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CHAPTER 2

PICKING THE RIGHTSERIES TO SPEC

My agent called and said, “They want to meet with you at M*A*S*H.” At the time, M*A*S*H was one of the most respected series on TV It was at the top of the ratings. It had won a million awards. And I was the greenest, most obscure, and worst dressed sitcom writer in Hollywood. They wanted to meet with me?! How did my agent do it? How did he get them interested? “I sent them that spec M*A*S*H script that you wrote.” “You took a gamble like that with my career?!” Even I knew that you NEVER send the producers of a sitcom a spec episode of their own show! They're going to hate it, no matter how good it is! “They liked it. They want you to come in and pitch some story ideas.” I only wrote that spec script because I loved the show. And I knew it really well. And I had an idea for a story that I thought was kind of cool. I never dreamed that anyone who worked on M*A*S*H would actually read it. And they liked it?? “They loved it! So get over there and blow their socks off,” my agent told me. “Now my career is on the line!”

THE SHOW THAT YOU KNOW AND LOVE!

Aspiring writers have asked me over the years, “Which show should I spec?” I always ask, “Which show do you like? Which one do you watch every week?” If they come back with, “Well, I guess the one I like the most is Two and a Half Men, but I heard from a friend that it's smarter to write something cool and hip like Entourage.” I take a deep breath and ask, “But do you love Entourage? Have you seen every episode or almost every episode?” And if they say, “Actually, I don't have HBO, so I've only seen it once or twice, but I want to write the smart show! I want to write the one that's trendy and hot!” I draw in a deeper cleansing breath and calmly reply, “But the one you watch and the one you love is Two and a Half Men! “Yeah, but my friend said.”

As you're trying to pick the right series to spec, please don't listen to your friends. Don't listen to the people in your writing class. Don't be swayed by something you read on the Web.

Write the show that you know and love!

Why?

What's the purpose of writing a spec script in the first place? To show off your talent, right? To prove to some producer somewhere who is in a position to give you a job that you have the chops to write his show. What gives you the best shot at impressing this producer? Doing a passable job on a hip, trendy show that unfortunately you don't really know very well, or doing a great job on a show that you love because you already know that show inside and out?

It does you no good to try to write a show that you don't like or don't know extremely well. You'll do a lousy job. You will! And you won't have any fun while you do it. No one is paying you to write a spec script, so if you're going to put in a lot of time and energy for no money, you might as well enjoy yourself. You'll do much better work if you're happy.

If you've read something on a “break into show business” website that says that the hot spec in Hollywood right now is Entourage or Everybody Hates Chris, but you don't love either of those shows, or you don't watch either of them all the time, why are you twisting yourself into a pretzel to write them?

If, later on, after your Lucky Break, someone is suddenly paying you to write a show that you don't know very well, then you can twist yourself into a pretzel. But why do it now when you're trying to show off your talents in the best possible light?

Write a show that you love, even if it isn't “hot,” or even if you're going against the advice of your friends.

If you love a show, you already understand that show better than any other show. If you love a show then you watch it every week (or every day if it's already in syndication). You know the characters, you know the tone, and you know what kinds of stories they like to do. You know what stories they have already done. Knowing what stories they have already done is another great reason to spec a series that you love. If you've seen every episode, you reduce your chances of telling a story that they've already told. We'll get into what specific story you should tell in the next chapter, but for now, let's agree that in your spec episode you want to find a story that hasn't yet been explored on your favorite series. You can check the Web and get story synopses for all the past episodes, but if you actually watch the series all the time you'll have a better chance of coming up with a story area that the writers of that series haven't yet touched on. And you'll know what stories to avoid.

Go with what you know!

Even if your friend's cousin who works in the mailroom at CAA says to write Entourage, if you love Two and a Half Men, if that's the show you know, then that's the one to spec! You'll do a better job! If you love Entourage and you watch it every week, write that one.

“HEAR IT IN YOUR HEAD”

When you're writing for TV, you are writing someone else's characters. You're speaking with someone else's voice. Don't you want to be as familiar with those characters and that voice as possible? How do you get to know someone else's voice? By listening to it all the time!

If you're like me, you've watched every episode of Seinfeld seventy times. Even while Seinfeld was still on the air, I could hear that series in my head. If I think about Seinfeld right now, I can hear Jerry and Elaine and George and Kramer. I “do” Kramer for my wife all the time. She'll ask, “Are you sure you're ready for that meeting?” I'll strike a Kramer pose, point my index finger, and say in my hipster Kramer voice, “Oh. I'm ready.” I can hear Seinfeld in my head because I've seen it so many times.

