The very idea of a spec script — an original script written by an aspiring or low-level TV writer for a show already on the air — is one of the television industry’s great paradoxes. A good spec will both stand out from the 50 or so others waiting to be read and fit right in with the world already established by the show. It will simultaneously demonstrate the writer’s voice and the writer’s ability to adopt the voice of existing characters.
And don’t even think about submitting a spec of the show you actually want to get hired for.
If you’re hoping to get staffed on “The Office,” say, send in a script for “My Name Is Earl” or “Arrested Development” because many show-runners won’t read specs of their own series to keep from being accidentally influenced.
To help navigate this sometimes incomprehensible world, former “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Ellen” writer Jane Espenson has started “Jane in Progress,” a blog on her fan site that serves as a guidebook of sorts. Each day Espenson uses an example from her life to talk about the importance of good character names, how to tee up a joke, or ways to incorporate metaphors into script writing.
Espenson, 42, is thin and wry and smart and talks like a TV character — quickly and with lots of jokes packed into long sentences. Since “Buffy” went off the air three years ago, she’s written for “Battlestar Galactica,” “Gilmore Girls,” “The O.C.,” “Tru Calling,” “Jake in Progress” and “The Inside,” and she recently started on “Andy Barker P.I.,” a single-camera half-hour comedy starring Andy Richter.
“Jane still retains the sense of excitement about writing she had when she started,” said Jeff Greenstein, who ran the writing room at “Will & Grace” for seven years and worked with Espenson at “Jake in Progress.” “It’s very easy in this business to become cynical and jaded, and fear and revile the new people coming up through the ranks. But Jane has really embraced the neophytes.”
And while she’s had experience in many genres, Espenson said she is especially drawn to sci-fi and comedy.
“Jane … really knows how to bring the funny,” said Paula Carlson, a fan from Espenson’s “Buffy” years and the Webmaster of her fan site, Janeespenson.com. “No matter how serious a story she’s telling, she always throws in something to funny it up.”
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As professional TV writers go, Espenson is pretty famous. Her five years of writing for “Buffy” earned her a devoted fan following that still monitors her career.
“`Buffy’ in particular had this cult of the writer,” said Espenson, eating a vegetarian pizza in the Westwood apartment she shares with her boyfriend, writer and political blogger Bob Harris. “Entertainment Weekly came and did a big profile on us and took a big two-page spread photo of just the writers. And we all got fan clubs with names. I had Jane’s Junkies.”
Last January, as the John Stamos comeback vehicle “Jake in Progress” was winding down for the season, she told Carlson she’d like a place on the page for a blog. Her idea was to write tales from the writers room and, because of her built-in fan base, it didn’t take long before she was getting 40,000 hits a week. Then “Jake” was getting canceled or not getting canceled and was finally placed on a seemingly permanent hiatus.
“At this point, I was standing in the middle of the stage, and everybody was going, `Dance, dance, dance,’ and I was getting all these hits, and … I have to do something,” Espenson said.
So she decided to start blogging about how to write specs.
“I thought I would just give little nuggets of writing wisdom until I ran out, and I figured it would probably take at least a month, but I haven’t run out yet,” Espenson said.