EMMYS 2021: THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT

This week I'm featuring some of the 2021 Emmy winners.

I’m a sucker for stories about kids getting parental or wisdom figures in their lives. But sometimes the storytelling on these kinds of things is pretty straight ahead – the wisdom figure is quirky or unexpected but nice, and convinced pretty quickly to help, all things considered. 

THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT goes a completely different way. When Elizabeth first meets Mr. Shaibel he wants nothing to do with her, and he’s kind of aggressive and weird about it. “I don’t play with strangers.” Who says that to a kid?

 

Eventually there’s a little thaw, as we'd expect. But it ices over again immediately when she calls him a cocksucker after he won’t let her finish a game she is destined to lose. He completely shuts her out, which is actually what really sets her on her journey. As a result of him shutting her out she spends all her time working on her chess game. 

And this is the point where the standard story builds in a softening. Shaibel sees how much she's worked, maybe how much potential she has and decides to take her under his wing. 

But QUEEN'S GAMBIT doesn't work that way. They play one game, he trounces her, and then he sends her off.  When her play starts to surprise him, he doesn’t gush or express that in words. He invites her to play again, teaches her strategies, gives her books and eventually gets the local high school chess club teacher involved.

 

And that's the extent of their relationship. At the end of their arc in the pilot, the teacher asks to take a photo of them together, and Shaibel is deeply uncomfortable. It's awkward and uncertain, and yet it's really effective just like that. 

 

To me the lesson is twofold: First, when you’re writing a relationship, it’s always good to build in a great distance for the characters to travel. You want them to have to work to get to friendship. But also second, if that distance is truly great, just a little forward movement can be enough. In fact, if you hold back you hook the audience in deeper, because we want more. When Shaibel wasn't an ongoing character of the series I was so disappointed. I wanted him to be the father figure that starts showing up to her games, giving her what her own parents could not. And refusing to give that to me only made me invest in its possibility more.  

There's a great coda to this relationship arc in the finale. Hearing that Shaibel has died, Elizabeth goes back to the orphanage and discovers that  in his basement office he kept clippings of every single match she played, as well as her letter to him and that incredibly awkward photo. It's absolutely devastating for her, and catharsis for us. Having withheld pretty much everything from us, writer Scott Frank has primed us to be moved by any kind of act of love. And so when we see the clippings and the photo--such a smart touch, that photo, cue the waterworks. 

 

Now You Try

Look at the central relationship of your pilot. How far apart do the characters start emotionally? And how far do they have to travel to connect in the pilot? Do they progress too much?  Too little? 

What's the least amount of progress they could make and still feel like it's a step?

Play around. Maybe you'll find you've tried to force them through a whole season of growth in just one episode. And now you've got so many more stories you can tell!

 

EMMYS 2021: I MAY DESTROY YOU

 

This week I'm featuring some of the 2021 Emmy winners. Today I've picked one episode of Michaela Coel's Emmy-award winning series I MAY DESTROY YOU.

Premise, Episode 108: After Arabella finds out that the police have closed their investigation into her rape case without finding the perpetrator, she travels to Italy to see her former boyfriend. Meanwhile her friend Kwame tries to get past his own sexual assault by having sex with a woman. 

Structure: Episode 108 has a pretty standard narrative structure--we start with a Status Quo: Arabella and Kwame embrace their ways of dealing with their experience, Arabella through her support group, Kwame through a straight dating app. Then, Complications (of their Choices) Ensue--Kwame goes out on a date with a straight girl, and ends up having sex with her only to discover it still triggers memories of his abuse, meanwhile Arabella finds her confidence in herself and reality shattered after her case was closed without an arrest, and decides to go to see her old boyfriend in Italy. And then, Everything Falls Apart--Both of them end up getting thrown out by their partners. At the end Arabella sits on a beach alone and finally walks into the sea. And that ending creates a new status quo going forward, the two of them a mess.

The Scene To Watch: Arabella and Biagio

When I think about I MAY DESTROY, one of the moments I always go back to is the scene here between Biagio and Arabella. Having come into the scene through Arabella's eyes, our take on what is going on there is skewed in a way that we don't necessarily realize. We know she's sad and struggling. And we see that Biagio is surprised, but then he very clearly softens. When the pizza arrives he offers to pay, and we have absolutely no warning of what he's actually planning, that he's going to lock her out, until it happens.

The scene becomes a showpiece for Coel's incredible acting, as we watch her move through denial, bargaining and finally rage--and then on the beach, depression. 

But for me the great writing moment is just the choice to have Biagio shut her out without warning, to not telegraph that in any way. Sometimes when I'm writing I think I really need to justify this choice my character is going to make. And so you seed that coming decision in comments and actions that the characters make earlier. But that's not always true. Some of the most exhilarating moments, in fact, happen when a character does something that hasn't been telegraphed.

Part of it is obviously the surprise factor; Biagio's move so totally comes out of the blue. But it's also the Gap of it all, the leap that's been made from what we expected to what actually happens. In order to move forward we the viewers have to make sense of that. Which means we become part of the storytelling process; we in a sense get to fill in that gap for ourselves. Was it that Arabella mentioned staying as long as Biagio liked that freaked him out, as she thinks? Was it his plan from the moment he saw her? Or was it something else? Each of us get to weave our own answer.

Now You Try

Reread your pilot with the question in mind, Is there anything I can take away? Any gap that I might create that will end up surprising and engaging the reader? 

EMMYS 2021: THE CROWN

 

This week I'm featuring some of the 2021 Emmy winners. 

