Parcel Recovery
(Original TV Pilot) - Procedural - Merry joins the investigative team of a local UPS/FedEx competitor. If a package is reported missing, these are the people who Find it. When her annoyingly overzealous 'Partner', Gil, assigns her seasons 1-7 of Law and Order SVU as training materials she realizes she's made a mistake. He's not so keen on a New partner either, but he does need a ride around town.
Notes to self
Every good story Must Have
-
Beginning
-
Middle
-
End
-
Character
-
Wants something
-
Something gets in the way
-
They do something about it
Sacred
any situation where there is a set of expected behavior
I.E. There's two dogs but only one Big tasty treat
Profane
anything that is inappropriate for that situation
I.E. The dogs are being very civil about it
Premise
two dogs have one tasty treat in front of them.
Escalation
Dog 1 calmly brings up that dog 2 usually gets more food
Escalation 2
Dog 2 references a ledger they've kept proving it was balanced out
Escalation 3
the cat rules in favor of Dog 1 and adjourns Bathroom Sink Court
Twist
The dogs return to find The owner putting the treat away "I guess you guys weren't hungry"
Comedic irony
In trying to do one thing, our character achieves the exact opposite
I.E. All the time spent debating over who should get the Treat caused neither of them to get the treat
It's 2003. "Just two consecutive sentences" The ADD specialist softly repeats for the 7th time. Divine inspiration - I scribble down, "First I get the toothbrush." Perfect... halfway there.
8-year-old Zack, who could easily explain to you all the steps necessary when brushing your teeth in excrutiating detail with hundreds of consecutive (though tangential) sentences, spends the following hour agonizing over the prospect of writing the next one down.
Flash to ten years later, and I'm sweating. The house is filling up, people are crowding around the periphery of the stage. Full house, still piling in. It's the final performance of my first fully produced play, The Window Guy. (Okay, maybe the house only sat 60, but it still tastes like celebrity)
As a kid picked on by bullies, I often found myself caught without anything to say in response, and in a world of comebacks and burns, monarchs were crowned by the quickness of their tongues.
I spent entire afternoons devoted to what I should've said. If Alex ever calls me a ****** as I get on the bus again, he'll be sorry.
I think for me, writing dialogue came from that devotion. It was a dire struggle to be socially ready. When I started writing scripts, It felt familiar, I'd already obsessed over the way people spoke. I found myself getting lost in the dialogue, finding comfort in preparing a whole world where I could spare a moment to figure out what to say.