Writing for sitcom is like being an impressionist. A comic who does a great George Bush impression learns to do it by watching and listening to Bush over and over and over again. If there's a series that you've watched over and over and over again, like Seinfeld, you're going to do a better impression of that series than of some other series that you don't know. Your spec script is your impression of a particular series. Why not try an impression that you already know how to do?

When I got hired to write my first episode of M*A*S*H, I was writing characters that had been created by the guy who wrote the book, adapted by the people who made the movie, and then refined even more by Larry Gelbart and the people who wrote the TV series. I didn't get to decide who Hawkeye was. Hawkeye was very well established as a character. Hawkeye had a distinctive way of speaking. He had specific attitudes. He had his own moral code. I didn't get to alter any of that.

My job was to use everything that I already knew about Hawkeye in a way that the writers of M*A*S*H hadn't yet explored. “Here's a situation we haven't tried yet on M*A*S*H. Now, based on everything we already know about Hawkeye, how is he going to act in this new situation?” That was my job as a freelance writer coming in on assignment. I had to keep Hawkeye “Hawkeye.” How was I able to do that?

I could write Hawkeye because I'd been watching M*A*S*H for years. I loved and respected it. I knew the kinds of things Hawkeye was going to say, and the kinds of reactions he was going to have, because I'd been listening to him for a long time. I could hear Hawkeye in my head.

It's the same as when you know what your girlfriend is going to do or say before she does or says it. You've been with her for a while. You know her quirks and her likes and dislikes. So when a neighbor calls and tells you that she is giving your girlfriend a surprise birthday party, you know how your girlfriend is going to react long before anyone yells “Surprise!” She's either going to be really happy or really pissed. But you can write that scene mentally before it happens because you know your girlfriend. You can “hear her in your head.”

Writing for TV is the same principle: You write what is already there, based on what you already know. You “hear it in your head.” So you want to pick a series to spec that you “hear in your head” already.

I'm not sure how I learned to “hear it in my head.” I guess like a lot of kids, I'd been doing impressions for a long time. I did impressions of my friends and my family and the teacher and John Wayne and Nixon. I was able to do impressions because I paid attention to behavior, attitudes, mannerisms and styles of speech, as all writers do, and because some part of my brain was able to recreate them. I wasn't great at impressions, but I was passable enough to get a few laughs now and then. If you have any experience “doing” people — observing them, recreating them, predicting their behavior — then you're well on the way to “hearing it in your head.”

Not all professional sitcom writers are able to “hear it in their head.” I've worked with a lot of “Joke Men” over the years. Joke Men are almost always guys who are hired on staff at a sitcom to relentlessly pitch jokes. They aren't really writers. They're gag machines. These guys never hear it in their heads. They never have any real understanding of the personalities of the characters or the premise of the series. Ninety percent of the jokes they pitch don't get used because the jokes are generic. They don't fit the characters. Why? Because Joke Men can't “hear it in their heads.”

Joke Men can never write the “moments.” If you've got a scene in the Second Act of an episode of The King of Queens where Doug needs to pour his heart out to Carrie, the Joke Man isn't going to be able to write that scene. He can't write it because he can't hear it in his head. He doesn't hear the voices of the characters. He has never learned what makes them tick.

Joke Men can earn big money on a sitcom writing staff, but they always impressed me as the most frustrated writers of all. All they had were the jokes. They never had the characters or the tone or the soul of the series because they couldn't hear it in their heads.

If there's a particular sitcom that you really love, and you can hear that series in your head. If you understand the characters, can predict how they'd react to things, know how they speak, empathize with how they feel. THAT is the series to spec!

BEYOND SEINFELD

I know this will sound ridiculously obvious, but let's cover it for a minute so you can't say I never told you: Don't write a spec script for a sitcom that is out of production!

If the series that you want to spec isn't on the prime time schedule of one of the major networks anymore, then that series is over. They're done. You can find reruns of Seinfeld and Friends someplace every day. But both those series are out of production. They don't make new episodes anymore. The sets are torn down and the actors have gone home. Don't write a spec script for Seinfeld or Friends.

No one in Hollywood who can give you a job is going to read a spec script for a series that is out of production. They're also going to think that you're a dope for not knowing that.

