{regarding suggestions for Jawa's novel}

Technical: if someone who knows scientific stuff said "this character can't do this because it's technically impossible," I'd have to really consider it, if he could give me a good enough argument. (And even there you have wiggle room...what we *think* is impossible now may not be in 200 years. Serious scientists years ago said that if you went more than 60 miles an hour in a train or a car you'd be killed by the pressure. So as long as you can make a plaus- ible argument that it's *possible,* even if it's highly unlikely, you can sometimes get away with rubber science.) If it's a big glaring issue, or in the present where you don't have alternate options, you may be stuck hewing to it. If the person suggested an alternative, and that alternative worked, and kept the science valid, sure, I'd take it. That's what a consultant is for. As long as it doesn't compromise the integrity of the story.

Who reads: Yes, do be careful in your selection. Some people will tell you how to write it "better," when they really mean "write it more like *I* would've written it." A really bad reaction to what you've written, from someone you like or admire, can be an absolute soul-killer. And they may not be right. May, in fact, be quite wrong. What you also have to remember is what every writer learns: if you put your work out there, and you ASK for an opinion, suddenly they feel that they *must have* an opinion, and they *must find* flaws...so instantly that tends to skew things toward more negative comments than might be the case if they just picked the book up off a store shelf and read it. If you can find an adult *writer* to look at it, you may consider that...but to go to non-writers for technical advice or reactions or suggestions on writing is often non-constructive. Their reaction to the material may be valid, but they may not have the language or know the writing craft well enough to steer you in the right direction, and may only succeed in muddying up the waters. If I were working to be a draftsman, and finished my first big design, I'd probably show it to another draftsman before I showed it to my Aunt Morgana la Fey.

Whoever you turn to for advice, always remember that that advice must always be secondary to what the small, still voice of the writer inside you insists is correct. You have to find your own voice, and if that means not taking the other person's suggestions, then that's what you have to do. Either you'll be right, or you'll be wrong, and you'll hear the same comment from dozens of others, or those in the field, and then you may have to reconsider your position. But initially, follow your voice.

Magazine sales: no, your story can definitely be published elsewhere UNLESS the magazine specifically indi- cates that it buys "all rights." Otherwise, it will usually buy other rights. First North American rights are the most common, leaving you free to sell it to other magazines overseas, and to other magazines in the US after a reasonable period has passed, or if it's to a non-competing magazine. It's pretty much unheard of these days for magazines to buy all rights. (Suggestion: go to your local library and pick up a copy of WRITER'S MARKET, published yearly by Writer's Digest Books. They generally explain the various rights you sell in such situations.)

jms

Re: formula...yes, but remember that all the shows you cite, THE HONEYMOONERS, I LOVE LUCY, and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE were all shows of a time that lent itself to formula, all of the 50s and 60s. You set a format and you never wavered from that. (But even in those, there was some room to maneuver; remember the DICK VAN DYKE show which was one long dream about alien invasions and closets full of walnuts? Even there some were experimenting and pushing the envelope.)

Since then, television has grown, and changed, and the better shows tend to be the ones that are most groundbreaking, least formulaic. You look at TWIN PEAKS, or NYPD BLUE, or PICKET FENCES, and they're fresh, innovative, interesting.

This is probably the one area where I have my biggest beef with ST. The logic goes that if you're a new, untested show, you can't afford to take risks, you have to build your audience. But ST has, however you wish to phrase it, a guaranteed audience. It *can* take chances. It *does* have the money for big episodes. But what it does is to stay within very strictly proscribed boundaries. It's like having this incredibly powerful, souped up Porsche...and using it to drive around the block to the corner store for groceries.

