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Author:
Georgia Jeffries
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GEORGIA JEFFRIES is an award-winning writer-producer whose scripts have contributed to the cutting edge of television drama. As a showrunner on the critically acclaimed series, “China Beach”, “Sisters”, and “Cagney & Lacey”, she earned multiple Emmy nominations, two Writers Guild Awards, the Humanitas Prize, the Inter-Guild Merit Award and the National Commission for Working Women Award. She has also written numerous pilots for ABC, CBS, NBC and Showtime...
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...Her work in cable films includes the original HBO dramas “The Good Soldier” and “Iron Jawed Angels” as well as adaptations of the Bebe Moore Campbell novel, Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine for Showtime and Dr. Frances Conley’s best selling memoir, Walking Out on the Boys for Lifetime. She was the executive producer/writer of “My Husband’s Secret Life” for USA and “For Love and Glory” for CBS.
Her first feature screenplay, “Nobody’s Fool”, won the Gold Award at the Houston Film Festival and she later wrote “Confessions” for Universal and Jessica Lange’s Prairie Films before focusing on a career in television.
Most recently, Ms. Jeffries completed a screenplay based on her novel, HARD GRACE, which was inspired by the 1983 mystery behind Los Angeles’ “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” murder case.
She holds the tenured position of Associate Professor of Screenwriting at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and is also a Contributing Editor for Written By magazine. She has served as Vice-President of the Board of Trustees of the Writers Guild Foundation and Executive Vice-President of PEN USA West.
A native of Peoria, Illinois, Ms. Jeffries graduated cum laude from UCLA and began her career as a journalist for American Film magazine. Her essay, “The First Time They Told Me I Write Like a Man”, was published in The First Time: Tales from the Hollywood Trenches (Harper-Collins). Her commentary is also featured in Women Who Run the Show (St. Martin’s Press) and Writing the TV Drama Series (Michael Wiese Productions).
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WRITING; KEEP YOUR EGO HUMBLE BUT YOUR ART AUDACIOUS“There is first the literature of knowledge, and secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is—to teach; the function of the second is—to move.”
— Dequincey
Essays on the Poets: Pope
Great books. Beloved verse. Compelling plays. Allow me to add one other art form to the literary canon of our imagination. The screenplay. That bastard child too often dismissed in the rush to embrace an auteur theory that glorifies the delivering midwife instead of the living, breathing, wailing life form itself: the story.
Like those highly esteemed works of prose and poetry, the most ambitious film and television writing seeks to make sense of life as we know it. It explores and edifies every facet of human relationship, including the prejudices of gender and race, class and religion, age and youth. This is a demanding canvas on which to create but also one replete with infinite possibility. All of us who communicate for a living are messengers of one sort or another. The vital question – the one I believe we are duty-bound to ask – is this one: what messages are we sending?
When I began teaching at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, I discovered that the mantle of teaching, like the labor of writing, is a heavy responsibility indeed. Not only must we master characterization, structure, cinematic vision and a sharp ear for authentic dialogue, we must then translate our process into method. Beyond substance, style, and dedication to excellence, there is something even more crucial for us to understand: the writer's intent.
"What kind of story is it that you want to tell?" I ask my each of my students. But as a professor I must discern something more, something so subtle that it is often lost in translation. What is the story each one needs to tell? In the beginning they never know. And neither do I. Only through trial and error and months of listening does The-Story-That-Must-Be-Told-Now emerge. It can be a painfully delicate process. It is also a joy to behold...like watching a baby butterfly climb out of its chrysalis.
Just as we are identified by the company we keep, so too is the writer revealed by the stories she creates. In between discussions of character arcs, inciting incidents and second act obstacles, I bring students back to the motivation underlying the process. Is your desire to entertain or enlighten? Provoke and outrage? Confound...unsettle...titillate? All of the above? What are the feelings you want your audience to take away from your work? What is the message you're sending?
The beauty of the creative process, of course, is that the unconscious must be made conscious. Virginia Woolf wrote that the reader co-creates the story with the author. Yes, we all bring our subjective experience to any artistic endeavor. But the clearer that the creator is about what he stands for, the more likely the arrow will hit its target.
Still, creating craft – much less art – in a bottom line business can be a daunting task. Take your work seriously, I advise, but not yourselves. This is an important distinction. For all of us who toil in the cauldron of commerce and illusion that is Hollywood, developing a sense of balance is an essential survival skill. Any successful television and film writer needs to acquire a certain self-mastery to withstand the constant rejection in our competitive industry. Often, despite sincere efforts and high-minded intentions, we fail.
But if we are committed to mirroring humanity in both its darkness and light, we can begin again. The act of writing is a magical thing. It possesses the power, for a moment in time at least, to sweep away whatever came before. Rejection, resilience, resurrection. These are the three R's that are the essence of a writer's career in the entertainment industry.
In order to prepare my students, I tell them about my own exacting journey in the "screenwriting trade" which, like that of many others, has been a roller coaster ride of heady triumphs and frustrating lows. My first feature script won the Gold Award for outstanding screenplay at the Houston Film Festival. My first produced television script won a Writer's Guild Award. My first year as writer-producer of an acclaimed drama series garnered two Emmy nominations and a Humanitas Prize. But what actually led to my "overnight" success were years of preparation and struggle.
In retrospect there was one key component to the story content of those first successes. Each script wrestled with some element of personal loss. Losing, of course, is tantamount to living. What one does to carry on is the stuff of comedy and tragedy since the plays of Euripides. Because no matter what the privileges of birth, intelligence or talent, each one of us will face the ultimate loss – our own death – in the end. All those little losses – the former best friend, the house at the beach, an honorable reputation, a dishonorable lover, even the defeat for the class presidency in ninth grade – are warm-ups for the final act.
