What A Fool Believes

FIRST OFF, AS far as I know, CTV is not buying Global, and there is no imminent rise of CTV Canglobemedia in the offing.

But this morning's little April Fool's debacle, meted out in little controlled bursts, offers, I think, a few teachable moments in relation to screenwriting.

First, though, a personal observation. I remember when I first hit school after we moved to Canada, when April Fool's Day came up, I was bewildered by the insistence that the whole thing was supposed to end at noon. Teachers would be adamant about the fact...something that if you played a joke after noon, then you were the fool, bub.

I've spent a little over twenty years now thinking that's bullshit. Something the teachers made up to snap the lid back on the chaos and get control of their classrooms.

So this morning I'm trying to decide when to pull the pin on the whole thing -- and I do a little research. And what do you know? Apparently, in certain nations such as the UK and Canada, the tradition is indeed that the jokes end at noon. Why was I so skeptical of the fact? Because in OTHER nations, such as the USA and Ireland, you're fair game for the whole day. So how's about that?

Now...what we can learn from the April Fool's Joke and apply to the Craft of Screenwriting?

• Basic plausibility allows you to slip in the ridiculous; just like a spoonful of sugar making the medicine go down.
  
  The idea of Naked News replacing a National Newscast is pretty out there. But with the chaos and sturm and drang going down right now in Canadian media, the idea that Canwest and CTV might merge doesn't seem that far out of whack. It's a testimony to how ridiculous our media situation has become. You know, I type this right now and for all I know, hell, there could actually be talks going on. Would it really surprise you?
  
  The X Files got five good years (and another 3 besides) out of this kind of thing.
  
  
• Let the rope out slowly.
  
  Weaving a tale, laying a trap -- requires patience. Laying those cards down early is key. I actually paved the way for my post this morning with another post that seemed totally plausible. So plausible that more than a few people who cottoned onto the joke of the CTV Global merger still speculated as to what the "real" announcement at 5:30 would be.
  
  
• Details, details, details.
  
  The little things are always what sell it. BSG worked because it seemed to get some basic military stuff right. The terms, the actions, the jargon "felt" right. Similarly, E.R. raised the bar forever as to what you needed to know to sell a medical show. If you go back now and watch a medical show from the 70's, it's laughable. You understand everything the Doctors are saying. When's the last time that happened in real life? So I mixed in reality about the Minister making his visit to Flashpoint, the lobbying that's been done over the last little while, and mixed in references to stages being erected and traffic being snarled, and real-life details like people who actually want to buy some local stations and return them to the community. Drilling down to the detail makes your fiction sing.
  
  
• There's always a spoiler.
  
  This is useful mostly when it comes to notes. A lot of new writers I know are so in love with their material that they're completely unprepared to accept any criticism. It's one of the reasons I don't read new scripts anymore unless I'm being paid to do it. But just as damaging are the outliers who'll take your stuff in a direction that it shouldn't go because they won't play the game. If you have a reader who has no concept of willing suspension of disbelief, then you're going to get notes that want you to explain everything. Including terribly unimportant things.
  
  In this case, I had to hold back several comments from people who wanted to immediately spoil the joke. Part of this is the culture of the 'Net...all the commenters who want to be !First! to say something. It makes me a little sad on the April Fools' tip. I remember childhood, pre-internet, when part of the fun was really not being sure for a long time -- maybe even a whole day -- whether what you heard was a joke or not. For all we've gained in our speeded up world, I think we've lost something there.
  
  
• Reward your audience.
  
  In the end, I decided to add the joke about the immediate reduction in CanCon request because, well, we all need a bit of gallows funny, right? In the end you need to give the audience the release they crave -- an ending that makes sense, a payoff of some sort. I hope my silly little joke did that for you.
  
  Of course, as my friend Mattypants put it, I could be here a year from now talking about CTVCanCorus AstralRogersGoogle GlobeEastWesNorthSouthMedia.
  
  Although if that's the case, I'll probably be sleeping on someone's cot down in Silver Lake. Maybe Encino.

Thanks to Jim and Dix for playing with me....Have a good day!