Do You Get It?

In today's New York Times, a cogent assessment by Dave Itzkoff on why Rowan Atkinson's almost-silent comic character Mr. Bean doesn't catch fire in the U.S. as he does around the rest of the world:

Mr. Bean Stumbles on Voyage Across Pond

I saw "Mr. Bean's Holiday" over the weekend and was happily surprised. Not at the physical comedy -- even if I didn't know what Mr. Bean does, the marketing campaign would have told me -- but at the heart-filling sweetness and optimism of the movie. The film's many flaws are wiped away by the squeegee of the actual story and what it says about the ridiculousness of life and how, if things tend to fall apart, there's no reason they can't fall back together again, better than before.

Maybe the marketers should have played up this side of "Mr. Bean's Holiday," at least a little. You see, throwing physical comedy into a dialog film is very American. But basing a movie exclusively on physical comedy, with almost no dialog from the protagonist, isn't American at all. It's actually sophisticated because the film becomes more of a haiku than a rollercoaster, a series of neat visual poems. You're asking the viewer to decide what makes Mr. Bean tick based solely on his actions. That's supposed to be good character structure, of course, but it's not in vogue in the American movie house. Next time you go to a movie -- even a well-reviewed one -- count how many times a character tells you who she is. Mr. Bean can't do that. He barely talks at all.

Rowan Atkinson is actually a lot more like Charlie Chaplin than many might realize. Like a Charlie Chaplin movie, the spine of a Mr. Bean adventure isn't the physical comedy. It's the definition of the world in which he lives. For the Little Tramp, that world was created out of the goodness of the tramp's heart. A rotten world could be made ripe again thanks to the tramp's perseverance. For Mr. Bean, that world seems to be benign despite himself, simply because his cause, stumbled upon, is nonetheless just.

I don't mean to make high tea out of this whole thing. But my wife and I took my three-year-old daughter to "Mr. Bean's Holiday," and it's through her eyes that I was moved. It was her first movie on the big screen (she saw "Cars," but she was too young and had to leave after fifteen seconds, so that doesn't count). At first she was worried at the bright colossus of the screen and and the tumult. Then she grew familiar with Mr. Bean's rubber face and settled in. That allowed her to follow the story, and since it involves a little boy, she related. When Mr. Bean did something stupid, she said, "Silly." And when things turned out all right, she said with a nod, "It's okay."

That's really all you can ask of a movie comedy. That it be silly, and that things turn out okay. It's a tall order, actually. Silly is hard. And if things really turn out okay, you don't see it, you feel it. How many movie comedies have you seen lately that made you feel something?

The sad news is, most Americans, for whatever reason, don't get Mr. Bean. His latest film opened to $10.1 million in our homeland. The good news is, in the rest of the world, it's made $188 million so far.

Good on ya, Mr. Bean.

An Immodest Proposal

If you're one of the growing number of folks who's reading this new blog, I'd like to enlist your help in getting out the word. Please tell three people, and make one of them me. It's easy to reach me: just click on the comment link at the bottom of this post and let me know where I've gone right or wrong. As for your friends, one of them can be contacted by email (also handy for sending them the link to this blog, http://scriptwriting.blogspot.com). The other one is still crashing on the couch at Chuck's, so the best thing to do is probably leave a note on a napkin at Mr. Pizza, just down the block from the apartment.

And thanks.

For God's Sake, Don't Plan! Part I: The Awakening

I'm all about planning when it comes to writing a script. I consider myself a "front-loader." I feel the more work you do before you get to dialog, the better. David Steven Cohen, a former writing partner of mine and a superlative writer in his own right, used to say to me that the outline should be so replete with detail, you should be able to "just add water" to make a screenplay.

When I'm running a television show, asking the writers to front-load is even more beneficial, as a highly-detailed outline gives not just the writer of the episode, but the producers and the studio, a more complete idea of the final product.

There are a couple of arguments against front-loading. The first and better of the two goes like this: "Aw, c'moooon!"

I understand this argument. A writer's got only so much energy, inspiration and slim cans of energy drink. Why not get to the writin' (not writing, mind you, but writin') ASAP? Especially if you're under an actual deadline from an actual boss.