The Premise: The season 4 finale, entitled "War" and written by show creator Peter Morgan, features the culmination of the main storylines of the season--Margaret Thatcher's Prime Ministership; Thatcher's conflict-ridden relationship with Queen Elizabeth; and Charles and Diana's marriage. 

Structure: On the surface, "War" looks like what I'd call a Hand Off plot. We go back and forth between the two main wars of the ep--Thatcher's reign and the marriage. Then once Thatcher and Elizabeth have their final moment, the rest of the ep is handed off just to the marriage. Thatcher's story is like the booster rocket that propels the marriage story to its conclusion. 

But that's only partially correct. In fact, once Charles and Diana have it out--in a scene that follows directly after the Elizabeth/Thatcher moment--the last 15 minutes is actually about a bigger war that's been going on the whole series, and that is everyone's humanity and happiness versus the responsibilities of the crown. Charles and Diana think they're on opposite sides, but as they interact with Elizabeth and Philip, we learn that in fact they're both dealing with the same thing: that damn crown. And while each enters into that last section thinking they've won--Charles has told Diana he's not doing this anymore and Diana has established to herself that she has autonomy and is not the crazy person he wants to be--by the end they've both been crushed in the war they forgot they were in, and that Morgan has not called attention to until the end, so that it's a twist for us, too. 

At the same time, I do think the Thatcher story serves as a kind of booster rocket, insofar as she establishes a key either/or of the episode: either you act and thrive, or you do nothing and live in ignominy. Elizabeth tells Thatcher she could use a little  more "do nothing" at this point, but in fact in the end Elizabeth comes around. Calling Thatcher in, awarding her the Order of Merit and having her wear it out--these are very concrete actions that she takes, and impactful ones.  

In a sense Charles has been giving Diana the same advice as Elizabeth to Thatcher--do nothing. Stay home. Shut up. But here in the finale she finally refuses that take on her life, which has absolutely been killing her, and discovers a life for herself. 

So again, we enter into the final sequence having been "taught" that action really is the right thing, only for Diana and Charles to be told very clearly, stop acting. It's a brilliant set up/take down on Morgan's part, and one that only gets more satisfying the more times I watch it. 

Keys to the Kingdom 1: The Title

One of the things I love about THE CROWN is that it often gives episodes titles that provide a sort of lens for understanding what we're going to see. Morgan calls this episode "War", and then begins with a sort of classic pre-war sequence--Sir Geoffrey Howe getting up, dressing, considering his speech--all steps in literally preparing himself for battle. Finally he walks through the Parliament in a classic warrior coming into the amphitheater sort of shot. 

Obviously Thatcher's battle to maintain her leadership will be a kind of war, and Charles vs. Diana too. (There's that great moment in their story where the two sides confront each other across a table.)

But war floats through in other ways, too: William's soccer game; Diana's struggle with her mental health; radio stories about violence in Ulster; Camilla's take on fairy tales as beginning with someone being wronged, which is exactly how wars start as well; the stag horns that surround Diana as she goes down to take a family photo at the end, evidence of the generations of victims of a whole other kind of war. And the Christmas visit as a whole has a sort of war vibe, not because of Charles but because the family is so to itself--Diana looks here and there for an entry and finds nothing. 

A great title is so useful for the writer; it becomes a way of focusing everything in an episode. 

Keys to the Kingdom 2: The Repeated Image

"War" begins with Sir Geoffrey--a man we do not know--waking up. As we discover who he is, the significance of beginning with him waking up becomes clear. His whole story is about calling the party to wake up to the disaster they're in with Thatcher. 

That image of a person getting out of bed repeats twice more in the episode. (The rule of three--it's always happening. Elizabeth likewise gets three scenes with Thatcher.) The first time is Diana in New York; so far she's been lost in her own anxiety. But then we see her in bed in New York. She sits up, hears the sounds of the city--just as we started with Howe hearing the song of the birds. And out of this comes this great day, in which she really does good and discovers an identity of her own. So again the physical waking up bespeaks a metaphorical one.

Near the end we meet Diana in bed again. But this time she's hiding from the nightmare of Christmas with this terrible family. What rouses her out of bed is Philip's knock. And this time--in keeping with the end-reversal Morgan has going on--getting up and standing up to Philip only leads to her foundering on the rocks. The crown is so much more than any of them can withstand. 

But still, the last shot of the episode is Diana, standing alone. And even as tears start to well in her eyes, she begins with what looks to be resolve. The challenge of the battle to wake up and be oneself presented so clearly in that moment. 

Again, most dramas don't have this level of thought going on in the writing. But THE CROWN always does and it's well worth watching literally any episode just to see these kind of novelistic flourishes at work. 

Keys to the Kingdom 3: Philip's Speech

There's so much more that I could say about this episode--particularly Elizabeth's journey with Thatcher, which is so interesting. But having written so much already, let me just end by highlighting Philip's astonishing end speech. It comes in a sequence that doesn't look like a battle, him advising Diana, but then ends up being revealed to be one when she refuses to simply accept that everything's going to be okay eventually. His demeanor completely changes after her words, and he then gives this incredible speech about how none of them are anything, the only thing that matters is the Crown. 

That speech IS when Morgan makes clear what the "real" war has been and where Charles and Diana stand in it. But it's also the moment that brings the series back to its broader themes, which are all about the horror really of being a part of this family, the brutal, dehumanizing burden of self-sacrifice that is asked of everyone around the crown. Those themes obviously wind their way through this season as the others--in fact Thatcher in a sense is the mouthpiece of that way of thinking (and its absolute inhumanity). But this season doesn't cohere around that idea in quite the same degree as past seasons until that speech. And then suddenly it's like someone has pulled down a curtain and revealed um, yeah, this is still a part of the whole story Morgan and his team are telling. 

