Known Unknowns #4, Guest Post #3: Ben Acker

Hey! Hi! You may remember — this was waaaaaay back on Friday — I posted a piece about knowing when things are done. In that piece, I mentioned that I was going to be cajoling people from other creative avenues (Comedy Street, Television Parkway, etc.) to lend their perspectives on done-ness. Incredibly enough, it worked, and now I’ll be posting these all week, one per day, in addition to my regular Tuesday and Friday pieces. Enjoy!

Ben Acker, writer, The Thrilling Adventure Hour and many TV projects

On the topic of being done writing, I must tell you when writing for show business, being done is easy as pie. And not difficult pie, like a chess pie. What’s the easiest pie? That’s what being done writing for show business is like. Dot-to-dot pie? Is that a pie?

I am defining “done” as “not even having the slightest urge to do another pass.” I understand that this level of done-ness for writers of prose is harder than the hardest pie: labyrinth pie. Well that’s because writing prose is much harder than writing for show business. Or it can be.

My path to total done-ness for show business writing begins with several internal drafts. Those are drafts where my writing partner and I pass a piece back and forth. Each pass we do takes the piece further down the line of our being not totally done, but done enough. Each pass has one of us or the other fixing what’s wrong, taking out what’s bad, putting in what’s good.  We’re finished tinkering when neither of us have anything left to fix or punch up. It tends to be three or four passes altogether.

We are writing what is called “scripts.” In “scripts” you are only allowed to write what characters look like and what they do and say and maybe what happens to them. That’s why it’s easier to write scripts than prose things, where you can write about what a character thinks and why and who their mother was, if you want, and the tiniest details or what their eyes do. But please don’t write what characters’ eyes do. That’s the worst.

In our process, we ask ourselves, “Does our script has a beginning, middle and also an end? Is it in our voice? Did at least one character have an arc? Is it great? Funny and moving? Full of heart and grandeur? Do I love every inch of it?” And we answer yes to all of it! “Could the script be any better?” No way! It’s like tweeting. You get it where you want it and you put it out in the world. It exists to be out there. To be seen. So you tweet a tweet and then you click “tweet.”

The niggling prose writer style brainwedge that wants to keep working and working on one thing has been sent to the cornfield long ago.

“But!” the show business writer brainwedge interjects. “Could the script be different? Could it be just as good or worse, but not better?” Yes, absolutely. And that’s what show business writing is all about. Once writers are their-version-of-done, non-writers get to give notes to make the script different, just as good, and possibly worse. Many, many people may weigh in. Agents, managers, production company people, studios people. All of these people can give notes on a script before anyone decides whether the script should be shot.

If someone were to shoot the thing, oh there would be such notes. Who would give those notes? I don’t know. Our stuff hasn’t gotten all that shot.

But when we get notes, we rewrite and the script becomes just as good or worse or different. And we are closer to the state of done-ness for which we have been emotionally ready since we turned in that first draft that is really three or four internal drafts.

Have notes ever made a script that couldn’t be any better even better? Absolutely. We tend to work with really solid people who are actually great at their jobs and defy the public’s unromantic perception of Hollywood. But when we are in that first stage of done-ness, we cannot imagine anyone making the piece better. And these are semi-professional grade imaginations you’re dealing with.

So. We’re done. It’s perfect. We turn it in. We get notes. We address them. Then we get more notes and go through it all again until — AND THIS IS KEY — contractually we’re done. By the time we have done all of the passes the contract demands of us (usually three), we’re ready never to look at the script again. We achieve total done-ness. Unless we get greenlit. Fortunately, that has never happened.

Everything I’ve described is part of development. That’s where we pitch a show and enough entities say, “I would like to make that show,” that we get to write it.

Other show business writing scenarios we have seen include writing an episode of a TV show. We feel the same about our internal draft back-and-forth. We know we’re done when we are finished. Heart. Grandeur. And in this case: “Is it like the show? Is it in their voice?” Yes! Decidedly so. Maybe we high five and that’s how we know that we have theoretically successfully executed an agreed-upon outline that our boss has helped lock in. Then we are given only one set of notes. Our boss’s notes. And then we address them as best as we are able in back-and-forth style. And then maybe one more high five and we turn it in by the date we have been told to. And we are done!

The near-to-show-business writing we do, our stage show The Thrilling Adventure Hour (available on iTunes as a podcast) is done after that initial three or so back-and-forths. We’re done because we’re dying to write the next show. It continues to be the most fun stuff we get to write even after seven years. Coincidence? Maybe.

I’m gonna go eat some pie and not do too many passes rewriting this piece.

Ben Acker co-writes the Thrilling Adventure Hour, a  stage show in the style of old-time radio, also available as a podcast on iTunes. He is working on next month’s show, a movie and a pilot. He lives near Hollywood.