Process #6: Jargon
Where a lot goes nowhere at all
There is no actual stage in the process of screenwriting called Jargon. It’s not like you deliver a draft of a script and suddenly you’re at the Jargon phase. No, jargon is a constant. You will face jargon and have to deal with it at every step along the way.
That doesn’t mean you have to like it.
Or that may turn out to be just me.
There are two main categories of jargon you will encounter as you follow the bouncing ball from idea to production. One is the sort of jargon you will get from network types, where they will use words like “demographics” and “eyeballs” when they talk about “people”. I was in a meeting once where someone used the term “granularity” to describe the different sorts of people who watch the same TV show.
As fun as it is to poke fun at this sort of jargon, it’s not what I want to talk about here and now. Here and now the jargon we’re dealing with is script jargon. This is where we talk of “story arcs” and drop words like “journey” into the mix. This is where what you write is defined by a series of buzzwords that we’re all meant to understand and take on board as if jargon were our mother tongue.
When we were storylining Outrageous Fortune we had a swear jar. Not for actual swearing, thank God, because that would have bankrupted everyone. No, our swear jar was for using script jargon. If you used a word or a phrase that might have been culled from a book by McKee or about saving cats, you put money in the jar. From memory “inciting incident” was an automatic $2 fine. At the end of storylining a season of OF we would use the money in the jar to go to lunch. One year this paid for four people to go to The Grove.
I’d like to think we did this in order to free up our minds. To keep us grounded in the real world. To force us to think of new ways to solve old script problems.
But in truth I can’t remember why we did it. Some of us were probably scarred by network people who used too much jargon as they crushed our dreams and aspirations. There was probably an element of trying to entertain ourselves over the weeks and years we were housed in The Bunker, churning out episodes. Over time, the thought of a nice lunch at the end of everything was definitely a driving factor.
And if the absolute truth is to be known, over time we just invented our own version of script jargon. So “stakes” became the much more egalitarian “patties”. We replaced the word “jeopardy” with the name of a script executive who loved using the word jeopardy. In part this was driven by time and necessity, and in part it was driven by economics, to avoid using a fine-paying word. It must also be said that there were plenty of times when we went “fuck it” and paid the fine in advance because we couldn’t think of a better way to phrase things.
So there is definitely a valid place in this process for jargon. Be it from a book by Christopher Vogler or created by some writers in a concrete block room in Herne Bay to stop themselves going crazy, it is good to have some kind of universal shorthand you can use to check you are all on the same page, so to speak.
The problem I have is when I am confronted by big slabs of script jargon, all at the same time.
One day I was in a room full of writers. I can’t remember why we were there or what we were doing, but there we were, doing whatever it was. The aforementioned script executive who loved using the word “jeopardy” was also there. At some stage he started talking. I think we were being told off about something we had failed to achieve. What came out of his mouth was an uninterrupted stream of jargon. It went on and on and on. Full script jargon, full steam ahead.
Then he made the mistake of finishing with an assumption.
“You know what I mean.”
It wasn’t even phrased as a question.
“You know what I mean.”
There was a silence, until the bravest writer in the room spoke up.
“No,” she said.
Even after all these years in this business, when I am confronted with a wall of script jargon I still get massively confused. My first reaction is inevitably: “why can’t you just say what you want to say in plain English?”
My second reaction, increasingly and unfortunately, is much less charitable. I think the jargon-wielding person is faking it. They know enough of the right words to sound like they are all over everything, but behind these words lurks nothing. No heart. No soul. Is that what you’re trying to hide? That you are creatively empty.
Full confession. I have started to read and failed to finish both the McKee and Vogler books. I went to a Robert McKee seminar once and while it was kind of cool to have someone put names to the things I do instinctively as a writer, my major takeaway from it was when the wonderful Caterina de Nave had the audacity to question what Bob was saying. Hint: at a McKee seminar you are there to listen, not to discuss.
Yes, like every industry the scriptwriting business will generate its own vernacular. And yes, it can be useful to have widely understood concepts to fall back on when you are attempting to analyse and improve what you are creating. But seriously, why not first up, trying to express things in real world terms? Because at the end of the day everything we do create comes from and will eventually (hopefully) exist in that world, so can we please just use that world as our linguistic frame of reference?
When I write I have the characters whispering in one ear, telling me what they want to do. And I have the audience whispering in the other ear, telling me what they need to know and what might spin their wheels enough to keep them watching. And that is more than enough voices in my head for me to be going on with, without some intruder spouting jargon-laden gibberish as well.
Jargon: where less is more than enough.
(And don’t even get me started on the complete crock that is the so-called “three act structure.”)
“One year this paid for four people to go to The Grove.” hahahaha