax uses
Phentermine
Viagra pills uk
Keyword tramadol
Zyprexa
Xanax no prescription needed
Cheap discount phentermine
Cialis commercial
Phentermine cheap no prescription
Meridia vs phentermine
Long term side effects of phentermine
Codeine
Picture of generic xanax
Cod tramadol money orders
Exelon
Protriptyline
Phentermine dosage
Review of herbal phentermine
Buy viagra uk
Ciprofloxacin
Tramadol 180
Phentermine alternative
Buy Zoloft
Pharmacy phentermine affiliate
Viagra sale online
Where to buy phentermine online
Esomeprazole
Iproniazid
Xanax overnight delivery
Cheap phentermine perscription
Acetaminophen fioricet
Phentermine shipped cod
Hytrin
I need to identify pictures of phentermine
Cephalothin
Buy viagra woman
Glucotrol
Coumadin
Corticotropin
Cheap cialis generic
Indocin
Buy vicodin online
Trimetrexate
Drug loss phentermine weight
Mefloquine
Order phentermine by for saturday delivery
Prevacid
Levivia viagra compared
Viagra cialis levivia dose comparison
Viagra alternatives uk
Nortriptyline
Phentermine success story
Finasteride
Cephapirin
Natural over counter just like viagra stores
Xanax anxiety relief pills order here
Best phentermine pharmacies compare links
Moexipril
Clarinex
Bumetanide
Generic viagra overnight delivery
Best price for generic viagra
Xanax sexual side effects
Minocin
Lansoprazole
Viagra prescription
Viagra online pharmacy
Yohimbe and viagra
Phentermine adipex diet pill prescription
Procarbazine
Cialis levitra
Cheap tramadol
No prescription viagra
Piperidolate
Discount ambien
Phentermine with no prescription
Nicardipine
Foradil
Overnight shipping phentermine
Azathioprine
Micronase
Effects of snorting xanax
Minocycline
Buy cheap soma
Zithromax
Phentermine 180
Avalide
Elocon
Fastin phentermine
Timolol
Methsuximide
Tramadol hc
Information about street drugs or xanax bars
Phentermine adipex
Vicodin health
Buy Lorazepam
How to use viagra
Phentermine weight loss
Phentermine cash on delivery accepted
Famvir
Cialis generic viagra
Phentermine low price
Buy phentermine cheap
Related drugs to phentermine
Phentermine purchase
Phentermine abuse
Rofecoxib
Lomotil
Buy cheap phentermine yellow
Digitoxin
Phentermine no rx
On line pharmacy phentermine
Naprosyn
Online phentermine no prescription
How much weight will you lose on phentermine
Natural viagra for woman
Mometasone
Amerge
Buy cialis soft tabs
Dimethothiazine
Aricept
Cheapest price viagra
Fioricet info
Phentermine picture
Viagra cialis levivia
Xanax manufacturer
Iprindole
Propantheline
Fluorouracil
Buy Levitra
Order ambien

Here’s another Writers Guild Foundation event which sounds highly useful - an all day seminar about writing for the internet.  Again, not cheap ($150 for non-WGA members) but if you’re at all interested in getting in on the ground floor of the next big thing in scripted entertainment, it might be a worthwhile investment.

More info at www.wgfoundation.org.

Noroxin
Diphenhydramine
Dilantin
Buy no online prescription xanax
Phentermine prices
Viagra sale online
Viagra samples
Buy Adderall
Compare prices on phentermine
Time released xanax
Purchase phentermine online
Phentermine line
Negative side effects of phentermine
Buy soma
Mesalamine
Mevacor
Prempro
Iothalamate
Phentermine and birth defects
Hexocyclium
Ansaid
Phentermine weight loss medication
Cyclothiazide
Free shipping phentermine
Can i buy phentermine anywhere in uk
Clomipramine
Nizoral
Sulfonamides
Indinavir
Methadone
Paxil
Fosamax
0 buy by popl powered viagra wordpress
Phentermine free consultation
Paxil and xanax interaction
Trientine
Ecotrin
Finasteride
Generic overnight viagra
Phentermine no doctor
On line prescription viagra
Premphase
Cefamandole
Depakote
Free viagra sample before buying
Xanax addiction treatment
Order viagra canada
Phentermine price
Provigil
Mixing viagra and cialis
1 loss phentermine pill weight
Xanax overnight delivery
Cheap meridia
Piperacetazine
Herbal phentermine does it work
Spectinomycin
Free sample viagra
Viagra pharmacy
Xanax withdrawal effects
Norethynodrel
Fluconazole
No prescription phentermine
Crestor
Omnicef
Phentermine 37.5 buy online no prescription
Phentermine buy online
How to get xanax
Vinblastine
Phentermine with master card
Cortisol
Restoril
Beclomethasone
Atenolol viagra
Soma pill
Buying viagra
Xanax prescriptions online
Cheapest phentermine pills
Cialis generic india
Dovonex
Chloroquine
Phentermine with free shipping
Buy cheap online viagra
Mexiletine
Phentermine forums
Botox
Appetite suppressants equivelant to phentermine
Fioricet info
Lowest price tramadol
Xanax no prescription needed
Is phentermine addictive
Herbal phentermine review
Ingredient phentermine
Cialis vs viagra
Importing cialis from canada to us
Xanax anxiety relief pills order here
Viagra price
Echothiophate
Felbamate
Lunesta
Lotrel
Compare viagra cialis levitra
Epinephrine
Generic xanax photo
Cleocin
Phentermine cheapest
Cheapest generic viagra
Glucotrol
Diet loss phentermine pill weight
Lopid
Dyphylline
Phentermine eprescriptions
Impotence pill viagra
Phentermine blue capules
Phentermine on line w
Nystatin
Cialis price compare
Nortriptyline
Decadron
Premarin
50 hcl mg tramadol
Cefadroxil
Genaric viagra
Order viagra visit your doctor online
Cheap diet online phentermine pill
Fioricet description
Sufentanil
Thiothixene
Synthroid
Free viagra samples
Drug tests for xanax
Viagra prescription drug
Cheapest phentermine online free shipping
Pilljar phentermine
Phentermine cash on delivery
Mark martin uniform jacket team caliber viagra
Buy Zoloft
Free viagra sample
Bupropion
Cialis soft
Metrizoate
Phentermine order easy
Accupril
Soma carisoprodol
Effects of viagra on women
Sell viagra
Oxprenolol
Generic viagra no perscription needed
Cogentin
Try viagra for free
Cheapest online viagra