Most Common Surnames by Country

I'm often using a character's name to signal their ethnicity or nationality. The Familypedia Wiki has a great List of Most Common Surnames arranged by nationality.

Handy!

Talentville

Talentville is a new website intended to be a home for emerging writers to cross-pollinate. Like Triggerstreet and Zoetrope, you can review each other's scripts. There's a neat mechanism where each review you write generates you "Talent Dollars" which enable you to "buy" a review of your script.

And there will be lots of goodies as founder Ben Cahan (who helped found Final Draft) adds features.

Right now the site is in Beta, but if you join now you get an immediate upgrade to your citizenship level (see the site) and some free Talent Dollars.

Check it out, and let us know what you think in the comments!

WGC Podcasts!

The first Writers Watching TV Podcast is up! Check out showrunners/creators Jeff Biederman and Jeffrey Alan Schechter talking about their tween comedy OVERRULED!

Dynastree

As you know, I'm fond of using census info to find first names that are unique to a generation. Subliminally, naming a character "Lisa" tells the reader that she is probably in her 40s. Ashley is probably in her 20s, and Edna is old as the hills.

Dynastree breaks down last names geographically. You won't be surprised to learn that Epsteins tend to congregate in New York, LA and Florida. There are apparently no Epsteins in Alabama (and I doubt there will be more any time soon.)

You can use the site to come up with a common name for a character in Montana, say, or, alternately, to come up with an intentionally uncommon name.

Names are important because they repeat throughout the script. Even if the characters don't say them often, they affect the read.

Google Fight!

Wondering whether to use "jury-rigged" or "jerry-rigged"? The dictionary can't tell you -- both are used. But which is more common?

Googlefight it!

What's a Word That Means ...

If you're searching for the right word, try this Reverse Dictionary. You type in what the word means, and it tries to find your word.

Hey, guys, what's your favorite online thesaurus?

Applied Phlebotinum

Caroline G recommends this Wiki of TV Tropes and Idioms.

Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite." In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them.

The site includes articles on Motifs, Paratext, Crime and Punishment, Professional Wrestling, and Applied Phlebotinum:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a completely ad-hoc plot device"
-- David Langford, as a corollary to Arthur C. Clarke's third law

Phlebotinum is the magical substance that may be rubbed on almost anything to cause an effect needed by a plot. Some examples: nanotechnology, magic crystal emanations, pixie dust, a sonic screwdriver. Oh, and Green Rocks.

Wow, the Internet is just bustin' out all over with so many writer resources I can't keep track of them. Sure didn't have this when I was a kid. Why, in those days, forget computers. We didn't even have ink. Yes, we had to regularly open our veins with knives in order to be able to get any writing done. And before we figured out about goose quills, we were using porcupine quills. You kids have it lucky!

Crafty Writing Groups

Q. How can I find a writing group?

I've posted a section of my book about writing groups and how great they are.

Are you looking for a writing group in your home town? Please consider this post page a resource. If you're starting a writing group, or looking for fellow writers to get together with, please leave your info in the comments below. Be sure to include your home town, your eddress, and your rough level (aspiring / emerging / pro -- it's usually best if everyone's in the same place more or less in their level of craft).

Name Trends

When I'm coming up with a secondary character, if I'm not trying to suggest ethnicity (MR. AZAD, CHELSEA FRIEDMAN), I'm often trying to suggest age. The Social Security website will give you the most popular names by year, and the incredibly neat Baby Name Wizard NameVoyager shows how the popularity of a given name waxes and wanes.

But many names are popular every year, e.g. Michael, Robert, William, Katherine, Margaret. Fortunately NameTrends will show you the uniquely popular names from each era. Kaden just learned to walk. Cody is probably in high school about now. Lindsay's in college. Damon and Misty are probably having their first baby. Todd and Sherri are fighting over custody.

The site includes historical popularity of each name, and even breaks it down state by state.

I love this stuff!

Police Procedural Blog

Lee Lofland, of POLICE PROCEDURE AND INVESTIGATION, A HANDBOOK FOR WRITERS, has a nifty blog about, you guessed it, police procedure. He also answers your questions. Drop him a line and tell him I sent ya.

Writer Blogs

Amanda the Aspiring lists a couple of TV show writer blogs. Here's the one for Burn Notice, which I missed on the USA network. And here's the one for Brothers and Sisters. Check'em out.

