CHARACTER PASS

I'm doing a pass on my medieval zombie horror movie while I wait for notes on Exposure. I got the note that there didn't seem to be enough threat in the beginning. So that would be my cue to put in all sorts of foreshadowing, right? Dark shadows moving in the woods, etc.

Actually, no. What I realized is that I had not made the main characters real enough and I had not made the tensions between them strong enough. I had a group of future victims who liked each other all too well. What I needed to do is introduce conflicts between them -- human conflict, to contrast with the unnatural conflict later. Conflict gives your characters a chance to act more distinctively, hence defining themselves. Conflict also keeps the characters from being comfortable. Comfortable is boring. Later on in the movie, of course, they'll be screaming. Early conflict keeps the drama going until the bad guys show up. Early drama keeps the characters feeling unsafe.

In your movie, unsafe is always good.

(In his Creative Screenwriting podcast interview, Josh Olson, the guy who adapted A History of Violence for the screen, said he always thought The Big Chill was a horror movie where no one got killed. House in the middle of nowhere, interesting characters bumping into each other. Throw in rodent sized fire ants, or whatever, and you've got a great horror movie. And then there's my friend Jim Pickrell, who got irritated at Night of the Iguana, because the iguanas never showed up.)

UPDATE: I put the link for the Creative Screenwriting podcasts. I'm not sure the Josh Olson one is still up there, but other interesting ones are.

JANE ANSWERED MY QUESTION!

Jane Espenson is an awesome writer who has worked on shows like Buffy, Angel, Gilmore Girls ... oh, wait a second. There are no shows "like" Buffy, Angel or Gilmore Girls. Which is to say that she has had the sort of writing career that I would still envy if the shows I currently have in development all got greenlit at the same time. And she is a fun and witty person. As you can tell from her blog.

Anyway, Jane just answered a nagging question I've had about act breaks in Gilmore Girls.

You know how DMc and Rogers and other TV bloggers have gone on about act outs? The last moment before a commercial must be a big "wow" moment, preferably one of great jeopardy?

Gilmore Girls don't do act outs. Jane esplains why.

Thank, you, Jane!

WHAT IF

Scott the Reader, in Alligators in a Helicopter, talks about keeping an open mind about reader feedback:

So the What If. What if this reader is right, and this might be a more interesting option? Where could that lead? Is that better? What about what that reader said; wouldn't that go with this other suggestion, and make that whole segment of the script tighter and more interesting?

I think this is the key to the whole feedback debate. It's not about blindly taking the suggestions of someone who may or may not know what is best for your script, but letting these suggestions (which generally are inspired by some flaw in your script, real or perceived) lead you to where the What If? is. Where the choice in your script is, that really turns out not to be as tightly-stitched as you thought it was.

My acting teacher Joanne Baron used to say "Find the truth." Meaning, it's easy to find an excuse to reject criticism. But critiquing the criticism gets you nowhere. Find what's true about the criticism; assume there's a nugget of gold in there.

I like Scott's idea because he's using feedback (in this case from civilians) not as marching orders, but as an opportunity to see his script with new eyes. What if you were to take this reader's suggestion seriously ... where would that lead you.

That's why my response to notes that sound horribly wrong is "we'll take a look at that" and not "here's why you're an idiot." What sounds wrong while you're defending your script sometimes turns into a valuable approach when you're actually trying it out. So why not try it out?

THE VOICE OVER GOES TO GEORGE

Watched Grey's Anatomy last night. So Meredith Grey feels bad she slept with George. "I did a terrible thing," she repeats, as if that's an excuse. But makes no effort to undo the damage. And then proceeds to set up a clandestine "friendly" date with Derek Shepherd.

Fairly selfish, dishonorable behavior, huh?

I wonder if giving George the v.o. this Sunday (and a much more down-to-earth one than Meredith usually gets), and making no effort to clean up Meredith's toxicity, means they're moving away from Meredith as central character. (Tough when you've called the thing "Grey's Anatomy".) Because she is certainly the least attractive of all the characters, and has the least interesting problems.

Probably not. The writers at Grey Matter, the promotional GA writer's blog, seem to like her just fine. And I'm probably older than the show's demographic. And women probably forgive Meredith for her behavior the way guys forgive Bruce Willis's characters for theirs.

But I can imagine a showrunner trying to wean her audience off a main character she's no longer in love with, or whom she made into a main character only because she knew network expected the main character to be a gorgeous, romantic white chick. 'Cause now that the show's a hit, and everyone is digging Burke and Christina and Bailey and Addison and the others... you can start to sideline the skinny white chick. Not like network's going to take the show away from Shonda, know what I'm saying?

THIS IS WHY I LIKE TV

Actors will say, "My character wouldn't say that."
Who said it was your character?"

David Chase

From The Last Aria of Tony Soprano in todays' Times.

BOOK PROPOSALS

Lisa's hard at work on a book proposal for a second book, neatly allied to her first. I won't tell you what her great idea is, but I think it could do at least as well as I think her first will, and I'm a great believer in her first, The Intrepid Collector, about how to buy art on a budget.

A book proposal is how you get paid to write a book instead of having to sell publishers a finished book. Your basic book proposal is

:
• A page or two of hype -- your book in a nutshell
• Competition Analysis: what are the other books mining this vein, and why do you think your book fills a gap
• Marketing Plan: how do you propose to publicize your own book. Publishers don't want to do all the work. Will you be teaching seminars? Do you have friends with radio shows? How many people read your blog? (Lisa's new blog is How to Buy Art. You can ask her questions, and she'll answer them.)
• Outline: basically the projected table of contents for your book
• Sample Chapter: maybe twenty, thirty pages of actual text, just to show that you can actually write. I didn't include a sample chapter for Crafty TV Writing, but it was my second book.

