Kind of "Linear"

Here's another term you'll hear when you get notes - "This story is a bit linear."

Translation: It's too obvious, straightforward, on the nose.

A story requires that an inciting incident force the characters to form a plan, then that plan gets foiled, so they react and form a new plan. That plan usually fails too, and they react, reformulate, and attempt a new plan. This goes on for long enough to fill up an episode, then when just when things get really dire, the protagonist makes one last attempt and either succeeds or fails for good.

If someone tells you that your story is too linear, then that means things are going too well. Example: Jane Doe investigates a crime, spots that someone is lying, investigates the lie, finds the truth, confronts the liar, liar confesses, justice is served. Everyone's happy. That story is too linear.

Your protagonist must fail most of the time, until the very end of the episode. Complications must pile up. Reversals, conflicts, issues, difficulties must boggle and flummox her. If she's sunny and victorious the whole time, then it's not dramatic. In a comedy, it's not funny if everyone's happy onscreen.

Good TV does demand structure. But beware the linear plot.

Cliche Alert!

The fabulous website 101 Reasons to Stop Writing is celebrating its Clichepalooza, which you simply must check out if you ever plan on writing anything.

But what cliches do we find in TV? Oh, where to begin?

• A sitcom set in a workplace where we encounter wacky customers.
  
• A sitcom where a fat working class guy is married to a woman much slimmer and more attractive than he.
• Dedicated cops go to any lengths to track down a killer/bring back the missing/solve the cold case.
• Dedicated doctors break the rules to help a patient.
• Dedicated doctors who break the rules to help a patient and endanger the lives of others and yet are allowed to go on being doctors.
• The super evil killer who is evil for no reason.
• The super evil killer psychoanalyzed to death to show us why s/he is so evil.
• Psychics who see dead people.
• Dream sequences used to explain the real feelings of our protagonist. Usually these employ Freudian cliches, or cliched Jungian archetypes, or are just wacky for no good reason because hey! We love the wacky.
• One partner believes with a passion in the unexplained while the other believes only in science.
• Everyone in high school is thin, has great fashion sense, and has perfect teeth.
• The kids in high school with braces, zits, or who are virgins are outcasts or geeks.
• Our hero's got a dark past, but now he's gonna redeem himself. But he's got to use what he learned in the dark time to do it.
  
• Starting with a violent incident (an airplane crash, a bank robbery, a woman running through the streets in nothing but a trenchcoat with blood all over her), then using extensive flashbacks to very slowly begin to explain how this all happened.
• She's a woman in a man's world.
• Educated and professional women acting like idiots over men.
• Characters who are best friends getting together romantically over the course of a season. It was meant to be!
• This one little carpet fiber will lead a killer to justice.

You see where I'm going? That's just off the top of my head. There are many more. Try to keep these in mind when you're writing. Truth is, if you're succesful, you're going to employ some of these cliches because TV is all about familiarity. But please, take your preferred cliche and give it some sort of original twist. You'll be original for a few minutes, until four shows copy you.

TV News in 60 seconds

It's pilot season in July! (Normally pilot season starts in January - but things are changing...)Sony Pictures TV has four pilots in the works -

CBS is looking at a comedy project called My Best Friend's Girl, about the friendship between two guys and how it changes when one of the guys starts dating his buddy's ex-wife. CBS has given this project a cast-contingent order.

A drama project at Lifetime called Practice, about a woman working at a large and prestigious Philadelphia law firm owned by a large and prestigious family.

A&E has picked up the drama project Danny Fricke, about a woman homicide detective in the LAPD. This project is co-produced with 25C Prods.

SIS is a project for Spike TV about an elite police squad who follow bad guys and lay in wait for them to commit crimes. SIS stands for Special Investigative Squad. This project is co-produced with Original Films.

Showtime is looking at a project from Scout Prods called The Beard, about a gay baseball player who creates a relationship with a woman to help hide his preferences. According to Variety, the project is billed as a romantic comedy, the script will be written by Maria Maggenti.

Another deal with Scout Prods - this one with ABC Family for a project called The Deads about a family of 300 year old witches who come back from the dead, and move into suburbia. They quickly learn the mores of the day are quite similar to what they were 300 years ago. This project will be written by Bill Masters and Tim Griffin.

Basic cable is changing the face of television development.

Morning News in 60 Seconds

ABC Prez Stephen McPherson took shoots at new NBC counterpart Ben Silverman at the TCA's over his hire of Isaiah Washington after ABC fired the actor from Grey's Anatomy. It isn't often you get to here one network head call another "clueless" and tell him to "be a man," but McPherson wasn't afraid to do it.