OED VEY

Q. Do you use the OED ? or do you have another dictionary you prefer ?

Why, I do indeed use the OED. It's sitting open on a tansu in the entryway.

I used it a lot when I was perpetrating my historical novel. You can use the etymologies to see if a concept is anachronistic or not. For example, if you're wondering if "colonialism" is anachronistic in 5th C Britain, it's not: colonia is Latin, and it meant exactly what it does in English.

However if I need a quick definition I Google it.

Can I Ask a Production Office to Mail Me a Current Script?

Q. I want to spec BATTLESTAR, LOST or ENTOURAGE. These scripts are hard to find online. Can I contact the production office of these shows? Writers offices? The network? How do I get contact information? Are they open to sending scripts to non-represented writers? Do you have to send money for postage? Is it a problem I am outside of LA?

You've got the right idea: before you spec, read as many of the produced scripts of the show as you can get your eyes on.

You get the number of the production office by calling the main number for the studio (which you can get from 411) and asking for the production office.

However, I would be stunned if anyone at a production office or writer's office has the time to email anyone a script, let alone actually copy and mail one, and they'd probably get in trouble with the network if they did.

The best place to read current scripts is the Writer's Guild Library at 7000 West Third Street at Fairfax Avenue in LA.

Or you can try my handy list of websites that carry downloadable scripts. And check out this post and this post for other online and real world links.

Now, that said, there are various scripts floating around on the Interwebs (not necessarily Battlestar). The trick is just knowing who the people who are hooked up with the scripts that are floating around. Many of them are ambitious assistants at TV production companies and agencies who share the best material with each other. I don't know how you get hooked up with them. But maybe try the relevant Television without Pity forum?

Futon Critic

How did I miss this? The Futon Critic has a list of all the 2007-2008 pilots in development. Look under "Devwatch." (What is it, "Baywatch with clothes"?)

That goes into the sidebar. Check it out.

WHERE TO FIND SCRIPTS, AGAIN

A faithful reader sends me the following info on where to find scripts:

University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
Arts Library Special Collection
Young Research Library
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90024
By appointment only
310.825.7253
online: www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/arts/speccoll/speccoll.htm

University of Southern California (USC)
Cinema-Television Library
Doheny Library
University Park
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0182
213.740.3994
online: www.usc.edu/isd/libraries/locations/cinema_tv/

American Film Institute (AFI)
Louis B. Mayer Library
2021 N. Western Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323.856.7654
online: www.afi.com/about/library.aspx

also, the WHA library is re-opening. for info: www.wgfoundation.org

Writer's Guild of America Library
7000 West 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90048
323-951-4000

Re-opens on June 10th
M-F
11 – 5 pm
11 – 8 pm Thursday

WHERE TO FIND TV SCRIPTS?

My peerless assistant, Caroline, was kind enough to email me some questions to answer. One is, where do you find TV scripts to read?

I don't love Simply Scripts or Twiz TV because they can't always seem to tell the difference between scripts -- what the show's writers deliver to the production unit -- and transcripts -- what viewers write down painstakingly after watching the show. Oh, many of the transcripts are marked as such, and many of the scripts are actually scripts, but some of the scripts are transcripts put in something vaguely resembling script format. Transcripts are better than nothing, I suppose, especially if you take the trouble to retype them in proper screenplay format. But they don't tell you much about how the action is conveyed to the reader. All they have is dialog.

Drew's Script-O-Rama has quite a number of actual scripts -- sometimes even the actual scanned-in pages from someone's purloined copy of a real script.

If you live in LA, of course, you can just pop down to the Writer's Guild of America library and read'em on the spot. That's best. Or the Margaret Herrick Library at 333 S. La Cienega Blvd. in Beverly Hills (part of the Academy).

There are feature scripts at The Daily Script, but so far, only one TV script!

Script City sells TV scripts for the exorbitant price of ten bucks a pop. I'm not clear on how they can legally sell other people's copyrighted material, unless they've got a royalty deal going, which would surprise me quite a bit. I also don't know who's selling them the scripts. They do, however, have a large selection of this and that, for example around 20 "Third Rock from the Sun" scripts.

RUDE WORDS IN MANY LANGUAGES

Here's a wikipedia of rude words in many languages!