The note to take being, when you're writing a season finale, you're always speaking to the themes of the season but also those of the overall story. Or at least that opportunity is there--and it's a great one. 

Now You Try

There's a lot here to consider playing with. One idea might be to look through a script you've been working on and see if there isn't some kind of image that you haven't already established that could recur. Or maybe you create one--but I suggest first look and see if there isn't the seed of one already there. Often there is. (Brains are amazing.)

Another idea might be to see whether there's some way to lead your audience to believe success for your character looks like one thing, and then provide that and reveal that is not success after all. Playing with audience expectations, there's nothing like it.

EMMYS 2021: HACKS

This week I'm featuring some of the 2021 Emmy winners.

The Premise: Aging Las Vegas comic legend Deborah Vance finds herself getting slowly pushed aside by her casino as she approaches an incredible milestone, while promising young TV writer Ava Daniels faces working for Deborah as the only option she has left after a bad joke on Twitter. 

Structure: The pilot, entitled "There is No Line" and written by Lucia Aniello & Paul W. Downs & Jen Stasky, has three very clear sections: Meeting the Characters, in which we meet first Deborah in her world and establish her problem, then meet Ava and establish her big challenge--whether to work for Deborah or not; The Struggle, in which each of them tries to fight the problem they're facing; and Finding A Way Forward Together, in which they meet, hate each other--continuing the struggle to resist what they're being told to do--but then end up working together anyway. 

It's worth watching the ep just to see how efficiently the writers move through these sections. There's not a single repeat beat or moment wasted. 

A Moment To Watch: The Opening

The show opens with a camera behind Deborah as she ends her set at the Palmetto, then follows her from behind as she walks off stage and to her dressing room, meeting various people on the way and establishing both them as characters in her world and other parts of her life--her other business dealings, her hobby as a collector. 

Even as the shot-from-behind sequence ends at the dressing room, the underlying Show Deborah In Her World idea continues as she hops on a plane, does her QVC show and a photo shoot, then comes home to her mansion, takes off her wig, feeds her dogs steak and carrots and goes to bed. 

It's a classic example of how to establish a character and a world quickly and well. 

In watching Deborah in this way, we develop an immediate connection with her. Rather than any one Save the Cat-type moment we get a bunch of different kinds of reasons to like her. She's successful and funny. She's decent and professional to everyone she meets. She works hard and without complaint despite the effort it takes. And at the end of the day she's a vulnerable human being who is pretty much alone. 

And creating that connection is essential, so that when she then loses her shit in the next scene, or later as the series' emphasis falls more onto the pathetic and self-destructive fish out of water Ava, we never write Deborah off as a diva or the antagonist. The groundwork of our relationship with her has already been laid. And they did it in about 4 minutes. 

Another Moment to Watch: The Deborah/Ava Meeting

The Deborah/Ava conversation is really well constructed: We start with Ava being called out for not having done any research on Deborah; then Deborah tossing her out and the insults back and forth; then as Ava leaves the truth about why she's here and the joke she told; and finally, on the road out, what the joke should have been and her getting hired. 

One thing I really like about the sequence is the fact that they find ways to incorporate action into the beats, like her walking out and then we do the third beat, or the fourth beat coming after a crazy car chase. When justified, action generates momentum and interest. 

And that's the other thing--they keep finding good reasons to justify the sequence continuing. It's so clear right from the start these two cannot work together and don't want to; the biggest challenge of the episode  is to find a way to be true to those impulses and still have them end up together. So as she leaves Ava makes a crack that Deborah likes, which leads her to follow Ava--which tells us something important about Deborah, namely that the joke is the most important thing to her. And it's the challenge of fixing the joke that makes Deborah chase Ava down. 

Now You Give it a Go

Look at the first five pages of one of your own pilots. Read it not as the writer but as an audience member. What have you established about your main character in those pages? By the end of them, do I know who they are, the contents of their world, what they want and what their problem is? And what reasons have I given for the audience to like them? 

Depending on your story you might feel five pages is not enough. And you might be right--though if you're doing a sitcom, I'd challenge you to consider your approaching. You have so little time, and every page is precious.

GUILLERMO DEL TORO, NOTED FAILURE (aka DON'T GIVE UP, KEEP LEARNING)

IndieWire had a great little piece on Guillermo del Toro yesterday, about the fact that he has written 33 feature screenplays in his lifetime.  If that sounds like a lot more than he has filmed, you are correct. "Two to three made by others," he said, "11 made by me (Pinocchio in progress) so- about 20 screenplays not filmed. Each takes 6-10 months of work, so, roughly 16 years gone."

If you've been at this work very long, you probably have your own stack of unproduced--and likely never going to be produced--material. Which is often brutal to think about. I have fallen in love with so many characters that no one but my manager and some industry readers (most of whom let's be honest are going to be either kids in college or right out of college) are ever going to meet. 

That's the business. 

But the quote from del Toro doesn't end there. Yes, it's 16 years gone. But, he goes on: "Just experience and skill improvement.”

And that's not nothing. Your 20th script is going to be better than your 10th. Almost certainly way better. So is your 11th, or maybe your 12th.  We learn by doing.

Also--and this is something that people outside the business often don't understand--failure is often the path to success. I sold a pilot to AMC and spent 18 months developing it with them. In the end, they passed--but the work I did on it led them to suggest me to the team developing PREACHER into a series, which led to my first job as a staff writer. 

There's that old saw, When God closes a door he opens a window--which if you think of it is really not that helpful, because what the hell am I supposed to do with a window? In Hollywood it's more like where producers close a door they push you out a window, but then unexpectedly that throws you into the path of someone else who is looking for someone just like you (who I guess is Spider-Man?, because otherwise how do you stop plummeting, argh metaphors are hard). 