The whole thing is on the order of thirty to forty pages. Which is a lot, but a lot less than a two hundred page manuscript. Especially if it turns out that publishers don't want the thing!

Writing books is not a terribly lucrative business. Figure you get about a buck a book in royalties, and figure it takes you about six months to write a good nonfiction book about something you already know. (Shorter if you're writing only what you already know; longer if you have to do serious research.) Now how many copies do you have to sell to make it worth your while?

Where writing a book is really useful is where there are possibly synergies, or where the book is a credential. I wrote Crafty Screenwriting for fun, and to give something back (I wish I'd been able to read it when I was learning how to write!), and to crystallize my own thinking. But now that it's out there I keep running into people in the biz who've read it; that compensates a bit for living off in Montreal, which is not the hottest of showbiz hotspots. And, when you're writing a book, you can interview people you'd just like to meet.

I think Lisa will be able to do far more with her book. If she can make it into a hit -- and I can't think of anyone who likes having art around who wouldn't want to buy it -- it could become a cottage industry for her. People who buy a lot of art, for example, might want to hire her as a consultant. Already with the blog she's starting to meet Montreal artists who would never have known of her before; and the book's not out till Fall.

I find bookstores daunting: not only all the books I don't have time to read, but now, the notion that my book is one of hundreds of thousands of books on the shelves -- or of millions at Amazon. It just gives you a sense how vast human knowledge is. But I'm pretty pleased with my first book, and I'm really excited about the new books. Can't wait to see what comes back to us out of them.

UPDATE: Find Lisa's book on sale at Barnes & Noble.

GAZETTE ARTICLE!

Here's the profile of me from Thursday's Montreal Gazette, copyrighted by them. If the rights holder would like me to remove this article, please let me know. (Actually, I have rewritten many of my answers because, hey, they're my answers.)

He'd like to live in the Chateau Ramazay, but for now, a loft will do

Writer's favourite drink is medieval, but he ranks Eminem as today's best poet

Photo by Allen McInnis. Shot at: His Old Montreal loft/ home office.

MAXINE MENDELSSOHN, Freelancer

Published: Thursday, February 23, 2006

Alex Epstein is freakishly articulate, quirky and introspective. It's what you would expect from a writer who spends hours alone with his thoughts, tapping away on a computer keyboard.

Epstein is a screenwriter who loves Eminem, brews his own medieval-style beer, has a "weird military mind" and hates mediocrity.

As I said, writers are quirky.

Alex Epstein, 43

Occupation: Screenwriter, currently developing a TV series for Global.

The best part of his job: "Getting paid to tell stories."

Why he chose to be a writer: "There was this playwright at Yale, Shoshana Marchand. I asked her why she wrote and she said: "Because you can't possibly sleep with everybody." I guess that sums it up.

His second-choice professions: Novelist, comic strip writer, political speech writer. "Though I missed my calling as a 15th-century German prince."

Little-known fact about him: "I have this weird military mind. I'm always thinking about how to defend the terrain. I've never seen combat, but I think I'd have made a good lieutenant."

His greatest fear: "Dying, but I guess that's pretty universal. Dying without having left anything behind."

On his contribution to humanity: "I'd like to still be making ripples in the world when I'm gone. At the very least, my kids will be a testament to my life here, but I'd like to have changed people's lives in some way. Hence the books and the TV shows."

His greatest regret: "My first marriage, which was a toxic relationship with a wonderful woman who was just wrong for me."

Where he'd like to live: "This loft, I guess. But if not that, then the Chateau Ramezay."

His recently acquired taste: "Eminem. He's a way better poet than any modern poet I've read. He uses internal rhymes and cross rhythms, and still the beat goes on and the feeling builds."

His screen saver: "A picture of my actual desktop."

His secret shame: "I don't brush my dog enough. He's huge and shaggy and he gets dreadlocks."

What makes him upset: "Contemporary American politics."

He's a snob about: "Talent. I can't help liking people who are good at what they do more than people who aren't. I know that's shallow."

Pet peeve: "The Mediocracy."

People say he looks like: James Spader....

His favourite restaurant: Le Cabaret du Roy, 363 de la Commune St. E., (514) 907-9000. "The waiters are in period costumes and the recipes are from 1714. Actually it's not kitschy at all."

Favourite Bar: Brasserie Dieu du Ciel, 29 Laurier Ave. W., (514) 490-9555.

His favourite beer: "Gruit. It's a medieval style of beer brewed without hops, using marsh rosemary, bog myrtle and sweet gale for preservatives. You can't buy it, you have to make it. I've made about fifteen gallons of the stuff."

Favourite drink: "Mead - it's made from fermented honey. It's actually a sort of honey wine. I've made that too."

Signature quote: "We'll take a look at that."

©The Gazette (Montreal) 2006

GETTING LIKE THE GRAMMIES ROUND HERE

I got my letter from the Guild today: I'm a finalist in the "Drama Series: 1/2 Hour" category. Seems they've split the Drama category in two. How Canadian. Something for everyone.

Frankly I thought our show wanted to be a comedy... but then, I'm glad we're not up against Corner Gas.