Grow up. Cleave unto the concept of delayed gratification. Force yourself to complete a detailed outline, complete with jokes and snippets of possible dialog, and you'll later experience repetitive waves of ecstasy when you're deep in the middle of the script and realize whole sections of your outline can virtually be cut and pasted into your screenplay. It feels like landing your token on a slide in "Sorry!" For a moment, travel is free and effortless. Ahh.

The second argument against front-loading is that it is contrary to the inspirational and spontaneous nature of art. Creativity is not about planning, the objection goes, it is about diving in and letting it flow, jamming a thumb drive into your chest and letting your blood spurt onto the page, preferably a heavy stock with high absorbency.

This may well be true. I wouldn't know. I'm not an artist, I write Hollywood movies and TV shows.

Hearing this argument you might think I'm consistently pro-planning. But comes a moment when you must stop planning, stop thinking; indeed, stop feeling if you can. That moment is one second after you click the "send" button and shoot your draft into cyberspace.

Expectations, I am told, are resentments under construction. Expect to hear from your agent or creative executive after an approximate number of days, and your bitterness will flourish as that day arrives and passes. This bitterness will fertilize a plant of insanity, each vine another question mark asking why you haven't heard, what the reason could possibly be. Did they hate it? Did they despise it? Did they neither hate nor despise it, but feel about it in such a way that neither "hate" nor "despise" suffices, and they must travel to Hell to personally ask Satan for an appropriate descriptor? Are they out sick? On vacation?

Or worst of all: did your work not even make an impact on their busy schedule? Do they simply not care?

As you might guess from my toxic mix of metaphors, I experience these feelings on a regular basis. I'm not saying this is typical of professional writers; you may well be well-adjusted. But if you are prone to self-immolation, please consider the byzantine journey your script must take to generate a response from a studio (see diagram; read from bottom to top):

For God's Sake, Don't Plan! Part II: The Quickening

The above flowchart details the typical path your script will take from your brain to final approval by the head of the studio or production company. Specifics may vary. (Click on diagram to see larger view.)

For God's Sake, Don't Plan! Part III: The Reckoning

So what to do? Perhaps you're considering bugging your agent, or even calling up your contact at the studio and asking if there's any news.

Don't do it, man.

You're asking for the studio to put you on the "pain in the ass" list. You have no idea how much work you're assigning them. Your contact will have to make up some kind of lie as to why they haven't gotten back to you yet. Sure, there are stock answers -- "We're putting our heads together on it," "Turgid Penis is out of town, but he's reading it on the plane;" "We're generating a notes document" -- but any junior executive worth his salt is going to want to spin these to make them sound original, and that takes time and effort and generates only resentment on his part as well as yours.

And, God forbid, what if the answer is "No?" They don't like it, they don't want it, it's dead? It's the worst possible scenario, and not for the reason you think.

Yes, your baby is blue and lifeless in the crib, but that's not the bad news. The bad news is, there’s no way you’re going to know why they said no. They'll give you a reason, but it will be a lie. Challenge them -- insist upon the real reason -- and you'll get another, purpose-built lie.

How am I so sure of this?

Because the odds are great that they themselves don't know why they said no.

There are simply too many variables for them to even parse their reasons for rejecting something. The conversation about the script may have gone on too long. (That's right -- if they talk about it long enough, the discussion loses steam, and it feels like the script itself has lost steam.) If it's a TV show, they may love it, but can't think of where to program it.

I once had a studio turn down my pitch for an animated TV series involving an ant because they heard that Tom Hanks might be doing some kind of movie that involved ants at a different studio and they didn't want to have to fight its juggernaut (the movie turned out to be "The Ant Bully," one of the few CGI bombs).

I once started pitching an animated film that involved a lake and was brought up short by the executive: "Pixar is doing something with water. No water. And after that they're doing something with cars, so are there any cars in this?"

I shit you not.

You're a writer. You're writing a screenplay. Even though directors think of screenplays as "a rough blueprint" for the movie, even though stars think of screenplays as "a jumping-off point" for their character (in both cases, I'm quoting), you must think of your script as your final product, as if it were a novel, to be made available at airports everywhere.

You make scripts. Make it the best script you can. Plan it. Front-load it. Write it. Then hustle it out the door, let it take the bus to college, and get back to your own life.

What Makes a Great Movie?