You might ask, “What difference does it make? Why can't I write a Seinfeld? It's still a sitcom. They haven't reinvented the genre since Seinfeld went off the air.” You're right. And if you can write a cracker-jack episode of Seinfeld, then you may very well have the chops to write any show. But you still can't spec a Seinfeld now because Seinfeld is over.

I've heard producers argue that anybody could write a good Friends or a funny Seinfeld because those series were on the air for so long. They're fool proof, goes the argument, so if you write a funny Seinfeld you aren't really proving anything.

I don't buy that reasoning. I've read spec episodes of Friends and of Seinfeld that weren't very good at all because the person writing the spec script couldn't hear that series in their head. You have to understand a series thoroughly in order to bring those characters to life, and to properly exploit the premise and the Formula. I think that if you can write a fresh and clever episode of Friends now, after all those episodes and all those Ross and Rachel fights, it proves something significant about your talent. But I'm not the one who is going to be reading your spec script and considering you for a job. You have to write what's current in order to be current. So just take my word for it and save yourself a lot of grief. Go beyond Seinfeld. Spec a series that is in production now.

If you're still thinking: “But I love Seinfeld. You said to write a show that I love. I'm busy. I really don't watch that much TV. The only show I know well is Seinfeld.” What I'd say to you is: “Then you aren't ready to spec a sitcom.” If you're working nights or going to school in the evenings, or you don't have TiVo or a VCR that you know how to program, now is not the time to be specing a TV script.

There are a million people out there writing spec scripts. I mean, really, a million. All of them have time to sit home night after night, week after week, and watch My Name Is Earl and How I Met Your Mother. All of the spec scripts that are being read right now in Hollywood — by agents and managers and story editors and producers and network executives and by the kid who picks up Indian food for the writers of The Simpsons — are episodes of series that are currently in production.

If you don't have time right now to be familiar with most of the sitcoms that are currently in production, not only at the broadcast networks like CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, but also what's on all the cable outlets like HBO and Showtime and F/X and Comedy Central, then now is not the time for you to be trying to make it as a sitcom writer. If you have never sampled Reba or Reno 911, I promise you that your competitors have, and they are way ahead of you.

Write what you love, but write what is current.

THE SCRIPT THAT PRODUCERS WANT TO READ

Doesn't it make sense to spec the hottest sitcom on TV if that one also happens to be your favorite show? Well, if the hottest sitcom on TV is also your favorite sitcom, and that's the series you feel most comfortable writing, then, yes, on your very first spec sitcom script, go for it.

But as I just said a couple of paragraphs ago, there are thousands of other aspiring writers who are, at this very moment, already specing the hottest sitcom on TV. There are thousands of aspiring writers who are, at this very moment, specing every sitcom on TV. You can be absolutely certain that there is a burgeoning, billowing glut of spec scripts for the hottest shows. Producers and agents are being inundated right now with spec episodes of the most popular sitcoms. Everyone is already tired of reading them.

During the ‘80's and early ‘90's, no producer or staff writer anywhere wanted to read another spec Cheers. We'd already read fourteen million of them. We couldn't read any more. If the cast of Cheers could've been kept young by artificial means, or reproduced digitally, Cheers could have run for six hundred more seasons just on spec scripts alone. Those of us producing other series at the time could not bear to slog through still another spec Cheers. It was too much Cliff and Norm already. We were sick of it.

When Seinfeld was king, you could have built a stairway to heaven with the spec Seinfeld scripts pouring out of laser printers all over L.A. The same was true of Friends. I'll bet you that more paper has been used to print spec episodes of Seinfeld and Friends than was used to publish all of the novels in the world during all of recorded history.

Producers want to read a spec script that is as fresh as possible.

Producers are much more likely to open a spec script if they're just a tiny bit intrigued. I always was. If my first thought when I picked up a spec script was, “Hey, I haven't seen too many of these,” or “This writer's got some guts,” then I was much more likely to actually open the script and read it!

Yes, I want you to spec the series that you know and love, but if you can find a way to know and love a series that isn't the hottest one on TV — the same series that absolutely everyone else is specing already — then I think you have a slightly better chance of getting your spec script read. As a producer, I would rather read my first or second spec Reba than read my ten-millionth spec Will and Grace.

TOO SOON TO “HEAR IT IN YOUR HEAD”

Sometimes a new series will come on the air with all kinds of hype, not just from the network that is trying to sell it to you, but also from the press. Magazines and newspapers and blogs will publish or post a million articles about this hot new sitcom, and you'll think, “This is the show to spec! This is the scorching new sitcom that will be my ticket to wealth and fame!”

