Did you know you can get hired to write fanfiction? Well, to work on TV shows, but same thing.
I did a lot of note-reading, book-reviewing, and homework today, and near the end of it (probably as my focus was drifting towards the fact that the promised "Fairly OddParents" episode never aired tonight) I randomly had the idea to Google "How does one get to write for a cartoon?" Dad kind of brought the concept up when I went home this weekend, but I'd brushed it off in the same way I'd brushed off Demetria's suggestions that I try turning one of my ideas into a graphic novel- it just didn't seem like my lump of sugar.
Curiously enough, it looks like most show writers get picked up for writing fanfiction (well, "specs" or "speculation scripts"). Hey, I can totally do that! Specs are episode scripts, usually about a show that's currently running (it looks like you're better off not messing with those that have gone into retirement). How very interesting.
I'm not 100% sold on the idea of the wonderful world of Hollywood yet, and I always like to do more research before setting my heart on anything, but I got slammed in the chest with a bunch of warm fuzzies from the moment I started reading through the How-To sites to the moment I pulled myself away to write this post, so I'll keep it tucked in the back of my mind.
Protagonist For Hire might be an idea I want to keep as a good ol' fashioned novel, and I wouldn't dare slide in my superhero story Silverfish into the fray right now with "Avengers" and "Suicide Squad" and "Miraculous Ladybug" running wild, and Carrie and Franny's story about a selfish protagonist and a repeating day (How to Tell a Lie) is currently out of the running thanks to "Looped", but I wonder if there's any potential in pitching the tentatively-nicknamed Stars and Finches to Cartoon Network or Nick or Disney XD one day? After all, I have a world built and characters designed, but I am struggling with finalizing a plot for a single story. Maybe I could look at it from a new angle and think up "stand-alone episodes" about (cough well deserved cough) magical sexism and less-deserved magical animal racism problems.
I think I'd actually be more interested in exploring the economies, trade routes, ongoing wars, and tentative alliances I've put together in the background of my current draft than in what's supposed to be happening in the foreground. But, that's why one of my protagonists is an ambassador in training in the first place! Half-elf with all of the weaknesses, none of the strengths, and a horrible accent on top of trying to pierce the language barrier of a tourist trap country full of skeptics who are iffy about trusting him and his people? I can work with that.
This is a guy who's coming from a third-world country and will do anything to avoid getting sent back. He's enjoying clean water and year-round warm weather way too much. Maybe he has potential in a cartoon after all. Imagine all the tiny culture difference details I can slip in, like the fact that in his home country, everyone shares plates at meal times and eats from any one of them. And food poisoning problems. And breaking into hives after coming into contact with magical items. And trying not to touch any girls because they could potentially steal his soul if he did. Ooh, and holiday episodes! They practically write themselves.
Really, is there any scene more fun to write than important figureheads arguing around the dinner table and trying to ignore the fact that one of them is a deer who can't use silverware and is obsessed with being a "martyr" about it? Or the fact that there is only one embassy in the host country and so the entire building is divided up into sections that are technically the territories of other countries, leaving all the ambassadors to hopscotch their way down the hall without stepping into the wrong places uninvited and starting random wars?
Maybe I could promote Ethel to a position where she does a lot of travelling around this fantasy world, too... Then, she's got all her issues about Weber's Law of Just Noticeable Differences and being so overloaded on magic that her detection thresholds are all messed up and she can't tell the difference between the feel of lukewarm water, boiling temperature, and freezing.
And there's always the option to fall back on another concept of mine about Riddle and Kima attending magical glowy college to learn how to be story-skipping personifications of authors despite one being so obsessed with mimicking his host that he's forgotten his original personality and the other breaking character every five minutes because she can't maintain a straight face or unkind attitude no matter how much they pay her... Chasing the well-meaning and technically dead runaway who "Nope"d out of Heaven and stole the golden quill pen that can rewrite history in any of "Mom"'s story universes, yes...
That one would work a lot better as a show than a book. Which is great, since I wasn't intending to pursue it, ever. Maybe I'll have to think about this.
Apparently, original pilot scripts are selling a lot better than they used to these days, and agents would much rather read them than a spec from a show they've read a hundred times before. I'll have to give it more thought, but I guess I'd better keep my ears pricked for networking opportunities. I do not think my psychology major will be hurting me here.