ST is a program rooted strongly in the 1960s form of storytelling. It's frozen in time, I think, when it could be innovative, challenging, dynamic. It chooses, deliberately, not to be that. And if that's what people like about it, then that's fine. I just think it's a tremendously wasted opportunity to present something for the 90s that would be as innovative and imaginative and challenging as the original ST was in the 60s.

jms

Actually, if you want to hold off a bit on the conversion, you may want to consider using the first new ep coming in January, "Voices of Authority." It has elements of the sense of wonder, some good background on the show, advances the storyline bigtime, and has some of the funniest stuff we've ever done. Something for everyone.

jms

Err...I think something may not have been understood, or maybe my syntax was sloppy...what I'd intended, and what I think is still there in the message, was that I'd hoped that ST today would be as exciting in the 90s as it was in the 60s. That was kinda my point, that ST in its first incarnation *was* innovative and interesting and imaginative; I hope that wasn't misconstrued.

(And Jose...yes, you're probably right on that distinction between the two kinds of Trek.)

Came across this in my email tonight (it's now a tick before 3 a.m.).

This leads me to a request, which I am writing by email since I don't have access to CompuServe or GEnie, but please feel free to respond to it publicly rather than privately if you wish, since others may be interested in your response as well. I would be fascinated, if you would care to talk about it, about your writing process. Do you have a set time, a predetermined schedule in which to write? Are you *able* to write like that? Do you write rapidly? easily? enjoyably? Do you read your work- in-progress aloud to hear the language? Do you solicit feedback from others? Do you revise? much? What kind of revisions are you likely to make? And if you do make revisions, do they occur as you go along, or afterwards, or a combination? And, finally, would it be possible for you to post (or email) any bits of writing showing the revision process?

I'm refraining from asking all the related questions I'd love to know the answers to, but if this is a topic you'd be willing to discuss and think I/we would be interested in other details as well, please do talk about them. Thank you so much.

Marcia Goldstein

Since these were good questions, I thought I'd tackle them here. To the first: no, I don't have a set time, except that I pretty much end up writing all the time...when I get up, when I'm fighting sleep to go to bed, in- between...basically, I chew on a scene over and over in my head until I'm satisfied with it, then I write it down. Sometimes that process goes on at the desk, or over dinner, or watching TV...but as soon as it comes through, I get up and I write it. Consequently, once I've thought it through, "seen" it in my head a couple dozen times like watching a movie, the actual writing, or transcribing, is fairly easy. It's the thinking part that makes Zathras' head hurt.

Most of my revisions take place before anyone else sees it; I don't generally turn over the script until I'm happy with it. At that point, it's published as an official first draft, even though it may have gone through multiple revisions in my computer before anyone else ever saw it. Sometimes, though, I get it right the first time, and what gets shot is basically first draft. Once it's turned it, there are additional revisions, but usually of a minor nature, changing sets to accommodate shooting, or just changing a word. (I've been known to reissue a full page when we get into blues or pinks *just* to change a word or two.)

I never read the words aloud because then they all come out sounding like me; I can "hear" them better in my head, where I can hear the actual tenor of Londo's voice. I never solicit opinions on pages while I'm still writing, only afterward, and mainly in terms of production aspects. To do otherwise risks you losing your direction and second-guessing too much.

Do I enjoy it? Yes and no. Writing is the one, the ONLY thing I'm good at. Writing is also the hardest thing I do. I agonize over every word, always fighting the fear that this one won't be as good as the last one, that this time I won't be able to pull the rabbit out of the hat. Sometimes, when a scene comes through completely of its own volition, it's great fun; when it doesn't, it's agony. Sometimes I enjoy the writing process; sometimes I more enjoy *having* written. It's kinda like taking a portable speed drill with a 3/4" steel bit and driving it into the side of your head...it's painful, but after the first four inches in, you kinda start to like it....

jms

YAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH.....

Well, I *finally* finished writing the two-parter, "War Without End," which is probably the toughest thing I've written for the series to date. Given everything that has to fit in here, and the fact that it's the other half of the B4 storyline (this ain't a spoiler, that'll be common knowledge in ads and the like), it became a pretty difficult job, moreso than when I'd originally thunk it up. It's kinda like cramming 20 pounds of potatoes in a 10 pound bag...but I *think* I got it all in, even though the initial drafts came out at about 7 pages too long. As I commented to one person, "I'm definitely dancing on the edge of my ability here." But I'm pretty sure I pulled it all off...and I think folks are going to be quite pleased.

