A Certain Measure of Success, I Guess

SO, I'M ACTUALLY a little surprised at this -- not just because it happened at all (which I consider to be a good thing) but because it happened twice in the same week through two different emails.

Whether I've come out and stated it as fact on the blog before now, I've been working these last few weeks on Season 2 stories for The Border. We're currently prepping episode 1 in Toronto. We start shooting the end of the month and we'll be back on CBC in the fall.

Anyway, in the midst of breaking and writing scripts, twice in the last week I've gotten emails from people who started to "pitch" me episodes of The Border in the body of an email.

I say "start" because the moment I discerned that's where the emails were going, I deleted them.

Because I had to.

Writers are constantly getting pitched -- in cabs, in elevators, at barbecues... "You know what would make a good story?" people say. Mostly it's completely innocuous.

Unless you're a massive dickweed, you try to be gracious about it. People being genuinely interested in what you do is a nice (and rare) thing. And sure, maybe there's a long way between the story that your taxi driver thinks would be a good story and, well... Taxi Driver, but if the only thing you're giving up is your attention for a few minutes, hey, I'll take the human contact and learn from it.

(at left: "put down the story idea and step away from the brad...")

Where things get dicey, is when you're working on a show and someone sends you an email or tries to pitch you an idea for that show. Because if you're on staff for a show, you don't own it. The underlying characters and situations aren't yours. You may be hired to generate story ideas, and new adventures for the characters; and, in fact, you do have some ownership and copyright in that underlying story -- but not the overall world.

One of the first things you do when you're hired off a pitch to a TV show, is to sign an episodic contract. These are big, unwieldy, scary legal contracts that are thick like the phone book and just about as impenetrable. But somewhere in there is a clause where you have to affirm that what you're writing is going to be your own work. 100 % your own ideas. Yes, you might be using their characters, but what they do -- that's out of your own head.

So when someone out of the blue sends you a story idea it sets off all sorts of alarm bells and the only thing -- the ONLY thing you can do -- is immediately delete it.

Because yes, ninety nine times out of a hundred the person is totally reasonable and earnest and has no designs on you whatsoever and would never think of suggesting that somehow you stole their idea; or worse, they might even just want you to HAVE their idea -- for FREE -- because they like the show!

But there is that 1 out of 100 who doesn't think that way. And that 1 out of 100 can ruin a writer's reputation.

As we found out in the Great Fanfic Contretemps of '07, there are enough, shall we say charitably -- enough people lacking in perspective out there to look at it exactly the wrong way, which is why (aside from all the slash weirdness) that many writers like me are a bit skeeved out by Fanfic.

TV is about establishing a world, and the rules of the world, and coming up with characters to populate that world. The funny thing is that most good TV is meant to be a mix of the familiar and the new -- but you actually need both. You want Dr. House to always act like Dr. House, but you don't want to see the same case you've seen before. The dynamics of his relationship should be the same, bu they should still develop...ie: not remain completely static.

Because there are patterns in TV -- that mix of familiar and new -- it's often quite possible for someone who's watched the show to anticipate what comes next. We all do this. A lot of the times we're wrong, but sometimes we're right. That's part of the fun. (I'd even say that the shows that you wind up liking most aren't the ones that you can NEVER predict; and certainly aren't the ones you can ALWAYS predict; but the ones that you can only SOMETIMES predict.)

So if you're a fanfic writer, or even somebody who wants to say, "hey you know what would be a good episode" of X series -- it's quite possible that you'll come up independently with an idea that the story team comes up with -- because the elements are all laid out for you to build on. And the more history a show builds up, the more you can build on. So, ironically, the closer you're likely to get to what the real writers come up with.

Baby Writers who are coming up with their first spec scripts (which are kind of like audition scripts -- professional fanfic, if you will, I know, I know -- it's complicated) are often dismayed to find that just as they've broken their story, lo and behold, the real show does that very idea.

I always tell 'em "Good! That means you're on the right track."

Well, I tell them that after, "Wow, that sucks, and yes you have to start over."

For a couple years, I was caught between my love for HOUSE and my feeling I could write those characters and my utter hopeless lack of medical knowledge...and the one sliver of an idea I had was that HOUSE had to deal with an aphasic patient. And then, lo and behold, HOUSE did the aphasia episode. Of course they did. It was too good an idea not to do.

Why am I using HOUSE here? Because in the middle of battling the Fanfic types last year, an episode of HOUSE written by Doris Egan aired. And lo and behold, not a day later, some nut somewhere who had written a fanfic on the same theme and posted to a group, or it might have even been to her blog, "OH my GOD, do you think she read my idea? Do you think she STOLE IT?!!!!!!"

The short answer is no. We don't read your ideas. We don't steal them. We don't want to read them, because we don't want to open ourselves up to being brained in the head with that fifty pound contract we had to sign saying we weren't going to be dirty rotten plagiarisers.

Once upon a time, before I started writing professionally, I wrote a spec script of THE WONDER YEARS, and actually got the Exec Producer to read it -- only AFTER I signed a three-page document acknowledging, in fact, that I waived any and all claims on the material. Ie: the "I'm not a crazy person" piece of paper.

I'd like to say, "I'm sorry" to the two fans of the blog who sent me story ideas for THE BORDER. I'm sure you're fine, upstanding citizens and would never dream of causing trouble for a hardworking TV writer. (Or even a reprobate like me.)

But I just can't take that chance.

So please, no ideas, 'Kay?

(This is the same reason why I can't read your spec scripts for The Border, which has been another request from a couple of readers. Sorry.)

By the way, I do recognize that the fact that there is that interest means the show has struck a chord. And yup, I think that's way cool. But I'm afraid this is just the way it has to be.

Blame the lawyers.

They ruin everything.

And if you're a lawyer and now you're totally offended that I...you know what...screw it -- you're getting paid by the hour!

In other Border related news, here is the schedule that CBC has finalized for repeating the Border's first season this summer. (There's only 9 weeks, so not every episode is being repeated.)

16-Jun-08 Eps. 101 1001R
Pockets of Vulnerability

23-Jun-08 Eps. 102 1002R
Grey Zone

30-Jun-08 Eps. 103 1003R
Bodies on the Ground

07-Jul-08 Eps. 106 1006R
Physical Assets

14-Jul-08 Eps. 107 1007R
Family Affairs

21-Jul-08 Eps. 108 1008R
Enemy Contact

28-Jul-08 Eps. 111 1011R
Civil Disobedience

04-Aug-08 Eps. 112 1012R
Grave Concern

25-Aug-08 Eps. 113 1013R
Blowback

All repeats 9pm ET/PT

The Border returns with Season 2 this fall.