The point is, don't give up. Don't Give Up Don't Give Up Don't Give Up.

(I feel like if you say Don't Give Up five times Candyman shows up, but instead of murdering you he gives you a job. It turns out on the side he's got a very cool production company.)

Keep writing. Keep learning. Keep working.  And by the way, I'm right there with you.

 

MINING YOUR CONTINUITY

Art by Mike Huddleston

Jonathan Hickman is a comic book writer who specializes in massive world building projects like East of West, Avengers: Secret War and currently the run of X-Men (which begins here).

About a month ago he made a deal with Substack to produce content for them, and has started the development of a new book called 3W/3M, aka 3 Worlds, 3 Moons. 

And basically what he and his collaborators are doing is showing us the process by which they're building the story as they're doing it. So for instance, last week he put out a series of posts about a certain meteor that's important to the story. And in the initial two he was sort of talking about what people did with the meteor once it fell to this planet--its very minerals, a house that was built around it. And then in the third he tells this seemingly unrelated story of a war that ends up explaining where that rock came from and some really insane things going on within it. The third post absolutely changes everything we've already read and sets the story down a whole new path with a lot more energy. 

(This is a long way of saying, if you are interested in the craft of writing, you should consider subscribing to Hickman's newsletter.  I was very skeptical of the whole idea of paying for a newsletter about a comic myself, but it's been tremendous.)

After those posts, Hickman followed up with a post explaining what he has just done from a storytelling perspective, which he calls "Mining Your Continuity". 

Lots of good ideas to think about here. 

++

I get plenty of rope now because I’ve done the trick quite a few times, but when I was starting out at Marvel (and was very inexperienced -- and very new to ‘just writing’) I didn’t have any way to explain what I was doing story-wise, and while my act was amusing to the bosses, only my editor, Tom Brevoort, really got it and had to go to bat for me numerous times early on (probably more times than I know -- thanks, Tom!). And for a while there, I really couldn’t even explain what I was doing...

Then I saw Vince Gilligan (uh, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, X-Files) give an interview where he explained this process -- which I’ve looked for on youtube and cannot, for the life of me, find anywhere. So I suppose the possibility exists that he didn’t say what I’m about to say, and I misheard it, and have completely made all this up as a way of me figuring things out, but, you know, I WANT TO BELIEVE.

(Oh, so google told me that Vince Gilligan’s real name is George Vincent Gilligan, Jr. And his parents names are George Gilligan, Sr. and Gail Gilligan, so it’s like they’re from Smallville or something. Which, hilariously, is the same double-initials, naming convention that we’re using for all the royal families on Fayrii.)

Anyway, the process was basically him talking about how, instead of introducing new concepts and characters to your stories with new backstories and unrelated, or parallel, motivations, the thing you should do is ‘mine your own continuity.’

By that, he meant that when you introduce a giant meteor to your story -- that meteor’s history doesn’t begin with it crashing into the planet. It’s not just an inciting incident, and it’s not just a rock (it’s not just a gun, it’s not just a new bad guy, it’s not just a new love interest, it’s not just a cool car, etc, etc) -- it has to have a purpose. And its history should reflect the history of the story you’re telling. This has two-fold effect: One, you get a shiny ‘new’ toy to play with (new is good, but it often doesn’t matter in dense continuity [like, say, the X-Men] unless...), Two, you get a kiss of nostalgia when that new thing connects to an ‘existing story’ in a delightful way you didn’t see coming. This creates a feedback loop that resonates through your storyline making everything matter ‘more.’

You’re essentially folding the story back onto itself, over and over, creating a much stronger narrative (which is how they make Samurai swords -- I learned that from Highlander, which is also how I know who the Fabulous Freebirds are. It’s also probably a ‘why not both’ of that Mad Men episode, ’The Wheel’).

It’s also worth noting that, done correctly, it does a lot of the hard work necessary to eliminate coincidence in your stories. Which is priceless all by itself.

 

THINKING ABOUT THE WHOLE STORY

 

Right now I'm working on some posts about the Emmy winners. But this week I thought I'd step back and post some writing ideas from others. 

Last week David Simon wrote a beautiful article about Michael K. Williams, who played Omar on The Wire. And while others have talked about Williams' incredible talent as a performer, Simon came it from the point of view of a writer, and the great gift that Williams gave their writing staff.

At the start of the second year Williams came in to see Simon and asked "Why are we doing this?" i.e. Why are we walking away from the story of the black community of Baltimore to spend time with a bunch of white dockies in the shipyards? The conversation pushed Simon and his staff to express more clearly what exactly they wanted from the second year, what it was going to be about.

And each year after that Williams and Simon would have the same conversation. "What are we going to say this year?" he would ask.

"He gave us an astounding gift", Simon writes, "an act of faith from a magnificent actor who could have played his hand very differently. Television usually chases its audience — if they love them some Omar, you feed them more Omar. If they can’t stop looking at Stringer, you write more Stringer. Never mind story and theme.

"Instead, Mike bent his beautiful mind to a task that even the best writers and show runners often avoid. He thought about the whole story, the whole of the work." 

I find sometimes if I'm writing from a standpoint of theme, my characters can get lost. They are not chess pieces or puppets, right? But on the other hand, thinking about the whole story, about what is the thing that I'm exploring in this season, in this show can be so clarifying. Right now I'm working on a sitcom pilot where the main character is desperate to explore parts of his life that he never has, to have more -- and yet he's also terrified and hiding behind old defense mechanisms. It's a story about the terror of happiness, the two steps forward, three steps back struggle involved in taking the risk of chasing it. 

