ScriptSuperhero.com

Sometimes I think it would be nice if there was a simple sugar-pill (nothing narcotic in nature, mind you) that could cure writer’s block the way that Viagra cures … well, what Viagra is formulated to cure! I’m the furthest thing from a pill-popper, but sometimes the blank page can be hard to get past.

Of course, mystery and suspense writer Lawrence Block has perhaps the best advice - at least for genre fiction. “When in doubt,” he advised, “have some stranger burst into the room, guns blazing, and you’ll have plenty of story to tell.”

I’m not sure that precise advice works for all forms of literature. Certainly, it wouldn’t help an author of children’s literature, for example, where blazing guns isn’t exactly the nature of, say, the Berenstein Bears’ latest adventure.

But the basic principle holds true; when it doubt, unveil something completely unexpected and as it is introduced into the story, there will be plenty of fuel to drive your imagination forward.

It’s interesting how much of an impact Joss Whedon has had on Hollywood at large. Although he has never won an award for his writing - due mostly to the genre-driven nature of his programs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly - his work continues to serve as a model for others.

It’s not just that Whedon’s “season-long story arc” structures, a form he didn’t necessarily invent but certainly popularized, have been adopted by many other shows. It’s more than that. Some are now even lifting his storytelling rhythms and making them their own.

Two examples from this TV season come to mind.

Scrubs, the NBC comedy currently in its sixth season, recently did a musical episode. While not quite as polished at Whedon’s “Once More… With Feeling,” episode, doing a musical episode of a normally non-musical show is an idea Whedon innovated on Buffy.

Then there’s Smallville, currently in its sixth season on the new CW network after spending the first five season on the now-defunct WB network. A couple episodes ago, Smallville had Clark attacked by a creature only to take up in a world in which he’s been in an insane asylum for the past several years and all his adventures as a superpowered fellow from another world are supposed to be part of his delusion. That’s direct plot-theft, taken from Whedon’s “Normal Again” episode of Buffy.

Ironically, both Scrubs and Smallville are in their sixth seasons, and stole ideas out of Buffy’s sixth season. Coincidence? I think not. On Smallville, the parallels run even deeper, since they chose to kill off Johnathon Kent, Clark’s father, in a February episode of Smallville’s fifth season; Buffy fans will recall that Whedon had Buffy’s mom die suddenly, too… in a February episode of Buffy’s fifth season.

It’s not plagerism, precisely. But there certainly are a lot of Whedon disciples in Hollywood these days. Maybe these tributes should at least, out of decency, put up a Mutant Enemy address plaque at the end of these “tribute” episodes.

One of the biggest differences between script writing and prose is who controls the narrative flow.

In prose stories, skilled writers can invest even the mundane with meaning. A character can look out over a golden field and see connections to memories of a long-lost father or, conversely, the morbid site of a brutal murder.

In script writing, the author gives control to someone else. While a script can point out key stage directions, like where to place the kids furniture in the room, if it’s central to the plot, someone else is making most of the narrative flow decisions in nearly every script ever written.

In comic book writing, that power rests with the artist, who at least is only one person and usually in communication with the writer, checking on the writer’s intent for the scene before sketching out the layout of the page.

In movies, that power rests with the director, and depending on that person’s skill, a field might capture a bit of the tone a writer intends, but the difference is that, on screen… a golden field is still gonna look mostly like a golden field.

On stage, it’s usually a set designer who has a backdrop painted, which at least adds some emotional influence into the way a scene “feels.”

Ultimately, prose writers have the upper hand, though, since their work takes place almost entirely in the theater of the mind. Which is why script writers are expected to bang out their work in a week or less, while novelists can take years to tell one story.