textfiles/sf/STARTREK/workshop

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:  tlynch@juliet.caltech.edu
UUCP:  ...!ucbvax!tlynch%juliet.caltech.edu@hamlet.caltech.edu
"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...