But if it's brand new, you won't be able to hear it in your head! How can you? It just premiered! Even the writers who are working on the series can't hear it in their heads yet! How can you?

You want to write the best spec script possible. You can only do that if you're intimately familiar with the series you have chosen. No one can be intimately familiar with a series that has only been on the schedule for three weeks!

And what if this hot new sitcom gets cancelled while you're still writing? It happens. Remember Emily's Reasons Why Not? It premiered on ABC in 2006 to all kinds of hoopla. It starred Heather Graham. It was going to be a big hit. And what happened? It was cancelled after one episode! One!

If a new sitcom comes on the air, and you instantly fall in love with it, by all means watch it every week. Make notes. Come up with story ideas. But don't start on a spec script until it gets picked up for a second season.

PLANET MEGAMALL

Let's say you've taken your first step toward writing your spec sitcom script. You've picked which series that you want to spec. You've picked that series because you love it. You watch it all the time. You don't care what your friends say. You know the characters so well that you can hear them in your head. You know the stories that have already been told. The series you have picked is still in production, and it isn't the hottest sitcom on TV at the moment.

Your next step, if you haven't taken this one already, is to get on the Web, go to Planet MegaMall, and order at least one sample script from your chosen series. It's going to cost you ten bucks, plus shipping. But you're going to do it anyway, even if you have to borrow the money from your parents.

Why?

Because once you have that sample script, there is no more doubt for you about the format of the series you have chosen to spec. You will look at the sample script from Planet MegaMall and know how to adjust your script-writing software. You may not have to adjust your software at all. If you write with Final Draft or one of the other script writing programs, you can click “Sitcom 1” or “Sitcom 2” and have the right margins instantly. But holding a printed copy of an actual episode of your favorite series in your hands is just too good a resource to ignore. You'll see how the real writers of that series do their stage directions. You'll be sure you're spelling all the characters' names correctly. You'll see the jokes on paper in front of you.

I think that a wannabe writer who doesn't use this resource is crazy. If I could have sent away for scripts from the series that I was specing back when I was trying to break in, I would have saved myself all manner of doubt and guesswork. You don't have time for guesswork. You are in competition with a million other wannabes who are all making use of this same resource. Don't be cheap now. Go to Planet MegaMall and order your sample script!

THE WEB

You have an enormous advantage that I didn't have when I was writing spec scripts. You have the Web. Your favorite sitcom has its own website, plus ten other unofficial websites. You can go to these websites and browse through all of the stories they've ever done. You can often pick up detailed information on the characters. You can fill in all the blanks! Lucky you. I was guessing. You don't have to guess!

CHAPTER RECAP — THE ELEPHANT REMEMBERS

Isn't it your dream to write an episode of your favorite sitcom? That was my dream.

Well, that's exactly what I'm advising you to do! Write an episode of your favorite show! Write the show that you love, even if you're afraid to admit that this is your favorite. Write it in secret. I don't care. Don't worry about the “cool” show or the “hip” show. Which one do you look forward to watching every week?

I wrote some spec scripts for some pretty forgettable shows, but I sure had a good time doing it! This should be fun! And while you're enjoying yourself, you're learning!

It's much easier to learn and to make yourself work when you're doing something that you enjoy. Keep that in mind, will you?

I'll bet that you can already hear your favorite sitcoms in your head. I'll bet you can make up entire scenes from those shows in your mind. I'll bet the voices of the characters are so real that it sounds like someone is playing a recording of the show in your brain. That's how well you know your favorite sitcoms!

Guess what? If you can hear it in your head, you're well on your way to being a sitcom writer! You've already passed the first test!

YOUR “TO DO” LIST

1) Make a list of every single sitcom that is on the air right now. Check off how many of those shows you know pretty well already. I'll bet you know most of them.

2) Of the sitcoms that you know, list them in order of which ones you know best.

3) Think about your top five favorite current sitcoms. Are they relatively new series or have they been on the air for a while? Are some of them coming to the end of their run? Have you read articles about this being “the last season”? Are any of them in their first season? Of your top five favorites, which ones are in their third or fourth year? Take special note of these. These are the prime candidates for your first spec script.

4) Think about the current sitcoms that you don't know very well. Isn't it time to start sampling them, just so you know what's out there?