Character-Oh Character-You Are So Important

You have a great idea for a pilot, but don’t have strong characters-it’s not going to get anywhere-Trust me on this one. Here is a little exercise: Think about the shows, or films, but since it’s fellowship and TV writing program season, let’s stay with television, so think about the shows you love-they all have great characters. If they don’t stop reading this and immediately go get a new career. I am serious.

Let’s see some of my personal favorites.

HOUSE-The character of Gregory House is one of the most complex characters ever written for television and Hugh Laurie played him brilliantly. Take a look at this audition video-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqHh6TvGQIQ

Now just from the dialogue we KNOW who that character is. It sure doesn’t hurt to have such a great actor reading it. But everything from the way he answers to the snarky remarks shows us “who” the character is and continues to do so every single episode for the 8 seasons that show was on the air.

FRIENDS-for a comedy you have six very different and very strong characters. If you don’t watch it, you really should tune in-it’s on all the time. Those characters were very well written. Monica being the uptight neat control freak-Joey being the dumb one-Ross and Chandler being geeky in their own way. It’s just classic for great characters.

Even better-the Odd Couple-Felix and Oscar were two of the best written characters in television back in the day and since then a few shoes have tried to mimic the “odd couple” pairing and it just hasn’t worked. Example look at Two Broke Girls-those two are not defined enough and that is why the show suffers-well one of the many reasons.

Seinfeld-George Costanza is a great character. The audience knows exactly who he is and why nothing is every going to work out for him in the end. Watch this clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PADcL1np7BE

For drama, besides HOUSE I really love the characters of Mad Men-the show is flawless in character development.

This is a clip of Joan showing a new Peggy around the office. Everyone about the way these two women interact, are dressed and what they say shows us who they are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR0w37yQ4MI

So when writing your own pilot-think about everything that will show us-not tell us-who your characters are. Don’t forget when we meet them to describe what they are wearing-clothes tell everything about a person. Then show us through dialogue. The biggest issue I see when reading people’s scripts is that all the characters in the show are exactly alike-that is boring and just doesn’t make compelling storytelling.

Some other great shows with great characters:

COMEDY

Will & Grace, Cheers, The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, The Jeffersons, Dharma and Greg, Frasier.

DRAMA

Breaking Bad, Parenthood, Dexter, The Good Wife, LOST, Alias, Buffy.

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Have People Read Your Scripts Who Are Stronger Than You…

Okay so you want to play tennis for a living do you play with someone who is worse than you so you can feel great about yourself? Of course not. It’s the same with sending your script out.

I was going to blog today about season finales, characters and stuff, but I just got some notes back from a fellow comedy writer who is much stronger than I am at the “joke” bit. He is a comedian and that is why his opinion was important to me. I have always been good at writing funny situations but the jokes-it just isn’t my strength-I can do them, but you know we all have something we are weakest at.

In the past five years the thing I get the most compliments on-comedy or drama-is nailing the characters. I am not sure if that is from all the years in acting, animation and storyboarding-all requiring “knowing the character.” Secondly I get praise on story-and matching the show.

When I switched back to comedy (my first couple of novels are comedy) I constantly got comments back about adding more jokes. *This is why I believe comedy works better in a team of writers instead of one-but you know there are always exceptions.*

Today I got some very valuable notes-joke suggestions from a friend. My Happy Endings script is going to be much stronger for it. I had asked a few others to read it, and they gave me general notes and even paid a consultant and had coverage done. All those helped, but today’s notes from this friend and comedy writer-are really going to punch it up a lot.

I am working on my joke writing and getting stronger at it. The reason I am writing this is that I really want you to think about what you struggle with the most and then send your script to someone who is great at that, and trust me, it will help you so much.

Thanks to my friend and fellow writer for all your time and help. 🙂

I Will NOT Work For Free-So Stop Asking

UGH I don’t understand people. I keep getting job “offers” or so they call them to get me interested and then find out that they aren’t going to pay me.

Look-would you ask your doctor to work for free? Or the mechanic down the street? A handyman, school teacher, advertising exec? NO-so stop asking me to.

I admit that I have collaborated with people in the past and it’s only bitten me in the ass-but I was building my resume so it’s okay that I wrote for one person for FREE for 6 years only to get tossed under a bus and never any money from the promised sales of the book-but the project was fun and I got credit on some of it. Still I gave this person everything and then they not only dropped me professionally when they didn’t need me anymore, I never got paid-it is what it is so I won’t do it anymore.

I have posted on FB, Stage 32, LinkedIn and Twitter that I am looking for work, and I keep getting asked to write for FREE.

The only way I am going to work for free is on my own projects-period-or it isn’t worth it to me. I don’t ever want to go through what I did with that one person again, so I am just not doing it anymore. If you want to collaborate-then it’s a partnership, and only if I have time.

In any case, that’s my mini-rant today because it just doesn’t stop.

I also get asked to draw for free or super cheap-I am doing a super cheap logo for a FRIEND, but I offered to help her out and she will promote me, but I don’t make a habit of it.

Narration & Voice Overs UGH

As some of you know I also read scripts, as well as writing them, and can I give some advice? Please stop with the narration and or voice over.

First of all, it’s insulting because it feels like the writer is too lazy to show us how the character feels through his/her actions and dialogue. Secondly, it’s just annoying for the most part and takes away from the story.

Yes there are exceptions:

In television: How I Met Your Mother does a great job.

Grey’s Anatomy is getting a bit annoying, but used to be great with Meredith opening and closing.

That said, if I NEVER see or hear it again in television it will be too soon. I think that is one of the reasons, so many of the new shows are like nails on a chalk board to me.

Whatever happened to showing us who your characters are? Since when is it all of a sudden best to tell us how we are supposed to feel?

In films, I feel the same way. Usually I wil turn off a film with this. I wrote a film a few years ago and had it as well as a couple flashbacks. When a major Hollywood production company was so kind to give me notes, this was the biggest thing they wanted out. Since then I have read countless blogs and heard countless lectures on how much this is disliked by the industry as a whole.

As a reader I can tell you, with a long opening monologue, I find it hard to read on. If I have 5 minutes of the main character telling me how bad his life is and why I should care about it, I am already bored.

Yes there are exceptions, but unless you are hired by a studio to write your narration-please don’t, it will greatly increase your chances of being read and sold if you don’t make this rookie mistake. If you feel you MUST have it in there. How about this, write the script without it, then when you sell it, then suggest you add it back in, but to be honest, you’ll probably realize that you didn’t need it in the first place.

Remember, novels are telling the reader. Screenplays are showing the audience.