Writing: The Knuckleball

Based on a quick discussion among writers -- what's your knuckleball? The little trick you use that seems to have made life easier, smoothes your process, but as far as you know isn't widespread.

For me, it's The Overwrite. For a long time, I outlined in a two column system on yellow pads. I still do, when roughing the ideas out and brainstorming.

But when I have something approaching a movie or episodic plot and is time to get down to the beat sheet, I fire up the screenwriting software and type the numbered beats (each no more than a sentence or two each, usually) directly into the blank script. Separating the four segments of the movie, or 8 sequences depending if The Monarch swings that way, and renumbering each cleanly.

Then, I overwrite the beat sheet. As the script progresses and real scenes get written, the document transforms into a Frankenstein hybrid of script and outline. But ... for whatever reason, this is a powerful psychological tool for me; I never write a script into the vast void of the blank page, rarely face the grind of that mocking drop-off. I'm just detailing out the movie as it already exists in rough form, the physicality of the single combined document somehow making a subtle, purely arbitrary difference from a blank script screen to the right of me and a scrawled outline to the left.

Your mileage may vary. In the Comments, please, your knuckleballs.

Oh, and PLEASE ...

... of course I had a Cory Lidle joke. I had it literally the second I learned of the surreal tragedy.

Just because I don't get on stage much anymore doesn't mean the instincts don't still work. Geesh. You never lose the --

-- ooo, actually, now I have two. God, I am just dead inside.

Makes me kind of nostalgic.

LOST and writer pimpage

Head down, page count. But taking some time for quick commentary and some love thrown at fellow writers.

The Lost season opener was -- and I say this with all love -- soft. I know some people have flipped for it, but it was a combination of a flashback storyline that I think is both magnificently uninteresting, and also makes Jack look passive (and Jack isnt exactly Captain Action in the best of times), barely supporting a bunch of shocking reveals that ... weren't. With the admittedly uneven Heroes consistently scoring with kick-ass episode enders, the bar that Lost itself set in season one has been raised.

(By the way, did you know the meaning of the numbers has actually been revealed in the web ARG? I assume that'll show up in the episodes soon. And by the by the way -- the real-world numbers stations were among my youthful conspiracy obsessions, so I was pleased to see that mythos integrated into the show.)

Contrast the premiere, however, with tonight's muscular second episode. Good flashback story, some nice developments, fine Sawyer character beats, and THAT'S a cliffhanger. Much like the Season One finale, where two hours compressed into one would have left me quivering on the ground, five minutes of this season's premiere grafted onto this second episode would have been a neck-punching opener. With the previews from next week, I am back in.

I was not surprised to see Drew Goddard's name on the episode. Back when I was staffing Global, the bastard came in for lunch and wound up solving a major script issue between two coffee sips. He was the "player to be named later" for pretty much every show runner I know until the Abrams camp nailed him down. One of the younger guys who you know, with deadly certainty, will someday uncomfortably soon be the one hiring you. Watch for any scripts with his name on them. They're guaranteed goodness.

While I'm pimping I will direct you back to Dingo, Mike Nelson's first novel, which he serialized online. Nelson's writing X-isle and Second Wave for BOOM!, both of which are damn fine sequential stories. But I'll tell you, in between treatises on memes and terrorism, I read a hell of a lot of genre fiction, and Nelson's blend of Jack Reacher meets Fables is better than 99% of it. Some publisher smarten the fuck up and buy the thing.

Speaking of publishing, the Brit scifi mag SFX (my favorite) just did something very cool. They ran a "Pulp Idol" competition. They took horror and genre stories in open submission, collected the best fifty and published them in a wee paperback included with the last issue. The quality's surprisingly good, and the spirit of the thing's a blast. Worth hitting up a better magazine shop for it.

And finally, a reminder that the new Doctor Who is worth your time, overall -- TV writers should in particular catch the The Impossible Planet for a neat little "introduce the ensemble" trick. Grant Morrison flipped for that episode and The Satan Pit, which should mean something to you if you're right-thinking. There are a few wonky episodes, but all in all Tennant is the real deal. BBC America is about to start last year's run, so it's a fine time for those of you with cable or DirectTV to catch up.

Lunch Conversations #450: "I know How to Treat a PetroPower, Baby."

John: It's just fifty dollars.
Tyrone: You'll lose the bet. We are not bombing Iran before January. Two reasons: first, a Democratic congress will make it harder --
John: But hardly impossible.
Tyrone: -- and two, it's absolutely insane. And these people are not insane.
John: Of course they're not insane. But they have a very weird view of how the world works which is completely reasonable to them. And what they want -- hell what I want -- is a pro-West Iran.
Tyrone: ... which they'll get by bombing Iran?
John: Precisely. Look at what happened in Lebanon. The Israelis bombed about a million people out of their homes, and in return, the population completely turned against Hizballah and swung seriously pro-Israeli!
Tyrone: ...
John: Nasrallah and his thugs can't even show their face in the Arab world! And look how well the strategy is working in Iraq. We level cities like Fallujah to get the insurgents, and the result is, as Dick Cheney has told us, the insurgency has been in its "last throes" for, like, three years! They've never not been about to lose!
Tyrone: Yes. I see your point.
John: We bomb Iran, and they won't all line up behind the nationalist radical clerics who stand as a symbol against Western oppression. Instead they will realize we bombed them for their own good, they've learned their lesson, and will revolt against the leaders who have led them astray!
Tyrone: Exactly as has occurred every other time an Islamic nation is attacked.
John: Precisely. We don't want to bomb them, but we have to. For their own good. If they could just see that --
Tyrone: (slapping his left hand with his right) "Look what you made me do! LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!"
John: "I don't want to hit you, baby. But you make me all crazy sometimes."
Tyrone: A foreign policy based on domestic abuse. But Iran has allies. That's not going to work.
John: China's going to slide up. "MMmm-mm. He hitting you? That's fucked up. I'm just saying. "
Tyrone: "I don't know why he won't let you have things. Come over to my place. You want to have nuclear power, makes you feel pretty, I gots no problem with that."
John: (girl voice) "What about nuke weapons?"
Tyrone: "He lets that bitch Pakistan have nukes, and she rolls with Osama."
John: (girl voice) "Yeah!"
Tyrone: "Now bring your sweet oil over here for Daddy China."
John: Fundamental misunderstanding of human nature --
Tyrone: Nice girl voice, by the way.
John: Thank you.
Waitress: I thought so too.
Tyrone: ...
John: ...
Tyrone: How long have you been standing --
Waitress: Here's your coffee.