Mediocrity

So after a long day of reading other people's stories, when I crash in front of the TV with the wife at night (Okay, we play backgammon. A lot.) I like to have something on that's not going to be just another story.

So a lot of the time we watch reality shows. Recently, that means American Idol, and America's Got Talent, and the one with the inventions, and the one with people imitating famous people, and the one with the stand-up comics. Etc, etc etc.

All of these shows start out the same. Eight zillion people with nothing better to do line up for hours for a chance to make it onto this TV show. And so the first 4-5 episodes are just made up of these auditions.

There are those who are pretty good. Those who are almost good. And those who are god-awful.

And that's pretty much it. Because the networks know what people want to see -- they want to see the good, and the bad. They don't care about the mediocre.

But the problem is that that's what the bulk of the people are. There's this huge hidden world of mediocrity out there, that ironically is feeding itself -- people who watch American Idol, and only see terrible singers and fairly good singers, can lie to themselves and say "Well, since I'm not terrible, I must be good enough to go on this show."

No, you're just probably just mediocre. You won't make it past the producers who screen the acts before they even get to Simon and Paula. Stay home.

But I realize that generally I have the opposite problem. Because I'm reading for mid-range companies, I'm generally not seeing the great scripts (because they get snapped up by other, better companies before they get down to this level) and I'm not seeing the truly awful scripts, because most of the scripts are coming from producers or agents, who usually know better (which isn't to say that the occasional fly-encrusted script doesn't slip through).

I'm in a world of mediocrity.

So people ask me about the great scripts I've read, or how I must read a lot of crap, and I just sort of have to shrug, because I don't have a lot of good anecdotes about this. Mediocrity is boring, a fact that TV does its best to try and hide from you, because mediocrity is death on TV.
That's what's killing the current "On the Lot". If they showed you five short films each week, and three were great and two were train wrecks, more people would watch. Instead, we get a few highs and lows, but most of it is just... mediocre.

Mediocre has its variations, of course. I've read a lot of scripts recently that are fairly solid for what they are. But it's rare that I've read a script that really made me envious that I hadn't written it.

I guess the point of this for writers is not to lose sight of this. At the beginning of your career, it's about lifting yourself up out of the ranks of the clueless and into the traffic jam that is mediocrity. It's a journey that everyone makes.

But then mediocrity isn't nearly good enough -- you have to rise above. Something that so few scripts -- or writers -- ever do.