FX's show Damages, starring Glenn Close got off to a good start Tuesday, averaging 3.7 million total viewers in its commercia-free debut, ranking as basic cable's number one program of the night.

Rob Thomas stepped down as showrunner on ABC's single camera mid-season comedy Miss/Guided over the ol' "creative differences," to be replaced by Mark Hudis, known for his work on That 70's Show.

I know, it's just scintillating, isn't it? You can go to Variety's website if you really care about any of this stuff and want to read more.

Structure vs. Warmth

I listen to network and studio execs give a lot of notes to TV writers, and I've come to one conclusion - they love structure. When given a chance between a poorly structured show full of warm human moments and flawed but loveable characters and a show full of intellectuals who quote Proust that is perfectly structured... they go for Proust and structure every time.

They want stories resolved. They want characters to arc and come back home again. They want to understand every step of the story all the way, and then sigh contentedly when a full-bodied conclusion ends it the show. So what if it's a tad mechanical? So what if it's predictable? They like that. They crave it. It trumps nearly everything else.

(All of which makes a show like The Sopranos so much more remarkable. Only a network like HBO, with its piles of money, would ever let an iconoclast who loves ambiguity like David Chase be in charge. The result? One of the most brilliant shows ever made. The ending, typical of the show, however, pissed off a lot of people. Why? It didn't fit the structure TV shows normally fit into. People wants clear cut resolution. Heaven forbid that a show be like life and come to no obvious conclusion.)

So when writing for TV, err on the side of structure. Learn it. Imprint it on your psyche. If you can give them a perfectly structured episode that also has warmth and complex characters, so much the better. But if you've got to ditch one or the other, you now know who to push overboard.

Morning News in 60 Seconds

Paula Zahn will leave CNN as soon as her contract is up August 2. Bad ratings'll do that every time.

Holly Hunter's new series Saving Grace debuted on TNT after The Closer to 6.4 million viewers, making it the number one ad-supported cable network premiere this year. (Note all those qualifiers!) Still, impressive numbers.

AMC's entry into scripted TV with Mad Men did well, drawing a 1.4 HH rating (bad for a non-cable network, good for AMC) and entering over 1.2 million homes. (Note the difference between Saving Grace and Mad Men's numbers - 6.4 versus 1.2 million. Yet each is a hit. It all depends on what the network is used to getting.)

Emmys - "The Wire" Snubbed Again

I love The Sopranos, don't get me wrong. I'm tickled it got 15 nominations this morning for the Emmys. Ditto on the nominations of Rainn Wilson for The Office and the multiple nods that series got. I wasn't sorry that 24 and Lost didn't get acknowledged as best dramas. I did mourn for a minute that Friday Night Lights didn't get more notice, but I knew all along they were a dark horse.

But where is the acknowledgement of the greatest TV series ever? The Wire did not get a single nomination. The Sopranos got three writing nominations alone. Surely one of those slots should've gone to the most complex and compelling show ever put on the idiot box - The Wire. The cast of this great show has been sadly neglected as well. Further proof that the Emmys most often get it wrong.

You can find the list of nominees here.

Tougher than Screenwriting

Screenwriters may quibble at this, but the facts will bear me out: writing for TV is more difficult than screenwriting.

Why? In order to write for TV, you must know everything a screenwriter knows, plus: 1. How to write for five (or six) act outs; 2) consistency from episode to episode is crucial; 3) over the course of a season you'll write the equivelent of 6 movies (for 13 one-hour episodes) or 11 movies (if you get the full 22 -episode order) while screenwriters labor over their measley two-hour script for months or years.

However, in TV, the writer has far more power, and often makes more money than in film. A screenwriter is disposable, a schmuck. A TV writer is often also a producer, involved in casting, editing, and every other aspect of the work. Sure, you still have to answer to the studio and network, but because you run the show or are there day in, day out, you have far more control over the final product than a screenwriter.

And I've heard TV writers say, jokingly, but with meaning: "I can't do movies. I can't afford the pay cut."

TV writing is tough. But it's also very rewarding.

Morning News

NBC's new entertainment chief Ben Silverman revealed some unsurprising things at his coming out party, accompanied by Marc Graboff. Among other things, NBC is bringing back Norman Lear with a new project, Jerry Seinfeld will guest star in 30 Rock, and fired Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington will show up in the new Bionic Woman for at least five episodes. The Apprentice returns with Trump and celebs competing, NBC/Universal have a first-look deal with indie film producer Charles Corwin (Half Nelson), and Monday will now be science fiction/fantasy night with new shows Chuck and Journeyman on either side of the hit Heroes at 9pm.

