Reflections on Series Documents

A couple production companies recently expressed some interest to me in regard to a pilot I wrote. They liked it, but didn’t get a strong enough sense of where the series goes (or how continuing seasons might unfold). So, they asked for a series document - if I had one. Well, I just finished writing it! It’s the first one I’ve written in a while — not since I put together a doc for my sample pilot Harpoon (this is a link to the series document, the pilot can be found in the TV sample section of this website).

To me, a series document should feel like a mix of pitch doc, series outline, and general passionate diatribe of the writer about his or her show. Interestingly, my doc for this new pilot ended up requiring a much longer series doc (a whopping 18 pages, much longer than Harpoon’s). The most important part, I gather, is the episode beats - which confirm to the executives that you actually know how you want the show to unfold. Now, I’ve seen a ton of series docs or bibles or whatever you want to call them - and many of them don’t have these episode beats. My general feeling is maybe I’ll get to a point one day in my career where, as part of the pitch process, I won’t need episode beats — they’ll just try that I have the story-telling chops and get a general sense of where the show goes otherwise. For now, it actually serves as a really interesting exercise. If in some absurd dream scenario, this show were to get made — well, what comes out on the other end would look nothing like the episode beats I just put down. I can say that confidently, having now seen two series documents and then worked on the actual shows that followed. So really, it’s just an audition.

But for me, as long as someone is taking the time to read your series document - to dive headlong into the world of your show, your dream version of the world of your show - you should pour all your passion into it and make it apparent. So, I include histories, setting description, character arcs, backstories of the characters, etc. etc. One day maybe I’ll be able to share this new one and you can compare and contrast! I certainly will do that to try and understand why they turned out so differently from one another.

The Rudderless West

Sharing a striking and well-written NYT op-ed on the state of Western politics in the world today.

“The West is now rudderless. To be rudderless puts you at the mercy of elements. The elemental forces of politics today are tribalism, populism, authoritarianism and the sewage pipes of social media. Each contradicts the West’s foundational commitments to universalism, representation, unalienable rights, and an epistemology built on fact and reason, not clicks and feelings. We are drifting, in the absence of mind and will, toward a moment of civilizational self-negation. …

Why worry about the health and fate of liberal democracy when its triumph was inevitable and irreversible? Why teach the benefits of free markets and immigration — or the dangers of socialism and nativism — when history had already rendered a verdict?

And why do the tedious work of preserving the foundations of free government when it is so much more interesting to reinvent it?

Complacency breeds heedlessness. Liberals were heedless when they wrote off moral character as an essential trait of a good presidency. Conservatives (like me) were heedless when we became more concerned about the state of democracy in Iraq than in Iowa. Liberals were heedless when they embraced identity politics without ever thinking it could also be used against them. Conservatives (again, like me) were heedless when we downplayed the significance of the populism and scaremongering infecting the movement via talk radio and Fox News.”

Writing Process

Today I sit down speed write a series document for a slightly old pilot, as fast as humanly possible. Amidst this situation, I’ve realized something about my process. It feels like there are some subconscious mental mechanics at work here. Namely, that when I have all the abilities, inspiration, and knowledge beneath the surface - almost ready to be deployed and just write the damn thing - there is a hold-up. I guess that hold-up is anxiety or something akin to one form of writer’s block. More specifically, it is a block that is taking up energy to sustain. So I end up, inadvertently - as I try to write this thing, finding ways to tire out my neuroses to the point where my block is worn down (but hopefully leaving myself with still enough time and energy to get to the task at hand). I do things like: write this post (it’s still writing, and it’s vaguely therapeutic), or read the news (that’s mostly just tiring), or I focus on other industry-related tasks that aren’t quite as creatively demanding - or it’s just watching a TV show or film. These things are seem to divert my energies in one way or another, and allow me to begin to focus on - in this case - the series document. Sometimes there is a beautiful serendipitous sort of day where you wake up early, are just tired enough to not have started the anxiety-train, and can dive right into the work uninterrupted. I think my career as a writer will depend on training myself to have that clear-eyed mindset every day I go to work. I imagine it’s mostly practice that will get me there. Practice, and external validation from the people who (ideally) pay me :)

Beauty in Nature

I’m taking a writing break to explore a NYT Magazine article that caught my eye - can read it here. And as part of the deep-dive, I ended up finding this magnificent video of the Bowerbird dance. I felt compelled to share it here. The dance (and the pupil-manipulation) is spellbinding.

