Richard “Froonium Ricky” Manning

Thanks to overwhelming popular demand (okay, moderately whelming popular demand), I am once again teaching a UCLA Extension Writers’ Program course entitled “Beginning Writing for the One-Hour Drama: Building the Story and the Outline” for Summer Quarter 2010! The class meets for ten weeks, 7pm  to 10pm on Tuesdays, from July 6 through September 7 on the picaresque UCLA campus in Westwood.

For the official course description (or to enroll!), go to this UCLA Extension page (or click on the above banner)… but here’s the unofficial course description: (up to) twenty students each choose a current one-hour TV drama for which they’d like to write a “spec” episode. I whip them guide them through the process of developing episode ideas into story synopses, basic “beat sheets”, and full outlines. Along the way, students pitch their ideas in class for notes and feedback… and also form small “writing staffs” to help each other brainstorm and “break” their stories on a whiteboard, the same way professional TV writers’ rooms work. At the end of the ten weeks, each student should have a solid 12 to 15-page story outline that’s all set to be expanded into a spec teleplay.

(And… early heads-up… I’ll be teaching the followup course, “Writing the One-Hour Drama Script”, during the Fall Quarter, taking students from outline to teleplay!)

EDITED 11 Jan 2010 to add: Good heavens, the class roster is actually full!

(Click the banner below to check if any slots have opened up… or to get on the wait list.)

No, it’s not an Indiana Jones ripoff, it’s an actual UCLA Extension Writers’ Program course entitled – take a deep breath – “Beginning Writing for the One-Hour Drama: Building the Story and the Outline”… and I’ll be teaching it in the upcoming Winter Quarter 2010. The class meets for ten weeks, 7pm  to 10pm on Thursdays, from January 14 through March 18 on the idyllic UCLA campus in Westwood.

You can check out this UCLA Extension page (or click on the above banner) for the official course description (and enrollment info), but here’s the course in a nutshell: (up to) twenty unsuspecting students each choose a current one-hour TV drama for which they’d like to write a “spec” episode. I whip them guide them through the process of developing episode ideas into story synopses, basic “beat sheets”, and full outlines. Along the way, students pitch their ideas in class for notes and feedback… and also form small “writing staffs” to help each other brainstorm and “break” their stories on a whiteboard, the same way professional TV writers’ rooms work. At the end of the ten weeks, each student should have a solid 12 to 15-page story outline that’s all set to be expanded into a spec teleplay.

(Had our innocent Mary Sue from my previous post taken this class, she’d've known everything there is to know (well, more or less) about the Process of Professional TV Scriptwriting before ever setting foot in the Space Slayers writers’ room…)

Actual whiteboard from FARSCAPE "Season of Death"
EDITED TO ADD: Click for larger version! (Prize has been won!)

Picture, if you will, perky young Mary Sue, an aspiring TV writer who’s celebrating her first sale. She pitched a dozen ideas to veteran genre-TV producer Sam Showrunner for his new series Space Slayers, in which a ragtag team of teenage misfits travels the galaxy and battles alien mutants. But Mary Sue’s enthusiasm will soon be tested; she has no idea what terrors await in… The Writers’ Room.

Mary Sue’s successful pitch:“Griff and Angela [the series leads] must mind-link with K’Vax [their sentient, female, wisecracking spaceship] after a radioactive nebula erases K’Vax’s memories.”

There was more to her pitch – such as the mind-link forcing the aloof Griff and Angela to confront their true feelings about one another – but Mary Sue never got that far; Sam had interrupted. “Good hook, but amnesia’s soft. Needs more jeopardy. Hey! What if the nebula turns K’Vax evil? And she tries to kill everybody on board! So it’s dangerous for Griff and Angela to go into her mind; they might never come out. Terrific pitch! Sold!”

Mary Sue was ecstatic. “Great! I’ll write up an outline –”

“We don’t do outlines. We – me and the writing staff – break all our stories in the room. Once we get the structure down, you go off and write the script. Come in Tuesday at nine. Bring in a beat sheet. Not an outline, just the big moves. Some rough act breaks. Keep it simple. One page, tops, just to get things started.”

And so it begins…

Continue reading ‘Tales from the Writers’ Room’ »

Case in point. Froonium isn't proto-nuclear.

Science quiz! Which of these is the least scientifically plausible?

1. An alien species can project heat rays that can fry humans dead… or serve as a powerful truth serum.
2. A society has developed a liquid “litmus test”: just dab a drop on your lips and kiss someone. If the kiss tastes sweet, your DNA is compatible for having healthy children.
3. They’ve also got technology that can turn people into metallic statues… and back again. While you’re a statue, you remain fully conscious, you can see and hear just fine, and you don’t age. If your statue’s head is lasered off, it can be reattached with no ill effects.
4. A human wearing no protective gear jumps out of a spaceship in orbit, spends a minute in vacuum… and survives.

If you answered #4, you’re not alone… but you’re incorrect. All the above are from Farscape’s “Look at the Princess” trilogy of episodes, to which a lot of viewers reacted “No way! That just couldn’t happen!” And they weren’t talking about #1 or #2 or #3… few even blinked at those. No, it was #4 that got people flustered.

(Well, okay, some of our fans were far more perturbed that our hero had sex with someone other than our heroine… but that’s a different discussion entirely.)

Everybody “knows” you can’t survive in outer space. But as it happens, #4 was one time – possibly the only time – that Farscape got its science more or less right. Humans exposed to vacuum do not promptly blow up like balloons and explode. Their eyeballs don’t pop, their blood doesn’t boil, nor do they instantly freeze solid. In fact, according to NASA, if you don’t try to hold your breath, half a minute or so of vacuum exposure won’t damage you permanently.

So why could viewers accept “truth rays” and living statues and DNA kiss tests, but not a suitless space walk? Because what’s true is rarely what’s believable.
Continue reading ‘Blinded by Science (Fiction)’ »

Singing the praises of genre TV: The author (left) harmonizes with a Scarran named Wolesh (right).

“Genre” television — science fiction, fantasy, and other so-called “non-mainstream” shows — is expensive, tough to produce, and tougher to produce well.

The occasional breakout hit notwithstanding, it’s also a niche product, constantly struggling to corral enough viewers to survive. And it’s next to invisible at the Emmys or BAFTAs.

In short, it gets no respect.

So why do we make it?

Two simple reasons: money and groupies.

All right, I confess: there’s a third reason…

Continue reading ‘Genre TV: Why Bother?’ »