John August

QandA

Where to begin a script

QandA, Recycled, Writing Process

When you start writing, or right before you start writing, what do you know?
What do you know about the story and characters before you start putting words
on paper?

–Dustin Tash

Although I don’t do it on every project, I’m a big fan of writing off-the-page,
which means creating character bios, alternate scenes and sequence chronologies
to help me figure out the story and the characters. For example, I’ll write
out the whole story from the villain’s point of view, both to track that the
logic works, and also to gain insight on why they’re doing what they’re doing.

You don’t have to stop doing this once you begin writing the screenplay, either.
If I’m getting frustrated with the script, sometimes it’s much more helpful
to write up related pieces than to bang out another scene I don’t think is
working.

Just make sure this prep-work doesn’t keep you from actually starting your
script. You don’t have to know everything about your story and characters before
you begin. Discovery is the best part of the writing process.

(Originally posted September 10, 2003.)

Her least favorite mistake

Film Industry, Genres, QandA, Rights and Copyright, Television

questionmarkLast year I wrote a spec episode of Grey’s Anatomy entitled “My Favorite Mistake” wherein platonic best friends, Izzie and George, hook up. I registered my script with the WGA and sent it in to be considered for the ABC writing fellowship. I never heard back from the fellowship (their loss, no biggie) but I was surprised to see that last Thursday’s episode shared a title (exactly the same) and a subplot as my spec.

I do not believe that Shonda and team copied my idea… but i do think it is possible that they could have inadvertently copied my title. They had the means, etc. So my question is a two parter: 1) should I do anything about this? and 2) where is the line drawn? Would my script have to be identical to the one broadcast to possibly be plagiarized?

— Jackie Honikman

I don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy, so I looked up an [episode guide](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greys_Anatomy_episodes) online. One of the first things I noticed was that every episode is named after a song — that’s their thing, just like the title of every episode of Friends begins “The One With…”.

Being a good spec script writer, you followed their style and picked a song title. You chose a Sheryl Crow song. So did they. What are the odds?

Huge. So absurdly huge that you’re going to feel foolish in about three paragraphs.

I know you didn’t write in expecting to be ridiculed, so I want to give you a few sentences to prepare yourself. It’s not that I dislike you, Jackie, or disbelieve you. I’m sure when you first saw the episode title, you were surprised, hurt, disappointed and angry. These are natural emotions. But then the dark engines of your brain kicked in. You convinced yourself that through some byzantine process, your idea had been appropriated. But it hadn’t. It wasn’t.

You wrote your email at the end of March.People ask how long it takes me to answer a reader-submitted question. Generally, I read them all within the week they’re sent in, and flag the ones I think will be interesting and applicable to the readership. But it’s not a first-in-first-out process. Sometimes, a question will land in my inbox that I’ll answer within the hour. There’s a big element of serendipity. But that’s not an invitation to submit the same question multiple times. That will almost guarantee that I won’t answer, since I’ll think, “Didn’t someone else just ask that?” So I’m hoping you’ve moved on, written other scripts, and laughed about how prescient you were. But in case you haven’t, I’m going to rip off the band-aid.

Let me restate your question:

I recently wrote a spec episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I worked very hard on making it exactly like the show, right down to the title. I was subsequently shocked — shocked! — to see that the writers of the show had the audacity to write an episode exactly like their own show. Who can I sue?

Put this way, your fallacy is clear — you’re confusing cause and effect. You think their “Favorite Mistake” is similar to yours because they somehow read and stole your idea, when in fact it’s similar because it’s frickin’ Grey’s Anatomy. You followed their conventions. You included their characters. You emulated their show as closely as you could.

You copied them, not vice-versa. Got it?

In terms of the title, given the show’s adult-contemporary demographics, it was pretty likely they were going to have a Sheryl Crow track sooner or later.In fact, the second episode was titled “The First Cut is the Deepest.” Sheryl Crow’s cover had topped the charts the year before. As far as I can tell from the promos (and parodies) I’ve seen, the show is about young doctors hooking up and breaking up. “My Favorite Mistake” sounds like a good fit. They didn’t need your script to come up with that idea.A while back, a screenwriting colleague was dealing with a guy who was claiming on messageboards that a certain blockbuster was stolen from his script. The “proof?” One of the characters had the same name. Basically, the guy was arguing that the screenwriter had changed the plot, the setting, the character’s motivations — pretty much everything but this one character’s name. It’s hard to claim that a conspiracy is both thorough and lazy.

In addition to the cause and effect problem, I think there’s also a fallacy of limited sampling. You’re looking at your script and the episode you saw. But if an independent reader had your script and 10 other spec scripts of the show to compare to the produced episode, would they really think yours was all that similar? I doubt it.I’m sure this “fallacy of limited sampling” has a more official name, but I couldn’t find it. (It’s not the fallacy of generalization, which infers about a large population based on a too-small sample.) If anyone can link to the proper term, I’ll be much obliged.

Or as another test, a reader could compare your script to 10 produced episodes of the show. Would he be able to tell which one your script “influenced?” Again, doubtful.

Unfortunately, this misguided conflation of “similarity” and “plagiarism” is not confined to spec episodes of TV shows. One woman claimed that both [The Matrix](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/) and [The Terminator](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/) franchises were stolen from her work. She managed to attract a fair amount of media attention before her case was [finally thrown out](http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/matrix.asp).