And I think I'm at a point where his story is really clear and fun to watch, and the script is probably fine to send out. But as I sit with it I'm realizing there's still a further opportunity here, and it's in considering the stories of the supporting players around him, and how their own journeys are dealing with the same issues. What is the happiness they are afraid of? What are the defenses they put up? 

That's what happens sometimes, for me anyway, when I apply Williams' question: when you're clear about the question you're asking, the thing you're wrestling with, characters who might seem minor or secondary suddenly can lock in in a new way, like metal filings around a magnet.

WRITING FROM FEAR

Michaela Coel, creator of I MAY DESTROY YOU, at the Emmys last night.

Something to think about for inspiration today: What is the part of my life that I am most uncomfortable exploring or showing to others? Of what am I afraid?

FIVE THINGS, WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS, PRECIS

 So...you want to write for WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS and/or consider the writing techniques it offers? Here's a quick summary of some things to remember: 

1) The External World is Key to the Comedy: Great comedy often comes from the conflicts between a weird thing and a normal thing. So in WHAT WE DO, you've got a bunch of vampires (weird) living in Staten Island (normal). Brainstorm some normal-life kinds of situations--Malls! City council meetings! Christmas carollers!; or vampire-kinds of stuff--Problems with Silver! Always hungry! Can turn into bats! And see how they can interact. 

2) They Explore the Space: Once you've set up your premise and characters, take the time to explore their implications. We know that these are goofy/clueless vampires who really just want to hang around. So what else might be true about them? 

3) And Use All their Toys: Where most mockumentary-type shows ignore one key element of their series, the documentary crew, WHAT WE DO has repeatedly gone back to them in different ways as both objects of incidental harm and occasional embarrassed (aka "Whoops, sorry about killing your guy") kinds of conversation. They're not main characters by any means, but they are part of the fabric of the show. So what might be the next ways to use them? 

4) Guillermo Wants Something (Outrageous): Stories live and die on the desires of their characters. Desires create paths, possible conflicts and choices. The bigger or even more absurd the desire, the bigger the choices and obstacles involved. On WHAT WE DO, Guillermo wants to be a vampire, and that desire leads to both hilarious conflicts, as the vampires show no interest in siring him, and ever-stronger choices, as he ends up having to protect his vampires from the bigger world.  

5) There's a Big Picture: From the pilot WHAT WE DO establishes a bigger world to the story, the Vampire Council, and their desire to rule. And over the course of the first season our vampires fall afoul of them, courtesy mostly of Guillermo, who comes to discover he is a Van Helsing, setting up a fresh new take on the Dracula story. And knowing the big picture is that tale, what other elements can we draw out or bring in? For instance, what about introducing a Lucy figure that Guillermo falls for? Or a Renfield who is like Guillermo's equal and opposite? Or what about pitting Guillermo against his own vampires?

FIVE THINGS, WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS: THE BIG PICTURE

In this week where we're looking at what you need to know to write WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS aka some of the things that WHAT WE DO does so well, there's one more thing to mention. 

(Actually there are so many more things we could talk about, like the wonderful and specific characterizations of each of the vampires. But we've only got five things!)

It's a thing that was easy to miss in the early episodes of WHAT WE DO, in large part because the show presents as a pretty traditional sitcom, each week offering its own stand-alone little bit of hilarity. Vampires in Staten Island--what more do you need?

But in fact the series has a significant ongoing storyline--two in fact, that are really one. On the one hand, from the opening episode we've got the disintegrating relationship between the vampires and the greater vampire kingdom. Ancient vampire royalty The Baron shows up in the pilot and is horrified that the foursome have not taken over Staten Island. In later episodes they try to do what he wants, and fail. And then Guillermo accidentally kills him, leading to group being put on trial before the Vampire Council. 

In the second year things get worse, with vampires being sent to kill them off and on throughout the season. And now in the third things have flipped and they've been made the new Vampire Council themselves. 

Meanwhile the other arc which is ongoing but only revealed at the end of the first season is that Guillermo is actually a Van Helsing, and it seems to be in his very nature to kill vampires. Suddenly the death of the Baron has a whole new layer, as does Guillermo accidentally burning Nandor with holy water in the finale, or throwing stakes away and them ending up embedded in the pictures of the three main vampires. The second season will see him struggling with that identity in hilarious ways, and killing A LOT of vampires. 

Really these two arcs are two sides of the same coin, which amounts to a hilarious remix of the classic Dracula vs. Van Helsing storyline, with the Staten Island Vampires caught right in the middle.

Understanding that that's going on underneath it all is a useful way of thinking about the show. First, it begs the question "If this is true, what else is true?" If Guillermo is a Van Helsing who inadvertently keeps doing Van Helsing things, what are some other possible twists? What are some other Van Helsing-y kinds of skills he might have or natural talents he might apply? Maybe he can learn ancient languages almost instantly. He is very hard to kill. His blood makes vampires sick. He has some kind of magical power set. 

Or are there problematic parts of Van Helsing that become part of Guillermo's struggles? Like maybe he naturally repels attractive humans? Or anyone he loves will absolutely die? 

The bigger arc also sets up future conflicts. For now, Guillermo sees himself as the Staten Island vampires' protector. But will that last forever? Can it if they're now the Vampire Council? There's so much room to play with. 

That's what a bigger story arc does: it creates problems, opportunities and possibilities. It's a lot like character desire (in fact usually it emerges from them) applied to the macro scale.

Now You Try!