But *man* that was tough....

Now, having written 16 and 17, only 5 scripts remain to be written for this season. And there's still an awful lot to fit in before the big season ender, which I suspect will raise quite a few eyebrows.

jms

Kim: this was probably the most logistically difficult, since I had so many elements "in play" at any given moment, and so many threads to deal with, even though there's really just the one overall storyline (it's hard to explain, you'll just have to see it). Other things have been more difficult for other reasons...either it was too emotionally close to me, or I've been under a killer deadline, it varies.

Pat: you fall into the trap of accepted cliche re: committee writing. That's the usual picture people have of TV writing, and frankly, in the case of most dramatic TV, it ain't true. For starters, two of the shows you cite are sitcoms; sitcoms work differently from dramatic series in that there's often (though not always) a gang of gag writers who work in tandem to come up with an episode, with someone transcribing the jokes, around a basic premise. Other times you get a writing team, one knows structure, the other is funny; ain't the same deal as dramatic writing.

I've been involved in a LOT of dramatic television, from MURDER SHE WROTE to WALKER to TWILIGHT ZONE and JAKE, and it's just not done by committee. When it comes to my scripts, as a staffer, I write them on my own, get my notes from the exec producer, make the changes, and it goes into production. In the case of a freelancer, the outline and script come in, the writer gets notes from the story editor or producer, does the next draft, turns that in, and someone on staff then takes the script and makes whatever final changes -- minor or major -- are required to make it producible or a better story. Sometimes you don't touch it at *all* except to make production (set) changes; sometimes it's more. But you've got just the original writer, and usually one staffer doing cleanup. It ain't three, four or seven guys in a room throwing around ideas. If a staffer does a huge rewrite, sometimes you'll put in for shared credit. (The reason you see ten zillion writer credits in many ST episodes is due to the gang rewriting/writing process.)

I'm not saying it doesn't happen at all in dramatic TV, because that wouldn't be true...only that it's not the rule, and is much rarer than you might think. Not one of the dramatic series I've been involved with has ever worked that way.

jms

Let me see if I've got this straight...Executor says that ST is not written by committee...I say that it is...he says it's not, and that "reality doesn't care" if I take exception to his statement that ST is written by committee...and then he states that ST *must* be written by committee, and thus it IS written by committee, which means I was correct and reality is on my side.

At some point here I think somebody fell down the rabbit hole....

And then I'm contradicted quoting the "script editor" for ST, when I say there IS no such creature working on the show, and in fact despite being told I'm wrong by Executor, he turn turns around and reveals that the "editor" in question is John Ordover, who edits the BOOKS, not the show, and is NOT a script editor, which I said doesn't exist, which again shows that reality is on my side....

This is makings Zathras' head hurt....

Re: the "stupid thread," and the "effective end of similarity" being that the two shows were set on space stations...oh, you mean absent the fact that the two shows both were helmed by commander ranked officers who had survived major and emotionally devastating battles, both had female seconds-in-command, both had a shapeshifter in their pilots, both had the female second leading a counter-attack to a massive attack in that same pilot, and a lot of other stuff in common....oh, you mean absent all THAT it's the "effective end of similarity." Gotcha.

"Writing teams can come up with ideas better than one writer." Well, THAT should certainly put Hemingway, and Shakespeare, and Dickens, and Wilde, and Borges, and Faulkner, and Dostoeyvsky, and Marlowe in their place, yessir...and I'm sure you are now prepared to name the committees of writers that have come up with better than individual writers. I eagerly await them.

As for your comments on how TV writing and production works...rarely have I seen misinformation so breathtakingly portrayed. Saying it's so doesn't make it so.

Finally, as for being bugged by email, I almost always see this when somebody gets his or her hide branded in public forums; if you have these, notify GEnie. Otherwise, it leads me to doubt if they exist, and to consider that you're just saying that to get sympathy on your side, 'cause the *facts* sure as heck aren't.

jms

Atratus: how can I answer that without giving away major story points from the next 2 years?