The University of California at Davis recently distributed the following press release, summarizing research by a psychology professor into the statistical correlations that go into making a critically-acclaimed film versus a box-office hit. There's not too much detail, and I'll be looking for more, so the only comment I'll make about it right now is that I love this kind of thinking, whether it's right or wrong. Like focus-group testing, it attempts to apply social science to creativity, usually with the result that both disciplines wind up with egg on their faces. "Social science" is more social than science, and "popular art" may lean toward "popular" more than we writers and filmmakers might like.

What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know. Press release follows:

A film that wins critical acclaim is likely to be an R-rated drama, adapted from a prize-winning play or book and based on a true story, with the original author or director involved in writing the screenplay. It is unlikely to be a sequel or remake, a comedy or musical, a summer release, a big-budget project, have a PG-13 rating, open on numerous screens or do a big box office on the first weekend. It probably has an excellent score, but it may not have an award-winning song.

But box-office hits may have entirely different profiles.

Dean Simonton, a professor of psychology at UC Davis, has subjected thousands of feature-length, English-language, narrative films to a battery of statistical tests – including Pearson product-moment coefficients and hierarchical regression analyses – to get at the formula for cinematic creative triumph and box-office success.

He will summarize his research at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association on Friday, Aug. 17.

Simonton, an expert on human creativity, is the author of "Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity." He is at work on a new book, "Great Flicks: Scientific Studies of Cinematic Creativity and Aesthetics."

"Exceptional creativity is frequently viewed as a highly individualistic phenomenon," Simonton said. "But there is at least one type of artistic expression that is extremely prominent, often highly profitable and inherently collective in nature: the feature film. Motion pictures provide a valuable research site for investigating group artistic creativity under real-world conditions."

Not-So-Secret Formula

I recently received a query from a reader I thought might be worthwhile excerpting here. (In addition to writing me here via comments, you can ask scriptwriting questions of me at AllExperts. There's a link in the sidebar.)

Roger:

Do you consciously follow formula, or do you see this “formula” as something that is inherently and naturally present in any good story? Ie; if the story is strong, it’s because the formula is there, not vice versa...

...When I speak of “formula”, I’m referring to what appears to be several thousand “how to” plot points, published by every expert out there.

“By the end of page two, pace and setting must be established.
"In the third minute, an inciting incident must occur.
"Between pages three and nine, the hero must be established, along with his conflict and plan to overcome it.
"Act 1 needs to end by page 19,” and so on.

There seem to be no less than 40 different (although identical in content) “schedules” that every script writer needs to follow religiously. My guess (and hope) is that this formula is to appease potential investors, showing that it follows a model that proves to be appealling/profitable. What I’m really hoping is that once a screenwriter is produced, that more liberty is given, and more faith is extended that a good writer can tell a great story without simply filling in blanks from a template. So my question for you is, do you actually write according to a specific plot schedule, or do you just write, knowing that the right things happen at the right times, simply because you’re a good storyteller?

I’m neither a strict constructionist nor the “artiste” type. This is commercial art we’re doing. "Commercial," as in commerce, which means we’re producing a product for a customer who hopes to realize a profit with it. And "art," as in art, which means our product must be unique, emotionally move the audience, be unable to be duplicated. Obviously, there’s a constant tug of war here, unless you’re a genius businessperson or a genius artist. I’m neither.

I do definitely believe in structure. Not only do I think the customer expects it (by the customer I mean the studio, not the audience), but I actually think it helps the creativity. It’s like a haiku: you’re so constrained, any attempt to be distinctive will result in something unique (and, hopefully, good).

The length of the screenplay is important. It’s 120 pages. A couple of pages less is okay.

The length of scenes is important. A page to three pages is good. Less is better. More — you’d better have a good reason.

Balance of dialog to action is important. You can actually tell by looking at the total proportion of whitespace to ink throughout the entire script.

Almost all of the rules I’ve read really point to one thing:

Get there as soon as you can!

If it’s a comedy, get a laugh as close as possible to the top of page one. (I said page one.) If it’s a drama, establish tension and conflict just as early. Introduce your protagonist as soon as possible. Get him in trouble as soon as possible. And so on.

I don’t think it was always this way. I think there was a time when filmmakers were more confident that they had the audience trapped for ninety minutes or more, and could take their time to build slowly. These were the days of slower-paced films. Faster-paced films, in fact, seemed sensational and were accorded “B” status.