By targeting both The Terminator and The Matrix, this case helps point out what really underlies a lot of similarities between literary works: genre conventions. It’s one thing to put a killer robot in your script, but don’t claim you invented robots.The same goes for any variation of robot: friendly robot, suicidal robot, kleptomaniac robot, fatherly robot, existentially-angst-ridden robot. We can all think of other examples. Having a divorced cop who likes doughnuts is not original — and neither is having him hate doughnuts, or having him be psychic, or dead. Having two doctors hook up on a show about doctors hooking up doesn’t strike me as particularly original.

Again, Jackie, I’m not trying to belittle your feelings. It’s frustrating to spend weeks working on something, only to find a similar project already out there.

In my early days, I outlined a series that would chart the last years of Earth — a meteor was coming, and everyone knew it. So I was understandably disappointed when not [one](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/), but [two](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120647/) movies with essentially the same plot hit theaters. It forced me to look back and remember where the idea really came from: a bunch of popular-science articles at the time which mapped out what had likely killed off the dinosaurs, and what would happen if another such asteroid hit Earth.

I soon realized that my having the same idea as giant blockbusters was actually a good thing. It meant I had commercial taste. A writer isn’t one script. A writer is someone who can write. Forty scripts later, my meteor idea isn’t even a footnote in my career. Don’t let your Grey’s Anatomy spec be anything more than something you wrote.

Should I direct my spec?

Directors, Film Industry, QandA

questionmarkI’m writing because I find myself at a crossroads, and I could use some good advice.

I’m an early career writer-director with ten years of experience as a theater director. In the last few years, I’ve written and directed a couple of good short films, and written a couple of spec scripts, one of which is in development with an independent producer. Recently, I got a literary agent, a smart guy working for a good agency, and he wants to try to build a career for me as a screenwriter.

My dilemma involves my new, suddenly popular spec script, and how to use it to move closer to my goal of directing independent features. The script is a dark, metaphysical romantic comedy in the vein of a Charlie Kaufman film, and industry people who read it get very excited about it, noting that it is both highly original and commercial.

My agent, who is also enthused about the script, suggests that I tone down its darker elements, and try to sell it to a studio as a more conventional romantic comedy. If we do try and sell it, does it make sense to make the script more mainstream?

I’m inclined to look for a producer, and get a name actor attached, with an eye toward directing it myself as a small independent film. I know I have the skills to do it justice, but will my status as an unknown be a serious obstacle in the search for financing?

My agent says the time to make the leap to directing would be after I’ve established myself via my writing, four or five years from now. Given my background, this strikes me as an overly cautious approach. How much is his advice colored by his perspective as a literary agent?

— Nick
Los Angeles

Direct it yourself.

Why? Because you want to be a director. You have experience as a theatre director. And even though there’s a possibility that you’ll be able to sell your script to a studio, then attach a meaningful director, then get it made, then get your writing career started, the odds of all the elements coming together are pretty remote.

Remote enough that you might as well direct it yourself, assuming you can do it for an independent film budget.

Yes, there are counter-examples. [Charlie Kaufman](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0442109/) has only now begun directing, and [Zach Helm](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1590998/) didn’t direct [Stranger Than Fiction](http://imdb.com/title/tt0420223/), though he’s directing a film now. And, for that matter, I didn’t direct [Go](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139239/). But I was aiming to be a screenwriter, and I became one.

People forget that [Sam Mendes](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005222/) had only directed theatre before [American Beauty](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169547/). Tell your agent that you see yourself as more of a Sam Mendes/[Alan Ball](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0050332/) hybrid, and start meeting with indie producers.

Changes while directing

Directors, Projects, QandA, The Nines, Words on the page

questionmarkWhen you were directing The Nines, did you find that you wanted to change some of the action and dialogue because it didn’t come across in production the way you thought it would when you wrote it. And, if you changed things, was it because you were maybe hypercritical of your own work and saw problems where nobody else would or did you consider making changes just because you could (being the writer and everything)?

— Dennis Feeney

The action changed somewhat, based on the geography at hand. For instance, there’s a scene in Part Three where a family is coming back to a parked car. As scripted, there was a certain sequence for who would be where for what line of dialogue, but once you have real actors, real dolly movements and real reflections to contend with, that all changes. And that’s after storyboarding, during which some of those things were already decided.

In terms of dialogue, I didn’t find myself changing that many lines. We’d had the luxury of some rehearsal, so if there was a line that an actor really had a difficult time landing, I could change that ahead of time.

Once we started production, I really saw myself as a the director, not the writer. If something wasn’t working, my instinct was to look at changes in the performances or the camera movement rather than the words. Indeed, the few times I did go back in to writer-mode was when I saw unanticipated opportunities. During a confrontation between Hope Davis and Melissa McCarthy, I added this line…

SARAH

He’s an actor. If no one’s watching him, he doesn’t really exist.

…which ends up being fairly important to the scene (and, ultimately, the movie). Yet I added it at six in the morning on the day of shooting, based largely on something I overheard the actors talking about between takes. That kind of serendipity is what made my dual roles rewarding.