Mandy Patinkin leaves Criminal Minds for good old "creative differences."

Tweens rule: last Friday night, the Disney Channel beat all other competition, including the major networks, from 8 - 9:30pm with a programming stunt that featured new episodes of Hannah Montana, The Suite Life of Jack and Cody, and Cory in the House.

Prepare to get "bumped"

So you're getting notes from the network. Their creative execs tell you that they loved the script. It was fresh and fun, or else it was powerful and exciting.

Then, something bumps them.

This is the term you must come to know and hate. "What bumped me, though, was..." That's what they'll say to you.

Many writers loathe this term. I'm not sure why. I actually get why people use it. First, it isn't harsh. They aren't saying "I hated the part where X happened." Second, when I read a script, I often feel an almost physical "bump" when I encounter something that doesn't work for me. I'll read and reread the bumpy bit. It has jolted me during what should be a smooth ride. It has pulled me out of your make believe world for a moment, when I should be enraptured.

That said, just because one person says they got bumped by a line of dialogue or a plot twist doesn't mean they're right. If you're getting notes from anyone other than the studio or network, feel free to take their bumps with a grain of salt, if I may mix my metaphors. If the studio or network gets bumped, however, then get out your asphalt and smooth the road for them. Those are the folks you need to make happy.

Writing Spec scripts

To get an agent (which you must have) you must have at least two fabulous spec scripts of differing genres. A spec script is a sample script - one that you write "on spec" which will probably never get made, but which serves as a writing sample.

Which introduces you to the first rule of writing for TV - you will do a lot of writing that you never get paid for.

Yes, this is wrong. Yes, writers should get paid for their work. But to break in you must prove you are capable of TV writing, which is a very specific sort. To prove that, you must write. You must dance for the powers that be to prove your grace. You must cook a gourmet meal and expect no recompense or even a tip.

There's even unpaid writing you have to do after the powers that be (aka TPTB) do come to love you. Even if you're commissioned to write a script and a price is agreed up, $x for the story, $y for the first draft, $z for the second draft, and so on, you'll end up doing far more drafts than they pay you for.

So just get used to this idea right now. Later on, if you make it, you will get paid far more than most writers ever dream for your work. But for now, you toil without pay.

HBO announcements

After woman-puncher Albrecht stepped down as head of HBO, the new execs Richard Plepler and Michael Lombardo stepped in to talk yesterday about a slate set up by their predecessor.

Alas, it sounds like the two two-hour movies originally planned to wrap up Deadwood will never appear, although HBO wouldn't say no definitively. They haven't picked up John from Cincinnati, David Milch's latest series yet, but say they "want to be in business with David Milch." Translation: things don't look good for John From Cincinnati, but Milch will get another series with them. HBO often picks up series after just a few airings. If they haven't said yes to more of John yet, they probably won't.

And we'll have to wait until early 2008 for more of my favorite series of all time - The Wire. This will be the last season of this amazing series. I'd wait forever for more of this show, so I guess I can handle another six months or so. What also thrills me is the prospect of the creators of The Wire doing a mini-series on Iraq for HBO, although that wasn't mentioned in the article in Variety I'm cribbing this from.

In the third quarter of 2009 we'll get Playtone's production (that's Tom Hanks' production company) of WWII epic mini-series, The Pacific. If it's anything like Playtone's brilliant Band of Brothers, I'll be there.

So you wanna write for TV...

... you've come to the right place.

In the coming days (weeks, months, years?) I'll share insider info, insights, and insanity that will help you in your quest to write for TV.

My main focus will be on helping you write the best TV script possible. I've written many, some of which got made. I've read even more, given notes, and sometimes seen those notes make a difference. I'll address all sorts of creative issues. I'll also give you tips from deep inside the industry. (Hint: the advertisers still rule everything but first tier cable. What's first tier cable, you ask? Come back to this blog soon and I'll let you know.)

But I work in TV. I want to keep working in it. So don't expect me to name names. It's a tiny town full of people with long memories. I'll give you dos and don'ts, definitions of terms, structures, hierarchies, pitch suggestions, networking tips, as well as opinions on contests, classes, genres, and even some specific shows. I'll tell you how to take your tiny idea and expand it into six acts. I'll recommend services, books, colleges, and websites.

Welcome to Writing For TV. You've taken your first step into a much smaller world.