No, not a typo.
There have been some excellent posts from some fine scribes in the last week or so about getting started on a script. DMc has, so far, run two
excellent posts about preparing to take a run at a spec script - yep, preparing, he hasn’t even got to the beat sheet yet.
Jane Espenson, to whom we
listen, brothers and sisters, when she speaks, has had plenty of useful things to say on the topic of spec scripts.
But the most helpful post of the week, in the “oh my God, how could I not have known that, what the hell do I think I’m doing here,” sense of helpful, came from
John Rogers, whose great writing related posts have been so sorely missed, replaced as they have been by media analysis and comics promos.
Firstly, he lays bare, in the plainest of terms, the template for every SF/genre show in existence:
1.) Wow, have we got a problem. It is Very Bad.
2.) Whoops, no, we have an entirely different problem, and it's far worse.
3.) That problem? Yeah, that's going to kill us.
4.) Solve the problem. Marvel at the emotional wreckage. Prep for next week.
and then he says the thing. That caused me to look upon my outline and despair.
Really, you've got 48 minutes. 6 two-minute scenes an act. TV isn't haiku, but it's damn close.
Waitaminute. Six scenes? No-way. I’ve been watching TV a long time, and I swear there’s more than six scenes between ads. I’ve got fourteen in my first act outline and I struggled to keep it to that few. He’s got to be joking.
But no, the monkey’s kung-fu
is strong. I pulled out my script books this afternoon and went through four episodes apiece of
West Wing,
Babylon Five and
Freaks and Geeks, and damnit if they don’t average six scenes per act. Usually four or five in acts one and two, and ten or more towards the end of the script.
With two sentences, Rogers has finally got me to understand what a script should look like - for some reason, reading them never did that. For ages, I’ve had scores of scenes and storylines floating in my head, and no way of knowing how to arrange them, and parcel them out. Now I can see my script. It’s not written yet, but I understand its geometry and it is beautiful.
John’s is the kind of statement that illuminates. That flowers in the mind and enlightens. It says here, this is what you need to do. No more thrashing around in the dark, just write six scenes. Four times. And you’re done (like it’s ever that easy, but you know, it’s good to have a guide). It’s all I needed to know, and it’s the blinding obvious knowledge that’s escaped me so far.
Six scenes.
Go.
Category:
Writing