Knowing what we know about the bigger arc(s) of the show: the Vampires vs. the Staten Island Crew; Guillermo Van Helsing; and the Vampires vs. Van Helsing of it all, brainstorm some possible story ideas. You might find it useful to think of it as a two step process:  first, forget that this is a comedy and just try to think of some serious stories or problems that could happen. Allow yourself to consider any crazy, dark or even tragic possibility.

Then, see if you can come up with the WHAT WE DO version--the version where Guillermo is accidental, reluctant or has his life made worse in his Van Helsingness; the version where the Staten Island Crew succeeds over powerful vampires in silly or accidental ways; the ways that Vampires vs. Van Helsing can go to a hilarious place.

TOMORROW

When I do these Five Things pieces, I'm going to try to do a sort of one page precis on the weekend with a couple further opportunities or suggestions--knowing what we know about the show and where's at, what might you capitalize on?, kind of a thing. So look for that tomorrow.

FIVE THINGS, WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS: WANT SOMETHING (OUTRAGEOUS)

While WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS is an ensemble show, the clear heart of it is Guillermo, Nandor's familiar. He's the show's point of view character, both our guide into this world and also the one to which the camera team turns whenever something ridiculous happens. 

But in addition to all that what makes him truly central to the show is that he has the biggest, clearest and craziest desire. He wants to be a vampire. As audience we love a character who is taking a big swing at life, who is chasing something difficult (for sure) and/or crazy (even better). 

In part maybe we like that because we can relate. We know what it is to dream for things that are hard or seemingly impossible. Someone who chases a dream is by nature someone we identify with. 

But I think it's also about clarity. Consider WHAT WE DO without Guillermo--what would it be about, really? You might still have the group being pushed to do certain things like take over Staten Island, but only under pressure. Part of the joke of the series, after all, is that they really don't want to do anything but hang out and eat people. 

Desires tell us what journey we're on. And they give us a general sense of the conflicts we're going to get to watch. Knowing Guillermo wants to be a vampire, we know he's going to try things to get the group's approval or attention; and without knowing the show at all we also know they are going to make that difficult in some way, that Guillermo proving himself is going to be very hard to do. (And in a classic WHAT WE DO twist, the challenge for Guillermo is not some set of impossible feats he must accomplish, but the fact that the vampires are so silly and self-centered they don't even notice how much he wants it.)

Guillermo's desire also lead to an unexpectedly rich second goal--to protect his vampires. At this point that quest is even more prominent than his baseline desire to be a vampire, because his people are now under constant threat (which his own acts of protection keeps making worse--a fantastic engine). Intriguingly it's a more emotional goal, too--it has to do with how he feels about them, his affection for them despite everything. The fact that they continue to treat him like garbage even now-- they have him locked in a cage in 301 while they debate whether to kill him--only makes this the more delightful (and also makes him more appealing).

Part of what is making season three look really interesting is the way they're expanding who has desires and for what. Colin Robinson wants to find out where he comes from; Nadja clearly wants to take their new job as Vampire Council seriously and be a real boss. The impact of those choices is pretty immediate. We start to care about those characters in a different way. I honestly can't believe how much I'm suddenly invested in Colin Robinson. He's by far the least likeable of the bunch, but now he's on the most emotional journey and I'm right there with him. 

Now You Try! 

Strong, clear, bold desires are central to making any story compelling. If we're looking specifically at writing a good WHAT WE DO episode, we might consider brainstorming some specific expressions of Guillermo's desire to be a vampire; what are things that he might do to try and win that promotion? Or we might consider further obstacles that he faces: how does the fact that he's a Van Helsing and has killed a lot of vampires factor in going forward? 

But here's a different idea: What would be a really concrete desire we could give Nandor or Laszlo? And rather than having it as something altogether new, the challenge here is to look at the things they've done in the show and the way they are and see whether there isn't something already there waiting for us. 

So maybe the way go about brainstorming is to first list some of your favorite moments of either character, the things that really stand out or that you loved. And then, see if there isn't something in there worth exploring as a bigger part of the character.  That might seem like a long shot, but I find in writing that so often the things we need are already there. It's like we buried a treasure chest and didn't know it. And it's just there waiting for us to find.

FIVE THINGS, WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS: USE ALL THE TOYS

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS is a mockumentary, basically. There's an unseen camera crew that is recording everything for some supposed future documentary, just like in MODERN FAMILY, PARKS & REC or THE OFFICE.  

At this point there's conventions that people expect to come with that, like talking head moments or cutaways to one of the characters looking directly into the camera and rolling their eyes (aka Jim and Pams). 

One other convention that has become pretty much sacrosanct is that you never see the documentary team, or even have them directly referenced beyond that cutaway glance. Toward the end of THE OFFICE there's a moment where Pam is going to say goodbye to Michael in an airport and in order to do it she has to take off her mic, and it was kind of revolutionary simply because she did that. Like documentaries, mockumentaries never do that. 

THE OFFICE has a number of other interesting moments like this in its last season, too. But WHAT WE DO is the first show I know that has played with this convention from the start. In a number of episodes the crew are actually victims: in 106 one of the team gets eaten; in 205 Colin Robinson drains the cameraman. Also, the show is not above having the cast speak directly to the documentary team, as in 104 when Nandor apologies to the crew after saying they're going to eat everyone. 

On the one hand, by breaking that rule of leaving the film team alone, those moments really grab you. The expectation is so ingrained in us at this point, the change feels transgressive in an exciting way. And transgression is great for humor.

But there's also an insight in there about using everything you've got. If you've got a documentary crew as part of your conceit, they're another thing you have to work with, another toy to play with, if and when you want. The fact it hasn't been done can make that hard to realize, but once you do, you may find there's lots of room to play.

Now You Try!

