BMUG PD-ROM B4/PD-ROM B4.iso/Entertainment/Space/Star Trek/The TNG Writers' Workshop, 4

Text File | 1993-04-18 | 11KB | 216 lines

          Saturday, April 17, 1993 8:53:04 PM
          rec.arts.startrek.info Item
   From:          [e-mail],Internet
   Subject:       The TNG Writers' Workshop, 4 April 1993
   To:            rec.arts.startrek.info

A little less than a week ago, I attended a "writers' workshop" run by Ron
Moore, Brannon Braga, and Lolita Fatjo as part of Creation's "Grand Slam
Show" in Pasadena.  Some details and commentary follow.

The stated purpose of the workshop was to improve the quality of the script
submissions the TNG staff gets from freelance writers.  (The same applies to
DS9, but since they don't take submissions yet and neither Ron nor Brannon
writes for them, TNG was the focus.)  To that end, several topics were
covered.

(Note that it was NOT a workshop on "how to write".  If you have the
opportunity to attend one of these things and think you're going to learn how
to write wonderful prose, forget it.  It's what to do *with* your writing
that was the focus here.)

First, Lolita covered general introductions and the process of submitting a
spec script, since that's how basically everyone gets a foot in the door.
The gist:

They currently get about 3000 scripts a year submitted for TNG.  Every
single one is read and written up in a two-page "coverage" -- a very detailed
synopsis.  Michael Piller reads _every single one_ of these coverages.  From
here, a few things can happen.

1)  It could be so wonderful that it's bought with no or minor changes.  This
happens, but it's mighty rare -- the last freelance _teleplay_ bought
outright was "Tin Man", three years ago.

2)  The teleplay could need work, but your *story* might be bought.  This is
much more common -- roughly one out of every two hundred spec scripts has a
story that is bought.

3)  It could be that neither the story nor the teleplay is workable, but that
there's enough promise in your writing that you're invited in to pitch
(either in person, or over the phone -- I know people who've done each).
This is by far the most common of the "good" options -- one in every forty
scripts or so results in a pitch invitation.  Once you're invited in to
pitch, you can do so as many times as you like.

4)  Don't call them, they'll call you.  Your script is returned with a few
markings and a nice note.  You can try again, but at the moment, _unless you
have an agent_, the limit is two spec script submissions to a customer.  Some
netters are undoubtedly aware of this through bitter experience.

-- Story treatments are not accepted.  Period.

From there, things went to Ron and Brannon.  They began, I believe, with a
slide show.  In addition to showing the writers in their natural habitats
(offices with people typing away, script conferences, quick catnaps, and lots
of good strong coffee :-) ), there were a few tidbits of intriguing
information.  For instance:

There were two slides of "THE BOARD".  The Board is a list they began
maintaining of all the pitches that fall into particular categories:  time
travel, Jack Crusher, "space pirates", "Data becomes God" [not to be confused
with "Data becomes man" or even "Data becomes *woman"], etc.  This began when
they got four "moth queen" [i.e. a weird cosmic egg, e.g. "Galaxy's Child"]
stories in a single week and decided "hey, we should start keeping track of
these things."

This board includes their own pitches at meetings, and was meant as an
illustration of how easily most pitches are pigeonholed.  (In fact, they had
one story they mentioned which hit four topics at once.  See, there was a
cosmic egg taken on board ["moth queen"] which turned out to be a sarcophagus
of some sort ["King Tut's Tomb"], which was opened to reveal a mummy ["Space
Mummy"], which when unwrapped turned out to be...Jack Crusher ["Jack's
Back"]!"

(I hope I haven't unduly embarrassed anyone with that story.  If so...sorry.
:-) )

In any event, the goal of a pitch is to STAY OFF THE BOARD.

The quick guideline for stories is that they should be something with an SF
idea in them, but centering on the characters we all know and love.  If it's
an "ordinary" idea that could make it on another show with only minor
twiddlings, it's probably not much of a Trek story -- unless you can manage
to give it a twist.  (The example given of such a twist was "The Host", which
was a love story with one hell of a twist.)

To be avoided:  Big, huge, epic, thematic stories involving the safety of the
entire galaxy.  'Nuff said.

Onwards.  If you're invited in to pitch, here's what happens:

What you're doing is trying to sell your story ideas at this point.  As a
general rule, you pitch 3-5 ideas, _briefly_.  The rule of thumb they use is
that your writeup for each pitch should be about a page and a half,
double-spaced, for each idea.  No more.  (That's about a 3-5 minute read.)
According to Ron:  "If you say you can't boil down your idea into something
that short, you're wrong.  *Shakespeare* can be broken down to a page and
a half if you have to."