Here’s a quote that delves into the core of the article: “According to this theory, ornaments evolved as indicators of a potential mate’s advantageous qualities: its overall health, intelligence and survival skills, plus the fact that it will pass down the genes underlying these traits to its children. A bowerbird with especially bright plumage might have a robust immune system, for example, while one that finds rare and distinctive trinkets might be a superb forager. Beauty, therefore, would not confound natural selection — it would be very much a part of it.

… Now, nearly 150 years later, a new generation of biologists is reviving Darwin’s neglected brainchild. Beauty, they say, does not have to be a proxy for health or advantageous genes. Sometimes beauty is the glorious but meaningless flowering of arbitrary preference. Animals simply find certain features — a blush of red, a feathered flourish — to be appealing. And that innate sense of beauty itself can become an engine of evolution, pushing animals toward aesthetic extremes. In other cases, certain environmental or physiological constraints steer an animal toward an aesthetic preference that has nothing to do with survival whatsoever.

… There are really two environments governing the evolution of sentient creatures: an external one, which they inhabit, and an internal one, which they construct. To solve the enigma of beauty, to fully understand evolution, we must uncover the hidden links between those two worlds.

…Unlike natural selection, which preserved traits that were useful “in the struggle for life,” Darwin saw sexual selection as exclusively concerned with reproductive success, often resulting in features that jeopardized an animal’s well-being. The peacock’s many-eyed aureole, mesmerizing yet cumbersome, was a prime example and remains the mascot of sexual selection today. “A great number of male animals,” Darwin wrote, “as all our most gorgeous birds, some fishes, reptiles and mammals, and a host of magnificently colored butterflies have been rendered beautiful for beauty’s sake.

…Prum thinks the evidence for the heritable benefits of choosing a beautiful mate is scant because such benefits are themselves rare, whereas arbitrary beauty is “nearly ubiquitous.” Over the years, the more he contemplated runaway selection, the more convinced he became that it was a far more powerful and creative evolutionary force than natural selection, which he regards as overhyped and boring. “Animals are agents in their own evolution,” he told me during one conversation. “Birds are beautiful because they are beautiful to themselves. … Some of the evolutionary consequences of sexual desire and choice in nature are not adaptive,” Prum writes in his recent book. “Some outcomes are truly decadent.

SUMMARY: The environment constrains a creature’s anatomy, which determines how it experiences the world, which generates adaptive and arbitrary preferences, which loop back to alter its biology, sometimes in maladaptive ways. Beauty reveals that evolution is neither an iterative chiseling of living organisms by a domineering landscape nor a frenzied collision of chance events. Rather, evolution is an intricate clockwork of physics, biology and perception in which every moving part influences another in both subtle and profound ways. Its gears are so innumerable and dynamic — so susceptible to serendipity and mishap — that even a single outcome of its ceaseless ticking can confound science for centuries. “

Overall, the in-depth article seems to illustrate the battle between two philosophies: one that says beauty functions as an extension of natural selection (the beautiful creature having spent extra energy and risked its life for beauty - thus proving its resilience) — while the other philosophy says that beauty exists purely for beauty’s sake, it is entirely unto itself and affects natural selection in a myriad of ways, or not at all. The writer concludes that beauty is too complex in nature to be able to understand, for now.

Advice from the Showrunner

Well, it’s not advice exactly but it’s an interesting process/method that our showrunner talked about in the room yesterday.

He said that when he runs into a writers block, or specifically a problem with the story that he’s having trouble fixing, he takes a break from sitting at the computer and watches something. Specifically, he watches a great film - or just a great scene from a film - that has absolutely nothing to do with what he’s trying to fix. He said that as he watches, and is inspired and to some degree - distracted, his mind works on the problem in the background - or just beneath the surface. He’s inspired by the scene at the same time - and perhaps the inspiration gives him a new energy because he says his mind usually figures out a solution to the problem by the time the scene is over.