But now, they know movies are more of a ride than a stroll through a wonderful museum. (I’m talking about Hollywood movies, as I assume you are.) Grab ‘em. Keep ‘em in their seats. And if the movie’s entertaining enough, maybe they’ll come back to see it two or three more times. Or even better, buy the DVD and watch it until the laser pokes a hole through the disc. In fact, you can almost consider today’s movie to be a feature-length ad for the DVD.

Then there’s the whole category of formulae that aren’t about length and pace. How many essential characters? How many twists of plot? What about theme? Here I think you’re in more dubious territory. I would go with your gut, keeping in mind that efficiency is always a virtue. If a character isn’t providing an essential element of the dramatic arc, he or she doesn’t belong in the movie. Conversely, if it feels like one character is pulling an awful lot of strings, you may need to divide her work between two characters.

There’s more, of course, but that’s where screenwriting courses and scriptwriting blogs are born.

I would also add a cherished axiom given me by my former journalism professor, the gifted Timothy Ferris:

"After you're done with your rough draft, go through it as if you had to pay five dollars for every word."

It was a great way to make sure every word was pulling some kind of weight. And don't forget -- if your screenplay ever does get produced, someone will be paying a hell of a lot more than five dollars per word to put it on the screen.


Questions? Comments? Tell me your take by clicking on "comments" below.

The Lexus of Scriptwriting Programs

What is a screenwriting program? The answer seems so obvious, it must be a trick question, right?

Not trick. Just tricky.

Truth is, every company that makes a screenwriting program makes it up as it goes along. Each separate bunch of geeks (known in taxonomy as a “beanie of geeks”) decides which section of the scriptwriting pipeline its software is going to comprise. As a result, some begin as early as the brainstorming process -- say, including a “name bank” applet to help you decide what to call your characters. Others reach as far as the process of selling your finished script, allowing you to make lists of possible customers and track their interest in your project. With so much diddling around the periphery, you might suppose the basic mechanics of digital scriptwriting have more or less been perfected.

Not so.

Indeed, what one might assume is the minimum requirement -- enabling you to compose a screenplay without the program crashing -- seems to be beyond the ability of some beanies. I’ve used many a famous, best-selling scriptwriting package only to be stupefied by how often they crash, and how often management sends a hastily-written patch down the Internet.

That’s the first thing I like about the newest version of Movie Magic Screenwriter, handsomely named “6.” (The previous version was called 2000, but never fear, the Movie Magic folks have not taken 1,994 steps backward.) If it’s not rock solid, it’s at least hard as a development executive’s head. I’ve been involved in the beta-testing process for months, and I’m impressed how far the code has come.

Putting Screenwriter in first gear is almost as easy as it can be. You start the program and are presented with a blank page surrounded by a top toolbar (Save, Undo, Cut, Paste, blah blah blah), another tiny toolbar crawling up the right vertical of the window (script elements: Scene Heading, Character Name, Dialog, and so on), and a status bar across the bottom, sprouting a few buttons of its own for good measure. The interface could be cleaner, but it’s not intrusive. And pretty soon (especially if you feel like reading the manual) you realize just how easy Screenwriter makes the mechanics of the job, so you can concentrate on the clever dialog.

The program recognizes scene headings as you type them, so a simple INT. or EXT. and you’re already in the correct margins, and all caps. And Screenwriter remembers your scene headings, so the next time you start to type the same one, up it pops, ready to be inserted. Ditto with character names, transitions, shots, etc.

If you prefer, typing your script can be as simple as using two keys. The tab key cycles through script elements -- character name, dialog, action, etc. -- and the return key implements.

To be fair, all of this is nothing any competent screenwriting program doesn’t do. In fact, the tab-return paradigm was invented, I believe, by Scriptware, and every major program has adopted it.

The difference is, Screenwriter does it reliably. You can use Screenwriter 6 for the same reason you might buy a Toyota over a Land Rover: it will actually get you to your destination. No worries. But Screenwriter 6 is no Toyota. Click the leftmost button on the bottom toolbar and you’ll realize that you’re behind the wheel of a Lexus. A panel appears to the left of your script, complete with its own toolbar, called the NaviDoc. (Try it: sit tall in your chair, point at an imaginary helm and intone, “Ensign? Deploy the NaviDoc.” Makes you feel captainy all over.)

