TALENT BORROWS...

A few years ago, someone mentioned to me an idea they were kicking around for a screenplay. It was a great, high-concept idea that was screaming to be written. Years later, the script had not been written, nor had a treatment been done, or anything else been put in writing. I contacted the guy, who said he'd be willing to collaborate and write it together, but does not want to write it alone. I have absolutely no interest in collaborating on a spec, since I have my own habits and schedule. But I hate that this concept is not being written. Would I be a complete a-hole by writing it myself and marketing the spec?

Yes, you would. Thank you for asking.

Morally, you're obliged to work something out with the guy. Since he hasn't written the idea, he may not be that attached to it. You could ask him how much he wants for all rights to the idea, and buy it from him. You could also tell him you'd rather write it himself, but offer him a story credit and, say, 10% of any compensation you get from the sale of the script. I've done deals like that myself.

That said, as Denis pointed out, ideas are not copyrightable, only their expression. He owns any characters and plot he came up with, but the logline itself is not protected. E.g. you could do "two lovers meet on Titanic", which may be all you need for your concept; but if one of the lovers is a rich girl about to go into a loveless marriage, it starts to become Jim Cameron's property.

The other question, of course, is how much you treasure your friendship. Regardless what is copyrightable or not, your friend may feel -- especially since you already asked him -- that he owns his idea. If you take it, he may well hate you.

A LOVELY DAY IN EAST HAMPTON

We just got out here. The sun is warm and bright, melting the snow off the driveway. Got some logs for the fire later, and checked to make sure ABC is coming in on cable. Shelley's made an Oscar shaped cookie cutter for gingerbread cookies. We've put the barley wine in the fridge, and the girls are off getting provisions for dinner.

All is as it should be.

Maybe we will take a walk on the wintry beach, or through the woods with the Bouzou Dog later.

It's nice here.

PAGE TO SCREEN

Q. My new book agent just offered me a writer-agent contract, and there are a couple of things that I wasn't sure about.

1.) According to the contract, my agent collects all the money, keeps his commission and expenses, and then pays me my share. Is that really the way it's done?

Yes, that's how it's done. Otherwise how does the agent keep track of what money you're getting paid and make sure you send her a check?

2.) "Agent shall market all of Author's literary rights in the work, including motion picture, stage, television...."

This is probably standard in most agents' contracts, but you can negotiate any contract. I have different agents for different markets. I have agents for my screenwriting, I have a non-fiction book agent, and I have an agent for the novel I perpetrated about Morgan le Fay. My book agents' contracts all started out including cinematic rights, but I insisted they be excluded.

QUICK QUESTIONS

Q. When will those of us in the U.S. be able to see Charlie Jade, on TV, DVD, or otherwise?

Damned if I know. There are torrents out there, but I know of no sale to the US. Bug the SF Channel!

Q. ... I'm struggling with act structure...

I have a whole section in my book Crafty Screenwriting (click on the cover to the left) about why I think three act structure in movies is overrated. It's available for free on my website.

Q. I will be asking the same question to several other pro screenwriters whose blogs I read regularly. Is that a no-no re blog etiquette?

Feel free. But if you get an answer that makes sense, maybe not so much to keep asking.

Oh, and this is why I'm glad I don't live in New York any more.

GREAT NOTES FROM A FRIEND

Our producer liked our draft of the second script, and thought it was ready to go to the network.

But even better, one of my bestest writing friends took the time to read the draft, and gave us great notes. They were great because they were structural. They addressed not the symptoms but the ways in which the stories were not as strong as they could be structurally.

By structurally I mean how the story is told; how you'd describe the story before you even got to the scenes and the dialog. A character had betrayed our heroine in the past. My friend thought it would be stronger if the character's betrayal was a secret that came out at the climax of the story, rather than being backstory we referred to. Then our heroine has much further to go emotionally: instead of from old hurt to new hurt, from old friendship to new hurt.

Another story, he felt, didn't have enough jeopardy.

Some structural comments mean you have to rip up all your scenes and rewrite them. Some mean you just have to tweak a climactic scene. Regardless, they are the most valuable comments. You wind up with a stronger story, not just better dialog in your weak story.

When you give notes, try not to quibble with the dialog or the scenecraft until you've thought about the story and how it can be structured better. ... And treasure those friends of yours who can criticize your work structurally.

THE MYSTERIES OF THE GOLDENROD DRAFT

KJC sends me this link to a Lost script, and wants confirmation on the asterisks and the scene numbers.

The asterisks indicate how this draft differs from the previous draft. Each new draft is printed out on a new color of paper, with changes marked accordingly. This is the "goldenrod" draft, which would come after the white, blue, pink, yellow and green drafts.

If fewer than 75% of the pages have changes, then only those pages are issued; people are expected to slip in the new pages and remove the old pages. That's why page numbers are locked. If a scene on page 42 grows, then you add a page 42A for it to spill onto. Then people can throw out the old page 42 and replace it with pages 42 and 42A.

You don't need to know any of this in order to write a script. The script coordinator does it for you.

I don't know for sure why the script starts on scene 42, but since this is ep. 1.02, it looks like they're numbering scenes consecutively from the start of the season, and ep. 1.01 had 41 scenes.

LISA HAS A BOOK COVER!

I like it!

The book comes out in October, but you can read her blog and ask her questions about the art mart.

WILL THEY BUY YOUR SPEC PILOT WITHOUT A SHOWRUNNER?

Q. A friend has contacted me about a TV show idea. I know nothing about TV, but I told him that it is virtually impossible to get a pilot sold without a showrunner attached. [But] he's trying it anyway. Does he need to write the whole pilot now, or could he take out a pitch as a package with bible, concept, and maybe a scene or two written.

It is not at all impossible to sell a pilot without a showrunner attached. If they love your pilot, they can always attach a showrunner they like. See Shaun Cassidy's WGA interview about The Agency on the WGA site. Michael Frost Beckner sold the pilot, and because he was better known as a feature writer, he took second chair while Shaun ran the show. Other writers have sold pilots; check out Paul Guyot's blog if he hasn't taken it down yet.

However, they don't much buy bibles. They buy pilots. No one in the States much wants to read a bible. A bible is a promise that the show will be like something. A pilot is proof of the pudding.

In Canada, prodcos and networks do buy bibles (I've optioned all my stuff off bibles), but there's government money available to fund development, so people figure why write something for free when a producer can get the government to pay for them to write it.

Q. Yes, but is there any harm in going into a pitch meeting with a bible, and then getting the script done if there is interest?

Well, the most they're going to tell you in the pitch meeting is, "Great. We'd love to see a pilot when you have one."

The worst is they don't dig how you've written the bible (if they even really read it), and now you can't bring in the pilot. Or, even worse, they're iffy about the bible, but you've given them an idea, which seeps into another pitch meeting with someone they know better, and they commission a related (but not identical) idea from him. Now you're really hosed.

So your "friend" will have to write the script.

As a general rule, don't give execs anything you know they won't buy. Unless, of course, it's a writing sample.