WRITERS DIGEST REVIEW

Here's another review of my new book:

Crafty TV Writing: Thinking Inside the Box by Alex Epstein (Owl Books) Many how-to writing books begin by looking at the larger picture. Some encourage you to try aromatherapy and (I'm not kidding) to eat more vegetables. These tips won't make you a better writer. But the first chapter in Alex Epstein's second book will. First, Epstein reveals the hidden structure of a great TV series. From there he homes in on great episode ideas, basic TV script writing, rewriting and comedy. Next he offers an insider perspective of working in TV land. You'll learn how to prepare to be a TV writer, how to break in, how to get hired, how to get promoted, and finally, how to create your own show. The back of the book offers several resources, including pay scales, samples, contests, a glossary and review of two major screenplay formatting programs. In this book, Epstein proves that, in addition to being a veteran TV writer and show creator, he's a funny and skilled reference writer, too.

Well, that's pretty snazzy. Thank you, Writers Digest!

TOM FONTANA INTERVIEW, PART ONE

Tom Fontana is the creator or co-creator of such diverse dramas as OZ, THE JURY, TATTINGER'S, THE BEAT, and THE BEDFORD DIARIES. He was an Executive Producer on HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET. He began his TV career as a writer and producer on ST. ELSEWHERE. All his shows are crafted (and crafty) character dramas with evolving story lines. He was gracious enough to spend an hour on the phone with me answering a dozen or so arcane questions about his craft and his medium. Hopefully, I didn't ask him too many questions he's heard before.

Crafty TV: How much TV do you watch? What shows? Do you watch shows you enjoy, or shows you may not like but are popular, or shows that you feel are stretching the form in an interesting way?

TF: I'm fifty-five, so I grew up with television. There was a television set on in our house from the moment they brought me home from the hospital, and it was not turned off in all the years that I lived in my parents' house. I watched a lot of television up to high school. After that, I didn't really watch much for a while. I have a huge gap in my knowledge of seventies TV. Then when I started writing television, I started watching watching everything. Not just shows where I admired the writing. Shows like LOU GRANT or HILL STREET BLUES. Even the crap. I thought I should know what everyone else was doing.

By the time ST. ELSEWHERE went off the air, my viewing had burned out. When I moved back to New York, I didn't even own a television set. For a year. I had O.D.'d on it.

Now, even though I do watch TV, I don't watch it regularly. There are a number of shows that if I'm home, and they're on, I'll watch. It depends on how good the writing is. How good the cast is.

I've never seen a reality show, not because I'm snobby, but because I'm terrified I might become addicted and become a part of the segment of this country that obsesses on them.

I watch hour dramas primarily ... well written shows, like SOPRANOS, THE WEST WING, DEADWOOD. David Milch's work is always exciting. 24 is clever. The problem is I can never watch the show consistently enough to know what hour it is. The same with LOST. NIP/TUCK I find very well written and well done. And HUFF is terrific.

What I've started doing is waiting for the DVD's to come out, then watching the WHOLE season of a show in a clump....

CRAFTY TV: Which brings up the question: more viewers are using technology to skip commercials, or download pirated episodes. What do you think is the future of dramatic TV? Will we move to a subscription model?

TF: I'm not smart enough, certainly not technologically, to answer that question, except to say that in the same way that the legitimate theater shifted when the motion picture came about, then the movies shifted when sound came about, then shifted again when television came about, the market will have to shift again. Television is on the precipice of an enormous re-evaluation, of how shows are made, how much they cost, who's watching and how they're watching. I think in the next five to ten years, television, as we know it, will have ceased to exist.

CRAFTY TV: Then what about a subscription model, where, say, you tell people, "We're thinking of doing another season of OZ, are you willing to pay $20, and if we get enough people we'll take your $20 and everybody else's $20 and we'll make the season."

TF: Well, but how are you doing to do the first season?

CRAFTY TV: You can say, "Tom Fontana is doing a new show..."

TF: Then how do you get new showrunners?

I think that this is something everyone is trying to figure out. What the studios need is for somebody to tell them, "here's how you're going to make your money back." They shoot the shows for the networks at a deficit. If you put in permanent downloads, you eliminate all the other revenue streams. There's no chance for the studios to make their money back. So there's the problem. Anybody who thinks they can tell you now how this is going to work is an idiot. No one knows. No one at the studios, no one at the networks, there is no writer/producer who has a clear sense. We're in virgin territory. It's going to take time to settle down. What do we do? Do we go back to making TV for as little as possible, with paper sets, and no locations? The public won't accept that. There's a very real problem here. I'm not clever enough to come up with a solution. But I'm fascinated to see what happens.

CRAFTY TV WRITING IS OUT TODAY!

Crafty TV Writing hits bookstores today. I hope y'all will rush right out to your local bookstores and buy it!