Re: Ivanvoa showing up at someone's home in lingerie...darn, just ran outta pixie dust...imagine that....

Scott: yes, go the Raleigh article; sorry, meant to mention this before...terminal brain-fart on my part.

Doug: regarding making people laugh until their sides hurt...this is something I always go for. It's easy to go for the "well, that's amusing" stuff, but to make someone laugh out loud, or even until it hurts, is tough. In most (but not all) cases, I try to get one solid laugh per episode, one moving scene per episode, and one "head-conk" per episode. The first obligation of a writer is to make you *feel* something, and if I can do that in an episode, then I've done my job.

It helps in that I'm not generally a big laugher; when I go to plays or movies with other people, and they're comedies, afterwards I'll always get "Why didn't you like it?" "I did." "You didn't laugh." "I was just thinking about how funny it was." Usually I can see a punchline coming, and part of my brain is racing ahead to what it might be. (And half the time at least I'm right.) So I've adopted the philosophy that if I find something extremely funny, other people will laugh at it; if I'm so tickled that I absolutely laugh out loud, I know it'll probably kill several people. As a result, if I'm going for a funny scene, I don't leave it alone until I laugh at it.

When I thought about Londo passing out face first on the banquet table uttering "...but in purple, I'm *stunning*," I just about fell off my chair laughing. Sometimes I'm a little broad in my comedy, other times I go for something a little more literate or (one hopes) witty (most of these go to Ivanova, whereas the broad stuff tends to go to Londo in most cases). But I try to keep it varied.

Strangely enough, the comics that *do* manage to break me up are all the more assaultive ones...Jerry Lewis, Robin Williams, Buddy Hackett (who can reduce me to tears), and a few others.

jms

I guess it's the difference between one show telling you what to think, vs. another show *asking* you TO think, and what it is that YOU think....

jms

Permission isn't required for pictures currently out there from WB on the nets (and there are lots of them).

THE BEST MAN? Good heavens, I've discovered a film I hadn't known existed. I'll try and nail a copy at first opportunity if it's something one would include in such other august company as FAILSAFE and THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, both of which are *excellent*.

Re: the Arisia panels...tell you what, Michael...there's bound to be a moment when it will seem apt to include this...so at that moment, deliver to the assembled folkses the following message straight from jms:

STAR TREK VS. B5. You who programmed this panel, you who determined theme and direction, who put the Vs. in the title...have you learned nothing from experience? Do any of you, who organize conventions and do so out of a professed love and familiarity with science fiction, remember September 1966? That was the year a little science fiction series called STAR TREK debuted on network television, one year exactly after the premiere of LOST IN SPACE in September 1965. STAR TREK, which was panned by reviewers and fans alike who, out of a perceived loyalty to the previous show, described it as nothing more than a cheap attempt to cash in on the success of LOST IN SPACE. LOST was the established norm, TREK the impudent newcomer, a throwback some said from the strong family drama of LOST. TREK fans said that this was unfair, that their show shouldn't have to be compared to LOST IN SPACE, that it should be taken on its own merit.

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

There is no STAR TREK VS. B5 except in the minds of those who would profit from continuing feuds on either side of the fictional picket fence. Why not CAGNEY & LACEY VS. NYPD BLUE? They're both cop shows. Why is the one predicated upon the other? What happened to IDIC, Infinite Diversity in Infinte Combinations? Should it be celebrated only in concept, not execution? The science fiction community is composed of brilliant dreamers, practical visionaries, afficianados, costumers, craftspeople...and feuds, in equal measure. And whichever "side" folks come down on at this panel, B5 or ST, it's an exercise in factionalization that achieves nothing because there IS no VS, no OR; it's B5 *and* Star Trek *and* Lost in Space *and* The Prisoner *and* Space: Above and Beyond. Because the future of science fiction is in the cross pollinization of ideas, the interbreeding -- after proper introductions dinners and flowers -- of dreams and visions and extrapolations, which in time results in the birth of new dreams, new ideas, and new visions. Absent that, the species, and the genre, dies.