The NaviDoc can display any of four different views of your screenplay:

• A list of bookmarks you create, enabling you to jump to any desired spot with one click.

• A list of notes (like electronic Post-Its) that you’ve scattered throughout your screenplay, reminding you to do things like, “Make ending gooder.”

• A list of your scenes -- interactive, so clicking on any scene heading takes you to that scene.

• An outline of your script.

What was that last one? An outline of your script? Indeed.

Screenwriter allows you to write your entire outline (assuming you’re one of those namby-pambies who bother with outlines) within the screenwriting program. You can define an almost limitless number of levels, call each level whatever you wish, define a different font and color for each level -- in fact, do everything all but the most sophisticated standalone outliner programs can do.

If you’re big on outlines (like me), this is digital heaven. Not only is your outline Laurel to your script’s Hardy, side-by-side at all times, but it’s fully integrated with your script. Have an outline level appear directly above its relevant dialog. Or not. Click on an outline element to take you the relevant section in your screenplay. Or not. Drag your outline levels to reorder them and your script follows suit. Or not.

It’s those “or nots” that are the paramount and unique strength of Screenwriter 6. If you’re a pro, it’s a pleasure having so many options so easily accessed.

Take the time to get to know Screenwriter. Start with a casual chat, maybe dinner, before you turn out the lights and have it glow at you in the dead of night -- and you’ll be rewarded with a program so configurable, it’s almost like it was written just for you.

If you’re just starting out, Screenwriter 6 might be overkill. But if that’s case, any other major screenwriting package is just as much too much. And if you’re going to spend around $150 or more on any screenwriting software, it may as well be on the best. (If you need or want to spend less, consider the Word add-ons or even some freeware available on the ‘net.)

What’s wrong with Screenwriter 6? As I mentioned, its many features are not as cleanly organized as they might be. And if aesthetics matter (they do to me), you’re looking at the Miss Congeniality of the pageant, not Miss America.

Let me switch back to the Lexus metaphor. Screenwriter 6 won’t turn heads. The valet won’t leave it in front of the restaurant when you hand him the keys. But halfway down the highway, when the seat-massager kicks in, the heads-up display tells you to avoid that deer in the road, and a glance at the speedo tells you you’re going eighty and didn’t even realize it, you’ll decide the money was well spent.

There’s a lot more to Screenwriter, or any other script-processing package. Questions? Answers? Gift certificates? Feel free to click on “comment” below and leave your tracks in my mud.

The World's Greatest Screenwriter

No, not me, you silly goose (but thanks).

In 2003, I was interviewed by The New York Times about the use of software in the scriptwriting process. (I’m working on getting permission to reprint that article here. Meanwhile, you can view it here.) In the article, I said that, unlike most screenwriters I knew, I preferred to use a conventional word-processing program (i.e. Microsoft Word) augmented by a purpose-built screenwriting add-on, rather than a dedicated script-processing program.

These add-on programs automate the process of formatting a script, turning Word into, essentially, a script processor. I reasoned that, if you already own a powerful word processor like Word, why not take advantage of it for every type of writing, including screenplays? Besides, using such an add-on guaranteed that your script would go out in the Word format, readable by virtually every computer user in the world. (When’s the last time you heard: “Sorry, I can’t read the .doc format. Can you convert it into WordPerfect?”) Finally, these add-ons tend to be cheaper than dedicated script processors -- sometimes much cheaper.

Times have changed.

It’s been almost five years -- the equivalent of fifty years in the world of computer technology, thirty-five years in the world of dogs, and an astounding 1,750 years in the world of Canus IV, a planet on which dogs use computers. (See “Bow-Wow Goes Binary,” Scientific American Dog Fancy, Sept. 89.) Suffice to say, a lot’s happened:

• The PDF format has come into its own. Always a popular way of exchanging documents, the Adobe Portable Document Format is now an insurance policy that anyone, regardless of operating system or computer platform, can read your precious work. Five years ago, I would frequently find myself instructing a studio executive’s assistant how to download the free Adobe PDF reader. Today, executives actually request that I send them a script in PDF format. And every script processing program I know can export scripts as PDFs. As the PDF has ascended, the ubiquitous “.doc” format has lost some of its luster. Using Word has become less important.