Or, just click on the link to the upper right and order it from Amazon.

My editor just faxed me a great review in Booklist, the publication of the American Library Association:

Epstein, Alex. Crafty TV Writing: Thinking Inside the Box. June 2006. 336p. Index. Holt/Owl, paper, $15.

Epstein, author of Crafty Screenwriting (2002), draws on his experiences writing for the television shows Naked Josh and Charlie Jade to create an essential guide for those hoping to break into television writing. Epstein starts ... by examining what great television series have in common: a hook that draws viewers in, compelling characters the audience cares about, and stories that unfold naturally on the small screen and make people want to return to the world of the show every week. From there he gets into the specifics of how to write a good script. ... After offering insightful writing hints and tips on how to write comedy, Epstein walks writers through finding jobs writing for television -- and how to get along with everyone from story editors to show runners once one does. Enlightening and straightforward, this is a must for anyone who wants to write for television.

YA/L: Ambitious teens who want someday to write for shows they love will find this an accessible read.

Whoo hoo!

(And by the way, while you're at your bookstore, if you haven't already picked up a copy of Crafty Screenwriting, check it out!)

UPDATE: Apropos Kelly's comment below: the book is not just for newbies. There's a lot in there that I didn't know when I started writing the book and doing the interviews.

And there's a lot in there that I haven't put in my blog!

QUESTION I'M NOT REALLY QUALIFIED TO ANSWER...

Q. Do you know of any online resources to find weekly rate averages for production art positions? I'm in the process of closing a deal to do a comic adaptation of an optioned feature film, and if the film goes into production, I may also have an opportunity to contribute to the production art staff on a weekly basis. Although my day job involves advertising and design work, I have no experience with the standards of feature film rates.

I would check the IATSE and NABET websites. You probably won't get union rates. But standard non-union rates for techs (not for writers!) are often as high as union rates; you just don't get the benefits.

Q. What do you call an electrician who can work when he's stoned?
A. A grip.

Q. How can you tell the Teamster kid at the playground?
A. He's the one sitting by his tricycle reading the funny papers while the other kids play.

Q. How many Teamsters does it take to plug in a light bulb?
A. Four. ... You got a problem with that?

I'M THINKING OF DOING A MONTHLY INTERVIEW COLUMN

What are your favorite screenwriting magazines?

MASTER CLASS QUESTIONS

DMc is asking for a guest blogger to cover the Banff TV Festival for him, since he's not going. He remarks:

if you're in a Master Class, come up with a great question before you go in. Seriously. I sat through some seriously lame questions.

Lucky readers of this blog, I will go one better. I am going to Banff, and unless more meetings come up (I've scheduled 21 so far, in three days! yikes), I hope to go to the master classes. They include Ali LeRoi (EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS), Scott Peters (THE 4400), David Shore (HOUSE) and Richard Lewis (CSI).

What crafty questions do you have for these guys?

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

When I wasn't wrangling small crowds of eleven year old boys armed with supersoakers this weekend, I was practicing my pitch for the Banff PitchIt! program. It's one thing to pitch a couple of executives. There I'm jest talkin' about my project. Add 149 more listeners and it becomes a performance.

Which means memorizing my lines, or at least my talking points, and the order they come in.

I know I make a big deal about "telling your story." Truly I am just as resistant as you are to telling my story out loud. I would much rather tinker endlessly with the four pages on my computer screen. But there is still nothing like telling your story out loud. So I went out to the park and did my pitch for myself out loud, not looking at the page. It went a lot slower. I bumped on a lot of stuff. But it also got better. I did it over and over, trying to figure out how to make it flow better. Then I rewrote my pitch document accordingly.

I just ran it through my head as I was lying in bed just now. It held together. I was able to get through the whole pitch without forgetting what comes next. That's a good sign.

What I may do tomorrow is literally memorize it. The technique I learned in my Meisner technique class is to memorize by rote very fast, over and over, without affect, just memorizing the flow of words. If you memorize with emotions, then the excitement of the moment can screw you up -- your emotions won't be the same. If you can get the flow of words down pat in your mind, without meaning, then when you perform, you'll have the words when your emotions get to them. And you can then change your words as the mood suits you.

Thank God for Monday.

THE KIND OF QUESTION I LOVE TO ANSWER

Given what you said about becoming a movie star in your FAQs on your website, I am curious as to whether you think it is more likely that the average individual could become a movie star, or date one?

It's a question of mathematics. A movie star can date dozens of people in a year, if they so choose. But it takes years to become a movie star.

Also, relating to the math, it depends on what the meaning of the word "date" is.

The question reminds me of my American History class in college, where Gaddis Smith remarked that during the Kennedy administration, "every American boy dreamt of becoming the President, and every American girl dreamt of sleeping with him."