That is why I ask my MFA thesis students to write epitaphs for their protagonists, epitaphs that will never be used in their respective scripts. I do this because I want them to consider their characters' full journey beyond the 110 pages of the current semester's screenplay. Only then can these young writers develop a more visionary perspective, richer in breadth and depth.
We also spend many hours talking about whether or not redemption is possible before the end of that journey. I find redemption is not an easy concept for them to understand. To one student, it meant "redeeming" coupons and getting fifty cents off a bottle of marinara sauce at Ralph's. Spend $2.98 and get fifty cents back. Makes sense. It's not something for nothing, but something for something at least. Not necessarily quid pro quo but something. We spend a lot in life – time, energy, tears, laughter – and once in a while we receive a return on what we have squandered or lost or given away. Could be fifty cents. Or it could be a new family dog. Or a life-changing insight. Or the courage to face one more day. In a rare moment of grace, that something may even be a greater gift than what was surrendered.
Creating a story is a good deal like growing up, I tell my students. There are a number of false starts, embarrassing moments, infatuations with bad characters and impulsive, wrongheaded choices. In order to navigate such rocky shoals I suggest the following guidelines:
If you want to create three dimensional characters, climb out of your safe, two dimensional box.
Write what you know and then, after you're on solid ground, expand the playing field. Include a fusion of opposites. If you're male, write female, Female, male. If you're white, write black. Young, write old, etc. Yes, that requires risk and footwork.
When I stepped out of my comfortable suburban home to ride shotgun with an LAPD sergeant patrolling the mean streets of Rampart Division... crash a bounty hunters' convention in Las Vegas... break bread with a fundamentalist Christian family in a Minnesota mining town...and march down an Alabama country road with a regiment of Army recruits, I expanded my mind and my writer's repertoire. First hand research not only contributes to the creator's command of verisimilitude, it also awakens understanding and fosters compassion for our common humanity. Only the specific can lead us to the universal. One of the most memorable characters I've written was inspired by a fourteen year old black boy who was murdered in Mississippi shortly after I was born. That young man opened my eyes wider, and I thank him still.
Writing diverse voices is not enough. Diversify your talent in the marketplace as well.
That means changing horses and learning to write episodic and feature, comedy and drama. This is how the astute professional writer stretches not only his ability but also his opportunities.
In the first couple years of my career I considered myself strictly a feature and television long-form writer until a colleague suggested that I submit my award-winning independent screenplay as a sample to "Cagney & Lacey'. I was invited to pitch story ideas for the show then, after I delivered my first episodic assignment, I was rewarded with a staff position. This golden opportunity provided invaluable education on a groundbreaking drama with unique character voices that merged seamlessly with my own.
Series television is a crucible of daily performance anxiety and insatiable production demands. In any given week I juggled scripts in pre-production, production and post-production while honing my craft in an intimidating writer's room of veteran show runners. I learned that filmmaking is a partnership of energies and that collaboration need not be viewed as compromise. Keep your ego humble but your art audacious. Yes, paradox can be our friend.
In the throes of wrestling with your muse, be honest and brave in your choices even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.
Several years ago one of my children was diagnosed with a serious illness. My days were devoted to chasing unavailable doctors and battling hospital bureaucracy. During that trying time, when I was too overwhelmed to do any original work, two unsolicited assignments came my way. The first was an HBO rewrite about the last days of the suffragettes' long intrepid fight to win the vote for women. The second was a Lifetime movie about a young boy diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor and the Herculean lengths (including challenging the FDA in a precedent-setting court case) which his family undertook to make him well again.
Both chronicled archetypal David and Goliath journeys from powerlessness to faith to action and, finally, yes, a kind of redemption. They were stories I needed to tell. The message for me – and for every reader of those scripts – is that we are not alone in our struggles. That is why I encourage my students to remember the wise Chinese proverb – "may you have a thousand turmoils in your life" – and examine the abundance of their own personal "story material".
When I was supervising producer on "China Beach", the show received many letters from Viet Nam vets who voiced a wide range of responses, most positive, some not, to the show. One three page letter in particular I still keep in my files. It had been mailed the morning after the airing of the previous week's episode which I had written. The viewer, a former infantryman who served three tours of duty in-country, had watched the series since the very first show. He didn't like the Hollywood wardrobes and lush sets but gave us credit for creating stories that were slowly becoming more accurate in reflecting the real cost of war. And then he confided that he had been unable to cry since his return from Viet Nam twenty years before. That changed after he watched my episode.
He wrote: "I cried last night and I slept. Things that most people take for granted....Thank you." He said that he hoped we could capture more of the truth of his war but understood why we might not: "...The truth is a two-edged sword. And messengers are generally killed. If it happens, I'll mourn your death, honor your memory and sharpen your sword..."
The messenger has always been at risk of being "killed". Silenced for delivering what others find inconvenient, inflammatory, or just too damned uncomfortable to hear – whether by king, critic, development executive, focus group or blogger. God forbid that we should strike an unpopular note offending whatever power or "brand" might be. Well, that's always been the bad news that writers must confront. The good news is that we still live in a democracy and work in an industry where we have relatively free speech.
But what if we fall into the path of least resistance and stop using our voices? Perhaps we're tired or frustrated or simply afraid we won't be heard so why bother? That very silence is the real enemy that will kill us in the end, surer and faster than any corporate suit or self-appointed censor.
Yes, we do have a responsibility as screenwriters – to ourselves and to our audience. I challenge any cynical assumption that our work is "just a TV show" or "only a movie". The literature of film and television is how contemporary society communicates...thinks...feels...perhaps even heals. Screenwriters are twenty first century mythmakers and whatever messages we send will leave their mark for generations of DVDs, mobisodes and new media to come.
The question is: what kind of mark do we want to leave?
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