I feel like I’ve tried this before instinctively, but have always been distracted by the guilt of procrastination — next time I’ll have to enter into knowing that it’s alright, it’s all part of the mystical process!

Jeremiah Johnson - story structure, follow-up

As I’m diving into my new feature that is wholly inspired by Jeremiah Johnson, I’m realizing how unusual a story structure the film has — and how difficult it’d be to make something similar today. It seems like a crazy structure to me for two reasons.

First, and most apparently, is the fact that we know nothing about Johnson’s character off the bat, nor do we ever learn anything about what came before the first frame of the film. We can infer he was in the navy, given his striped pants and mariner’s cap but beyond that - there is never a mention of his parents, his war time experiences, where he came from, nothing. All we ever receive his is staunch disappointment with civilized society and its mores. This is a bold choice that would be tempting to undermine in favor of added character depth - but instead they give us Johnson’s character a priori, for us to figure out based on only his actions in the film.

Second, the overarching character arc is fascinating. The first half, or so, feels like a Joseph Campbell - Hero’s Journey (without the familiar home context to begin with). A man ventures into a new land, meets people, has experiences, the experiences change him, and he ends up positively changed and more powerful. That would bring you about 70 minutes into the film. SPOILERS: by this point, he has a family - a cabin, he’s built his own little version of society - the thing he’s run so far from, in some sense - but made it his own. But the character arc continues. SPOILERS AGAIN: he loses everything, his family killed - he burns his house in a fit of rageful grief. And then dedicates himself to exacting vengeance. And yet, the story doesn’t continue so simply there. It’s not a tale of rageful justice. He actually feels catharsis immediately after his attack on the hunting party ends — he stops himself short, realizing violence will not comfort him. But now he’s a marked man, attacked by the Crow tribe wherever he goes. His arc is not one of vengeance, but of survival. Of being caught in the forces of nature (and fate). And here’s where things get really interesting: he methodically (by the writer’s design) ends up reuniting with each person who met on the way up to the moment he lost his family. And they’re in the same places more or less. It’s an exact retracing of his young hero’s journey - except now it’s marked by grief, isolation, and constant attacks from all sides. By the end of it, you truly feel his legendary status. Not as a hero, but as a myth incarnate. It’s an incredible effect.

And to sum up, I don’t think the second aspect would’ve worked (or landed as powerfully) without that first aspect - the lack of backstory. If we knew all sorts of contextual details, they would color his journey - distract from the myth that is being built in front of your eyes in the wilderness. What good would it do to know his parents names, or that he was married once before, or anything like that? And yet, the average audience expects that sort of thing. So, it’s all the more brave that Pollack, Redford, Milius, and Anhalt worked past it.

Last thing I’ll mention is that, if you read the early draft of Jeremiah Johnson (which I linked to below in a previous post) you’ll see that it is WAY longer than the finished product - in terms of volume of dialogue. They cut out huge swaths of it. And yet, the dialogue (and monologues) that they kept in so truly make the film and give it a colorful identity — it’s like they knew they had too much of a good thing and compressed it to the perfect serving for the audience. So impressive.

Experienced TV Writers

As I approach the end of the time in the writers room for the show I’m on, I am trying to reflect on what I’ve learned and hopefully absorbed.

One thing that’s struck me is what makes an experienced TV writer. Not a showrunner necessarily, but someone who can go from room to room and be an asset to the showrunner (a.k.a. co-executive producer, supervising producer, producer, etc.).

It’s seems to be that a good high-level TV writer is one who understands the vision of the showrunner on such a deep level (and has learned it quickly) that they can be trusted to go run with that vision (in outlines and script and later on set) and be utterly consistent with it, down to the minutia. That, plus the experience of being on set and knowing what pitfalls to avoid and what tricks to use, starting from the outline stage.

Awesome Assistants TV Event - Follow Up

Good news - the event sold out within the first 6 hours of posting! We’re looking at 150 max capacity attending, which is mind boggling to be honest.

But, if you are still interested you can email us (details in the flyer included in the previous post) and we can put you on the wait-list. We’re also exploring having an outside podcast team join the event and record it - so if that happens I’ll be sure to share the recording here.