• Word formats are changing. Microsoft in its wisdom has decided that the latest iteration of its 800-pound word processor would utilize a brand new document format (I believe it’s called .docx). Software add-ons for Word for Windows may have to be rewritten -- or discontinued. This has already happened in the Mac world, where Microsoft dropped Visual Basic support from its upcoming Mac Office 2008. Therefore the most popular scriptwriting add-on for Mac Word has announced that it will not support the next version of Word for the Mac.

• The scriptwriting software market has heated up. I don’t have any statistics, but it appears that someone told the computer geeks that aspiring screenwriters will spend their last ducats on any program that promises to make writing a script easier, faster or more acceptable to the industry. There are more choices, and the competition has forced the coders to improve their interfaces and feature sets more rapidly and reliably.

• Finally -- and most importantly -- I switched from Windows to OS X. (Yes, it's all about me.) A Windows user for fifteen years, I finally took the plunge and hoisted a schooner of Jobs-ade. (You too will soon join us, especially if you let yourself fall asleep next to an iPod. When you awaken, You Will Understand.) The Mac world is so pretty, and generally speaking so un-Microsoft, that I naturally drifted away from using anything that modified Word. I've drifted away from using Word altogether (although I do cherish another Microsoft-for-Mac program, Entourage).
  

When it came to dedicated script processors, I always preferred Screenwriter to the acknowledged leader in the field. From its original identity as Script Thing, through its purchase by Movie Magic to become Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000 (despite its name, still just software, not a lethal moviemaking droid built by Michael Bay), I found Screenwriter to be much less buggy, more intuitive and more of a pleasure to use.

My dubious stature in screenwriting combined with my background in software (I used to a science and technology writer for BusinessWeek magazine) led to the folks at Screenwriter asking me to participate in their beta test program for their revamped version of Screenwriter.

Now the new version is out, and I can earnestly say if the program wasn’t my favorite before, it would be now. (Full disclosure: in return for testing the software, the company gave me a copy of the software. That’s all.) The new Screenwriter is chockablock with new ideas and features, but mainly it integrates a full-fledged outliner with a powerful yet easy-to-use script formatter. Not only does this allow you to stick with one program from outlining through final draft, it’s handy to have your outline integrated into your script file (more about that later). There is a learning curve, and the program could be prettier, but these are quibbles.

I plan to write a review of the software. Meanwhile, here's a quick sample of the program's biggest new feature, the "NaviDoc," which offers a panel to one side of your script that can display a complete outline, notes, bookmarks or a scene map. The video shows the resizable NaviDoc pane, then each of the different NaviDoc modes. At the end of the video you'll notice a bezel "pop up" momentarily; this is just my using the keyboard launcher QuickSilver to end the video. Please ignore. And stay tuned! I'll explain everything in my review.

Meanwhile, what do you have to say? If you've got opinion on screenwriting software in general, some program in particular, or just want to sound off, please click the "comment" link and let me know.

Write what you know? No!

I was sitting at an outdoor cafe the other day drinking a sawbuck latte and chatting with one of my representatives.

Tip: Always have at least one more representative than you have active projects. Currently, for example, I have two TV pilots, so a quick check reassures me that I have an agent, a manager and a lawyer, all of whom take commission on my gross income. I can rest easy, for now. Should I sell a feature, I’ll have to look into getting a life coach. If you’re just starting out and have no projects, make sure you have at least one agent. Fortunately, having an agent virtually guarantees that you will have no projects.

My representative was all fired up, determined that we make a major network sale in the coming weeks.

Show Business Dictionary
We /wi/ –plural pronoun, possessive our or ours, objective us: I.
We have to make a sale this season means You have to make a sale this season. In show business lexicon, “we” carries its conventional meaning only when applied to writing teams: We finished writing the first draft means We finished writing the first draft.)

I pointed out that I’ve pitched dozens of ideas over the past months, many of which I still like and believe in. He shook his head violently. He felt the ideas were too “out there,” not “reality-based” enough. He explained that he is a firm believer in the principle that ideas that sell are always based in the lives of the authors. “Write what you know,” he shrugged.

Write what you know?