Yes, it is possible to explore, compare and contrast the methods of storytelling, the effects, the structure and the acting of any two series; that is the point of the And. In Ali vs. Frasier, the Axis vs. the Allies, Truman vs. Dewey, OJ Simpson vs. an inconvenient truth, there can only be one left standing at the end. But in science fiction, we all stand together, protecting and sharing our diverse dreams, or we do not stand at all.

RE: "B5 is really X in disguise" You're all right, and you're all wrong. Is it Lord of the Rings? Dune? The Kennedy story? The saga of Camelot? The Foundation? A brief history of World War II? The Bible? All these and others have been broached to me by people absolutely sure that this was the model for the series. (And, as an aside, this kind of discussion generally happens only to TV writers; nobody here is doing a panel called "Is Startide Rising Really X in disguise?" This happens to TV writers because somehow it gets assumed that we haven't got an idea in our heads that we didn't swipe from somebody's book. But that's another topic for another time.)

Babylon 5...is a Rohrsharch test. An ink blot created by smashing actors, archetypes, saga-structure, myth and language against a sheet of paper, folding it, and bashing it a few times. When you open it up and look inside, what you see is the saga closest to your heart and your experience. Because like all the works mentioned a moment ago, B5 draws upon the same wellspring of myth, archetype, symbology, and dime store sociology that feeds all sagas, from the Illiad on through to the present.

Writers, science fiction writers in particular, are like the beggar in Alladin, who offered new lamps for old...we seize myths that have fallen out of currency and recast them in newer guise, dust them off and hope a genie emerges. Our myths, the myths of Tolkien and Homer, of Heinlein and Mallory, are eternal; they exchange one name for another, cast off one mask and assume the next. If you perceive their presence in Babylon 5, it is because we have courted the myth, not because we have echoed one of their names from another place. King Lear vanishes into Londo, Cassandra peers out from behind the eyes of G'Kar, Galahad answers to the name Ivanova, the Oracle at Delphi is now wearing an encounter suit, and Sir Bedevere is...well, that would be telling.

So you're all right. And you're all wrong. Because it's all ACTUALLY based on the 1967 Young Juveniles novel "The Mad Scientists' Club." And I'm actually channeling Eleanor Roosevelt. (Fortunately, I already have the wardrobe.) Oh, yes...and I am the walrus, coo-coo ka choo....

jms

Actually, we've already *had* ST vs. B5 in sports; our softball team has played both the DS9 and Voyager teams. We lost to Voyager and whomped the hell out of DS9.

Here's what was given to the Paramount people, as best I can recall at this time, I'd have to check the correspondence to be sure: the script for "The Gathering" pilot movie; eight to ten pieces of original conceptual artwork done by Peter Ledger helping to explain the concept and giving character sketches; the series "sell" bible which has NEVER been released to any writer, it was *only* intended as a device to help explain to studios and networks the direction and nature of the show; lengthy backgrounds on all of the characters, and descriptions for the overall direction of the series, and synopses of about 22 or so planned episodes taken from the overall course of the planned series. There was a LOT of material.

But let me clarify and reinforce something I said on CIS and elsewhere: I don't believe that either Berman or Pillar would deliberately take B5 material and use it. My *only* concern was that in the initial stages of development, which always receive a great deal of "guidance" from studio execs, that the execs who DID have the material might have "guided" them in our direction, in an attempt to co-opt what we were doing for WB/PTEN, because there's great animosity between those two studios, and out of a desire to protect their franchise and eliminate any competition by basically absorbing it.