What are some other things WHAT WE DO could try doing with relationship to the crew? Feel free to go way past what you think is likely or maybe even right for the show, i.e. "The Cameraman becomes Nandor's new familiar." It's only by pushing those limits that we figure out where the lines for the show actually are. (Also, it often leads to some really fun ideas that can work.) 

FIVE THINGS, WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS: EXPLORE THE SPACE

This week I'm looking at five key aspects to the writing in FX vampire comedy WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS.

In grad school one of my profs used to remind us, In a script you can only have one strange thing. The rest pretty much has to be normal. So for instance if your main character is super wacky, you probably don't want to also put them in a super wacky environment, as well. It's like a hat on a hat, or wearing a striped tie with a plaid shirt. It's just too much to take in. 

In WHAT WE DO..., the supernatural is clearly the strange thing. As I talked about yesterday, a big part of what makes the show work is the fact that it has set that idea in a otherwise very normal world. The context makes the vampires (and other supernatural creatures)' silliness stand out all the more. Bright colors stand out so much more against a bland background. 

But the other side of the coin is that the show also really invests in exploring its "one strange thing". In a sense the game of the series is "If this is true, what else is?" That is, if our point of entry into the vampire world is characters that are so clearly silly, what must it be like to be a vampire? What's the ridiculous equivalent of each of the things we know about vampires?

And so we get ideas like Laszlo having to say "bat" in order to turn into one, or the fact that the vampires all hiss at times in this ridiculously over the top way; or that when they use the word "God" their tongues burst into flame; or that their attraction to blood is so strong that when Guillermo's friend gets a nose bleed, Nandor simply cannot control his attraction; or the reveal that many vampires are actually famous people.

The writers also push beyond vampires to the broader supernatural world. Werewolves are incredibly dumb. The vampires don't believe in ghosts. Witches are obsessed with sperm to stay young. Trolls hate the term "trolling". Again, it all proceeds from those initial character sketches.

In improv they talk sometimes about exploring the space or the game. Rather than overcommitting to some single gag, as you often see on SNL, for example, give yourself the chance to really consider the possibilities of the world you're in. That's where the long term of the story (and the comedy) is going to be found.

Now You Try!

If you know WHAT WE DO, brainstorm at least twenty parts of the supernatural world or vampire life that the show could play with. See if you can come up with a WWD equivalent for half of them. Like for instance, what does an exorcism look like in this context? What if the only way to exorcise a demon is to make out with them, and they're just the worst kisser ever? 

If you don't know WHAT WE DO and you're working on your own thing, what is the strange element of your show? Try to think of 20 things that could come from that initial idea, twenty ways to explore that space.

SO YOU WANT TO WRITE FOR WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS: FIVE THINGS TO REMEMBER (DAY ONE)

When I started taking notes on TV shows during the pandemic, one of the things that I really got into was creating lists of takeaway lessons from shows. And often, even with shows that have long gone off the air, I found myself presenting it in the way I titled today's blog. When I started in the business a decade ago, you still saw people writing specs of different shows with the view that you could shop those around to get work. I did a MODERN FAMILY episode for one class that I absolutely adored. I barely remember it now but it involved Phil and a very young Luke building something STAR WARS related. 

(I also did a spec of WALKING DEAD that I thought was really bold, until someone pointed out to me that Rick and Carl having to kill a hospital ward filled with child zombies was just way too far for the show, let alone the ABC/Disney Writers' Workshop application. Edgy is fine, but you still have to know the rules of your show--and your producers/fellowship company.)

Today I don't hear much about people doing specs to get work like this. But it's still very useful when watching a show to think about what are some of the key elements of different shows. You learn new techniques that way. Also who knows, maybe someday you get to meet the showrunner or a writer on staff and your knowledge comes in handy. 

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS, FX's vampire comedy, has just returned. I haven't seen the new season yet, but I binged the first two seasons during lockdown. And I took plenty of notes. 

So this week I'm going to give you Five Writing Things to Know/Take From WWDITS.  

TAKEAWAY ONE: The External World Setting is Key to the Comedy.

Sometimes WWDITS draws its humor from the vampire world. Sometimes it comes from the experience of living together. Sometimes it has something to do with someone's past. 

But to my mind the strongest comedic elements involve the characters' interactions with the normal world--dealing with the city council; dealing with neighbors; Lazlo hiding out in that small Pennsylvania town in episode 206, which was nominated for an Emmy. The three main vampires have so little idea how to deal with ordinary human reality, and at the same time they have no idea that that is the case. And it's in that gap between their understanding and reality that so much funny stuff happens. In 102, when they go to the City Council and announce they're taking over Staten Island--it just doesn't get funnier than that. 

Guillermo is often key to these bits. He's basically the Pam or Jim of WWDITS, the reaction shot the show loves to cut to when something batshit is happening. Those moments usually add another laugh or a deeper laugh onto the first. He's a sweetener.

Colin Robinson is an interesting bridge character in this regard. Unlike the others his vampirism is entirely based in normal world realities. So the game the show plays with him is in a sense the opposite of the other vampires; where they're always the fools, Colin is the secret master. And what makes his bits funny is often in the way the show spins what seem like recognizable normal behaviors as vampiric, or in the ways he'll suddenly take on a more traditional vampiric look or gesture for just a second, often in the background. It's so out of place in that world and Colin's overall behavior it's always good for a laugh. 

Now You Try!

Let's say you want to develop pitch ideas for WWDITS, or a show that similarly is going to draw comedy from how crazy characters deal with real world situations. 

Try this: create a list of at least 20 ordinary situations from your day to day life--dealing with a contractor; dealing with a self-parking car; going to the drive through. See which ones pop for you. What is about them? Is there a story or stories in there?