I can’t tell you how many times relatives and acquaintances have grasped me by the shoulder and told me they have a fantastic idea for a sitcom. Friends never seem to do this. Probably because should a friend do this, he would immediately be demoted to acquaintance. My friend the CPA had a fantastic idea for a half-hour comedy about a CPA. A manager of a senior-living community explained how a show about a senior-living community would be a fantastic TV show. And there was only one word for the sitcom about a Brooklyn elementary school teacher a Brooklyn elementary school teacher told me about: fantastic.

Never mind that these aren’t really ideas; they’re settings. The point is, making a TV show or movie in whole or part autobiographical increases its chances of selling not a whit. Even from a tradecraft standpoint, writing “what you know” does not increase verisimilitude or quality.

When you see the old saw, “Write what you know” -- and be sure to keep your hands away from the teeth of that old saw -- what you should be thinking is, “Write what you feel.”

Write what you feel.

What is it about a sitcom centering around a lawyer that’s inherently funny? Is it that she deposes witnesses, files writs and speaks in a language that is deliberately unintelligible? Or is it that almost every lawyer I’ve ever met is happy with the money but unhappy with just about everything else about the law? Maybe, for the lawyer character who’s the star of this sitcom, essential unhappiness with life is what’s funny. Maybe the show about the manager of the senior living community is funny because he looks at his tenants and realizes there is no force on Earth that will stop him from eventually becoming them. He is terrified.

Look at your own life, if you dare, and put aside the external details of your relationships, your job, your family, all the things you “know.” Ask yourself what it is about yourself that has led you to this particular arrangement of things. Try to express the answer in terms of feelings, because viewers are much more interested in feelings than facts. As an example, I will now expose myself. First, permit me to open the drapes.

How is it I find myself, a Brooklyn-born-and-bred Jew, on the opposite coast of the country living with a wife, a child adopted from China and four pug dogs? Never mind the fact that Brooklyn-born-and-bred Jews are required by law to report to Los Angeles for sitcom duty. One of the main feelings behind this journey was fear. I ran away from my family and all that I knew lest I become ensnared in its web. As Mel Brooks said in The 2,000-Year-Old Man, fear was “the main propulsion.”

So if I look back at the motley sitcoms I’ve written, from shows about aliens to single African-American women to a boy band, I can see that a lot of the episodes I’ve written are about that kind of fear. The feature I wrote about a tortoise and a hippo is about the terror I encountered during the adoption process and afterward. I’ve been writing what I feel, or at least trying to, if not always consciously.

Writing what you know is actually dangerous, and easily avoidable. The danger lies in thinking that the details of your life are interesting to the world at large.

One might argue that writing what you know affords you all the specific details that bring a character to life. There’s some truth in that, but every good writer should start as a reporter anyway, and earnest reporting will get you those details for any walk of life. (More about that in a future post.)

The impressive Judd Apatow said recently, “I tried to believe that my own point of view and experiences were interesting, and that’s something I’d always had a problem with. I stopped doing stand-up comedy because I didn’t believe that I was someone who people would find fascinating.” Mr. Apatow is enormously successful now, in part, because his experiences may not be interesting, but his point of view certainly is, because it’s based on a set of emotions, not knowledge. Look at his films. They’re all about outsiders experiencing desperation, a morbid fear that they will never grow up and therefore wind up miserable, eternally desperate and clinically depressed.

Misery. Desperation. Depression. Now that’s comedy.

By the way, my representative paid for my latte, so please don't think I think he's good for nothing.

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Have a Scriptwriting, Screenwriting or Show Business Blog?

I invite you to tell me about it by posting a comment below. I'll be happy to visit your blog and, if I think it's a good fit, carry a link to your blog on mine! With the graciousness and wisdom I know you have, you'll reciprocate. Just don't reciprocate too rapidly, or you'll get road rash.

Welcome to Scriptwriting!

I'm Roger S. H. Schulman, and I want to thank you for visiting my new blog, Scriptwriting. I've been writing for television (remember television?) and movies for some years now, and feel the need to share some of what I've learned. I plan to use text, audio and video to help you in all aspects of screenwriting, from the bolts (how to write well) to the nuts (the show business executives). I also plan to offer advice on the technology of screenwriting: products and software to help you generate and organize your ideas, structure and outline your screenplay, and of course format it properly.

I'm actually a working screenwriter, so it's going to take me some time to crank this sucker up. Stay tuned, and I encourage you to subscribe. Unlike all the other writing I do, this is free!

Roger