Sometimes it does bother me, and I wonder about what the heck's going on, when I see the only other space station series doing a big arc about alien forces infiltrating earth government, and brewing civil war on Earth, at the *exact same moment* that we're doing it on our show; earlier, later, fine, but that they'd do basically the same thing at the same time feels like another attempt to co-opt what we're doing on this show. (Not copy; co-opt, which happens all the time. Remember Deepstar Six? And another underwater monster movie released about the same time? Those were both *direct* attempt to co- opt The Abyss by coming out first. It happens all the time. When Ghost was in heavy development, every studio in town was scurrying around looking for an after-life movie to put out fast...I know because I got called in and asked to come up with something by a major studio...I declined.) If you kinda know the direction someone else is going, you try to jump ahead and get there first, so that the other either loses impact, or is considered simply an imitation. (Which is one reason why DS9 was hurried through post production to get it on the air a few weeks before B5's pilot, I suspect.)

Are we being co-opted? I dunno. When I hear that there's a red headed woman character on DS9 named Leeta (prounced the same as Lyta); when I see them doing the same kind of arc we're doing but getting it out a little earlier, I will confess it does give me pause sometimes. I try to think the best under these conditions. For now, I'm asuming it's all just coincidence.

(Oh, and as for scripts vs. production times...we are generally far ahead of most shows on scripts, about 4 episodes ahead of production at any moment. So this next batch of scripts was probably written around August, at which time they're circulated over town to agents and the like as part of casting. So I find it *highly* improbable that these DS9 episodes were written in June, knowing how close to the wire they tend to run over there.)

And, really, on another level, it's clear that they weren't ripping off B5 with this two-parter...I will defend that to the death by virtue of the clear logic that they're *really* ripping of SEVEN DAYS IN MAY. As for the timing...well, we'll see.

(This is something else that happens a lot in TV; a writer will say, "Okay, let's do FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX with Jessica Fletcher in the Henry Fonda role.")

Finally, re: Jeri Taylor...here I have to disagree. Though we don't talk as often as we should, or as I'd like, in large measure I think because of the perceived awkwardness between ST and B5 right now, I consider her not only a friend, but one of the best writer/producers in town. This isn't widely known, but she was my exec producer, with David Moessinger, on JAKE AND THE FATMAN. We worked together very closely, and I found her to be an immensely talented woman, very dedicated to quality storytelling, ethical and strong willed and generous to a fault. When she and David resigned from Jake on principle, over some stuff that was happening quite unfairly to them, I quit with them, even though it was my very first real network major gig, and my agent thought I was nuts. I don't do this for everybody. I did it for Jeri and David because they are good and decent people, because I cared about them, and because they were *right*...and they're two of the best writers I know.

If there's a problem with Voyager -- and I'm not saying there is, because I haven't seen enough of it to form a valid opinion -- it's due to the situation that has always pertained to ST: they make the writers there write with mittens on, and won't let them cut loose with the kinds of stories they COULD do, for fear of doing something controversial that might hurt "The Franchise." I've said it elsewhere and will repeat it again: I know the folks they've got over there, and if Paramount ever backed off and let them do what they're *capable* of doing, they'd blow the doors off of SF television.

So long story made short...no, I don't think B&P at DS9 are sitting there cribbing B5 plotlines from the original material provided to Paramount. I think they would refuse. They are ethical individuals. Are they playing a little at co-opting us, which is kind of more accepted in town? I don't know. I think you could make a compelling argument on either side. But I don't know the truth any more than you do, and if they say not, then I'm prepared to believe them. And as for Jeri, anybody here goes after her, has to go through me first.

jms

Since the universe is curved, there cannot be any truly straight answers.

jms

[Okay, so it's not strictly about writing, but it's a great line. -JK]

You just have to brace yourself for the work, and burn through it by being somewhat monomanaical and obsessive. It takes a toll, but in the end, it is or should be worth it, otherwise why do it?

I've gotten used to handling work and deadlines, so it really doesn't bother me too much, unless I'm really under the gun. Thus far, I've written something like 170 *produced* TV scripts, maybe a bit more, and by the end of this season will have written 49 B5 scripts. This season, in writing 22 episodes, not counting first drafts and revisions which would double the figure easily, I'll have written about 1,000 pages in less than 10 months. That's two full-sized novels.

I try not to think about that too much....

jms