The pitch should not contain a great deal of detail.  What it should do is
focus on the emotional "arc" followed by the characters involved.  What
happens, and what results from the events that happen to them.  That's
basically it.  (In fact, they recommend even breaking it down to a one or two
line "TV Guide" type blurb as a preliminary to the pitch.)  If you get bogged
down in detail, you're dead, because the people listening to you won't be
able to process that much detail any more than you could.

As an example of this, they invited someone up (not me, alas) to give them a
pitch based on any TNG episode to date that they wanted, without telling them
what the show was.  The show was "Tapestry", and the pitch, while not bad,
focused on a lot of details early on in the show without talking about where
Picard actually *goes* or what happens to him once he's there.  (Trivia
tidbit:  The teaser for "Tapestry" was written over a year ago, but nobody
knew what to do with it for a long time.)

"BREAKING" A STORY

"Okay, so, you've sold a story from your pitch.  You're all set to write the
teleplay now, right?  Wrong."     -- Brannon Braga

From the pitch, you then write a _story outline_ (we were given an example of
one, namely "Ethics".  This is a bit longer than the pitch, and outlines what
happens over the course of the story.  It gives the main, broad strokes of
the story without filling in many of the details.  (For instance, in
"Ethics", virtually none of the details about Dr. Russell's research and
about the operation are given -- all that's needed is the point that she's
got a radical new, dangerous idea that could either save Worf or kill him.)
The outline for "Ethics" is about four pages long, double-spaced.

Another point that was emphasized here is that writing a story outline
usually involves _collaboration_, and lots of it.  Get used to changing ideas
and changing scenes, because it'll happen.  (They recommend giving story
outlines to friends to read and comment on.)

"So, now you're ready for the teleplay, right?  Wrong again."    -- Brannon B.

Then, you "break" the story.  This is, according to all present, the most
grueling, difficult part of writing an episode.

"Breaking" a story involves taking your story outline and fleshing it out,
scene by scene.  It doesn't mean writing the dialogue -- that's not important
yet.  What is key is writing a "road map" to the show -- what happens in
every scene of every act, and what does it accomplish?  As a general rule,
each act has 4-5 scenes, and the teaser has 2-3.  A "beat sheet" for "Ethics"
was also provided:  as one example, the "beat" for the teaser simply reads:

"1)  Cargo Bay.  Structure falls on Worf, incapacitating him.

2)  Sickbay.  Worf wakes up... Beverly tells him he's paralyzed."

That simple -- but you do it for the entire show.  This season, the "break"
sessions have run anywhere from six hours to six *days* long.

THE FUN STUFF:  DIALOGUE

*Now*, you're ready to write the teleplay.  The rule of thumb is that each
page is roughly 45-50 seconds of screen time, and that each scene is on
_average_ 2-3 pages long.  "If you've got a five-page scene, it had BETTER be
a critical scene -- especially if it's five pages of Picard making a speech."
-- Ron Moore [paraphrased]

This is the fun part of the process, because most people enjoy writing
dialogue.  Some hints here:

-- Keep the scene descriptions *basic*.  The point was made that by far, one
of the biggest problems in scripts they get is *too much detail*.  You have
to be able to trust in the directors and the cast to get your points
across -- don't rein them in too strongly.

-- Read the dialogue aloud.  Quoth Ron:  "It's amusing to come up to the
fourth floor where our offices are, because you can hear lots of really _bad_
Picard imitations."  Every character, especially by now, has a certain "way"
of speaking -- and it's only by trying to read your dialogue aloud that
you'll be able to *really* tell whether it's workable.  One example that was
given is that you'd never hear Picard saying "How's it goin'?", or "ain't".

That's about it.  I found the workshop very informative and rewarding, and
might perhaps use all this new-found knowledge to try my hand at something.
I hope this information was of some use -- I fully recommend the workshop to
anyone seriously making an effort to write stories for either TNG or DS9.

Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
BITNET:  tlynch@citjulie
INTERNET:  [e-mail]
UUCP:  ...!ucbvax![e-mail]
"Don't even bother sending in your script -- no point.  What was your name
again?"
        -- Lolita Fatjo, in jest, after someone asked "what are those
            dark circles under your eyes?"
--
Copyright 1993, Timothy W. Lynch.  All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...

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