Interview With Lee Goldberg — Part 2
by Lorie Ham
Here we are again with Lee Goldberg, writer for the Monk TV show and books. This half focuses a little more on his TV work. Grab a mocha and enjoy part two.
Café:
How long have you been writing for TV and what came first — novels or TV?
Lee:
I started by writing books. I got into screenwriting when my first novel, .357 Vigilante, was optioned for the movies by New World Pictures. Later, William Rabkin and I got in to TV by writing a spec episode of Spenser For Hire which, against all odds, they bought and shot ... and then hired us to write three more episodes. We’ve been writing for TV ever since.
Café:
How fun — I loved Spenser! What do you like best and which is harder — writing novels or TV?
Lee:
They are entirely different experiences. Television is very much a group effort and what you are writing is a blueprint that lots of other people are going to use as the basis for their creative work, whether it’s the actor, the director, the production designer. And when you write a script it’s not locked in stone. It’s going to change. It’s going to change because everybody has notes. It’s going to change because production concerns force rewrites. It’s going to change because of actors and directors. It’s in fluid motion all the time.
A book is entirely my own and unaffected by production concerns or actors. I’m the actors, the director, the production designer ... it’s entirely mine. It’s not a blueprint. It is the finished product and it won’t change much once I am done with it. It’s not a group effort — I plot it myself and I write it by myself. It’s entirely in my head and I live it for months.
Creatively speaking, there’s a big difference between writing prose and writing a script. In a book, you are seducing the reader. You are bringing them into your imagination and holding them there for as long as they’re reading the book. You construct everything. You construct the sets, the wardrobe, the world. You’re God. You can even read a character’s thoughts. In a script, everything that happens and everything the characters do has to be revealed through action and dialogue.
In a script, you could introduce a scene like this:
INT– RESTAURANT– DAY
It’s a cheap Chinese restaurant with very few customers.
There’s an aquarium with live lobsters, fish, etc. in the window.
Monk is disgusted by what he sees...
But in a book, you have to describe the restaurant in detail. You have to tell us everything that’s going on. You have to set the scene for the reader. It’s an entirely different skill. That’s why some novelists are terrible screen writers and why some screen writers can’t write a book. They can’t jump back and forth.
The only thing that TV and books have in common is that both are mediums for sharing stories ...in books, you tell stories, in TV you show them. That simple distinction is a difficult one for many writers to overcome when moving into one field from the other.
If books paid me as well as screenwriting, I might stick with books only because I could do it all at home and not have to answer to a lot of other people. On the other hand, I love being in a writers room plotting with a dozen other writers on an episodic TV series ... it is so much fun.
Café:
What TV shows have you written for?
Lee:
So many. Spenser For Hire, Baywatch, Nero Wolfe, SeaQuest, Hunter, Missing, Monk and Diagnosis Murder, to name a few.
Café:
Wow, I’ve seem all of those and enjoyed almost all (lol — not a big Baywatch fan). Any fun stories you would like to share about working on your current TV show Monk?
Lee:
After I wrote the book Mr. Monk Goes To The Firehouse, I got a call from Andy Breckman, the creator and executive producer of the show. He loved the book ... in fact, he thought it would make a great episode of the show.
"It almost writes itself," he said, mainly because it was, well, already written.
I immediately called Bill, my screenwriting partner, and told him the good news. He was thrilled. We both were. And why shouldn't we be? We'd have another chance to hang out with the fiendishly clever Monk writing staff and it would be the easiest script to write ever — mainly because it was, well, already written.
A few days before we were supposed to go in and start working with the staff, I got another call from Andy, who was very excited. He'd been noodling with some ideas for the Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse episode. He wanted to make one tiny change in the story.
"What if Monk is blind?" he said.
I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. I said “But that will change everything!”
“Why?” Andy asked.
“Because,” I said. “He's BLIND!”
Which is why the TV version of Mr. Monk Goes to the Firehouse was ultimately called ... Mr. Monk Can't See A Thing.
It was great fun to write, of course. When we turned in our script, I couldn't help thinking that it would have made a hell of a good book.
Café:
Future goals?
Lee:
I have a contract for three more Monk novels, so that should keep me busy. I’ve also written a movie adaptation of Victor Gischler’s book Gun Monkeys, which is now being packaged by CAA.
Café:
Sounds like you will be keeping busy.
Any advice for aspiring screenwriters?
Lee:
I get asked this question a lot. Everybody’s story of breaking in is unique. Most of those stories, however, share one common element. You have to put yourself in the right place to get your lucky break. And it’s easier than you think.
The first thing you have to do is learn your craft. Take classes, preferably taught by people who have had some success as TV writers. There’s no point taking a class from someone who isn’t an experienced TV writer.
You’d think that would be common sense, but you’d be astonished how many TV courses are taught by people who don’t know the first thing about writing for television. Even more surprising is how many desperate people shell out money to take courses from instructors who should be taking TV writing courses themselves.
There’s another reason to take a TV writing course besides learning the basics of the craft. If you’re the least bit likeable, you’ll make a few friends among the other classmates. This is good, because you’ll have other people you can show your work to. This is also good because somebody in the class may sell his or her first script before you do ... and suddenly you’ll have a friend in the business.
Many of my writer/producer friends today are writers I knew back when I was in college, when we were all dreaming of breaking into TV some day.
A writer we hired on staff on the first season of Missing was in a Santa Monica screenwriters group ... and was the first member of her class to get a paying writing gig. Now her friends in the class suddenly had a friend on a network TV show who could share her knowledge, give them practical advice and even recommend them to her new agent and the writer/producers she was working with.
Another route is to try and get a job as a writer/producer’s assistant on an hour-long drama. Not only will you get a meager salary, but you will see how a show works from the inside. You’ll read lots of scripts and revisions and, simply by observation, get a graduate course in TV writing. More important, you’ll establish relationships with the writers on the show and the freelancers who come through the door. Many of today’s top TV producers were writer/producer assistants once. All of the assistants we’ve had have gone on to become working TV writers themselves ... and not because we gave them a script assignment or recommended them for one. We didn’t do either.
But the one thing you simply have to do is write a spec episodic teleplay. There are lots of books out there — including mine — that will tell you how to do that.
Café:
Great advice. I happen to have your book, by the way.
Well that’s it for this one. If you missed part one of our interview with Lee Goldberg be sure and check it out — it’s awesome!
Happy reading and good coffee!
©2009 Lorie Ham. All rights reserved.
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