"CHUCKLES BITES THE DUST" DAY FIVE: LYING TO THE AUDIENCE

Every TV episode has a problem, right? A conflict or question that lies at its heart and is going to get resolved by the episode's end. On some of the best shows that resolution will only create new conflicts and questions. And really most shows it's probably more than one; certainly in ensembles or dramas that's the case. 

The problem of "Chuckles"--the battle between sobriety and laughter--plays out very concretely scene to scene. Over the course of scenes we see more and more people coming around to the idea of having a sense of humor about death. When Lou has Ted do an on-air eulogy, he's very serious about it, and Ted's intention is clearly the same even as what he has to say is ridiculous. 

But then as Murray tells Lou jokes Lou slowly converts to the cause of absurdity. Then Sue Ann. Then we get that intensely dramatic scene where Mary comes down HARD on them. (I'm going to post something about that scene sometime soon. It's so well written.)  So the comic is clearly on the rise, but it has not won the day.

We end on the comic winning out in the most hilarious and total way possible, in a sequence that physically embodies the very conflict of the whole episode. Mary literally sits there fighting to keep from laughing, until she can't. 

You could end the sequence on that note, and you'd be fine. The problem has been resolved. Comedy wins the day.

But genius that writer David Lloyd is, he adds one more beat--the minister telling Mary Chuckles would want her to laugh, which makes her burst into tears. In fully embracing the comedy of the moment, we also fully comprehend the loss. And it's so unexpected it's also funny. Having set us up to think our only options in this moment are laughter or tears, in the end Lloyd reveals a third option we didn't see coming: both. 

(He's actually been seeding that possibility all the way along--Lou and Murray stopping in the midst of their jokes to have a very serious and thoughtful conversation about why we laugh in the face of death; Georgette's comments.)

In part this is just me saying "Isn't that great writing?" But there is a lesson to be learned here, too. Lloyd set up the audience to see the episode going one way: eventually Mary's going to break. Eventually comedy's going to win. And more generally, that comedy/sadness is an either/or. And because he's done that, when she bursts into tears we are truly surprised. It's the definition of sleight of hand; he's got us looking at the left hand while we should be looking at the right.

We can do the same thing in our scripts. It's not the kind of thing you might put together in your first draft, mind you, but once you've got a draft, we can step back and say, what expectations have I set up in the audience at the start of the script? What's the problem that I've established? 

And then how can I use those expectations to surprise? If I've given the audience an either/or, what's the third way they won't see coming. 

As writers we're always trying to get as something true, but we're always liars too, telling people to think certain things only so that we can then undermine them.

"CHUCKLES BITES THE DUST" DAY FOUR: TRAINING YOUR AUDIENCE

I was saying yesterday that "Chuckles" starts as far from the ending as it possibly can--i.e. in a deadly serious, even somber place. But in addition to setting up the ending, in the fashion of a great joke (which it is, in fact), that opening tills the soil of the ep, if I can be farm-y--which actually I should not because what the hell do I know about farms, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. 

What I mean is, it teaches the audience that in this episode things are going to be a bit different, more open to reality and a little deeper. It creates the conditions for what follows, which is not only hilarious but also repeatedly thoughtful about death and life and the place of comedy in the midst of it all. "We laugh at death," says Lou after he and Murray get caught laughing gets him laughing about Chuckles' death, "because we know death will have the last laugh on us."

Amidst the comedy we also get Claudette's great line about funerals come too late, and the various characters reflecting on what they want their own funerals to be like, including Ted's fantastic assertion that he's not going to die (which while definitely written for the laughs also so captures how most of us live our lives most of the time).

In a sense, these serious moments become part of the magic trick of the episode--we track the comedy, and yet at the end it's actually all been kind of moving too. How the hell did they do that? 

And the answer is in part by following the dramatic threads even as comedy starts to win the day. But in part it's where they started, the way they tilled that soil (I'm just going to keep saying it until it works) to make it ready to grow the kind of harvest they want (God it's just getting worse, isn't it, you know what I mean). 

Fun exercise: Look at the first couple scenes of your own pilot--Teaser plus Act One, say. And pay attention specifically not to how they read but to what they're teaching the audience to expect, what sort of conversations, themes, arc, emotions are on the table/off the table. 

Is what you're seeing what you want? Any adjustments to be made?

"CHUCKLES BITES THE DUST" DAY THREE: START AWAY FROM YOUR ENDING

The engine of the "Chuckles" episode really is more and more people laughing about Chuckles the Clown's death, until eventually even Mary breaks down at the most inopportune moment. 

But the scene in which his death is announced is interesting for how deadly serious it is written and played. Right up until the moment where Lou describes the manner of Chuckles' death, he, Mary and Murray respond in exactly the way we would if someone we knew had died. Even when Lou says who has died, Chuckles the Clown, which feels ready made for a laugh, it is still played totally straight. (There is some funny-seeming business with Lou running back and forth, but Asner plays it so seriously that it undermines any sense of the comic.)

There's an important thematic piece in that choice, which I'll talk about tomorrow. This is a sitcom and this is a very funny episode, but the ep is also a kind of meditation on mortality. Playing the introduction straight and serious in a sense sets us up for that. It prepares the ground, if you will. 

But it's also setting up the journey of the episode from sobriety to absurdity. The comedy of the end is that much greater and more surprising because the episode starts in such a completely different place.

It's a great tip for writing character and episode arcs, one we could even try right now! Pick a character you're working on. Where do you want them to end up? Now, what are some spots that seem the farthest away (or most unlikely) from that endpoint? 

Somewhere in those idea, that's your opening.