Writing Analysis- (Spoiler Alert)
3 Writing Lessons from ‘The L Word: Generation Q’
Tying opening scenes to the climax, introducing character motivations, and reviving old characters
The L Word: Generation Q (L Word Gen Q) finally premiered its second season last week on Friday August 6th. My wife and I re-watched it three times between us, squealing at the screen and shouting at the characters. I paused halfway through to pick up my notebook and figure out what was working and what wasn’t.
Overall, L Word Gen Q had a major flaw in how it set up its opening scene and climax, but it demonstrated efficient character work and a brilliant character save.
Here are 3 writing lessons from the season's premiere of L Word Gen Q.
- Leave opening scenes on the upswing and pick them back up on the upswing
- Introduce character motivations with bold, quick brushstrokes
- Revive characters by making them solve new problems: a case study with Gigi
1. Leave opening scenes on the upswing and pick them back up on the upswing
Halfway through, I paused the show and turned to my wife. “Why does it feel so lackluster?” We’d reached the opening scene of the show: Sophie walking into her wedding rehearsal dinner. The show then jumped back to the beginning of the day. I had wondered if the episode or even the entire season would build up to the beginning, but instead we found ourselves at the wedding rehearsal halfway through the first episode — and I found myself barely interested.
Why was that?
Stories should start in the middle of a scene so the reader has an immediate sense of immersion. It might be tempting to start with the inciting incident (Harry Potter receives owl mail), but we need enough backstory to get there (a boy named Harry lives with extended family, the Dursleys) and to set the backdrop of the story (the Dursleys horribly mistreat Harry, making his journey to Hogwarts even more exciting).
Some stories build backstory as they go. A man wakes up blindfolded and kidnapped in the back of a moving car (Lexicon, Max Barry). Without using flashbacks (that we know of ), Barry reveals how in the hell Wil Jamieson ended up being the target of a mysterious criminal network — as Wil escapes. Every step forward unlocks new intel.
But that type of storytelling works best in action/thriller/spy movies (e.g. Bourne Identity, Tenet) because of their fast-paced, on-the-run nature.
Better suited to lesbian dramadies is the opening tidbit — and L Word: Gen Q could have tightened theirs.
The opening tidbit
A common tool to both hit the ground running and build enough backstory is what I call the opening tidbit followed by a coda: start the story in the middle of a key, dynamic scene, then cut back to the beginning of the story (chronologically) and explain how you got there. The opening tidbit should be just long enough to set the tone and promise(s) for the rest of the story.
Some examples:
- A young man washes up ashore; the old man who captured him recounts an old memory (Inception, Christopher Nolan). The movie cuts directly to the memory, where both men — now younger — sit across from each other at the same table, same lantern-lit, rice paper room.
- A family crosses GW Bridge on their way out of town (Lost Children Archive, Valeria Luiselli). The next entry in the “archive” of the book rewinds to show us how the family came to be (“Family Lexicon”), the parents’ jobs, and how they ended up going on this trip out West to capture phantom howls of the last Apaches.
The opening tidbit sets a promise: we’ll return to this later.
In order for this to work, we have returned to the scene at an uptick in the story. In Inception, I’m sure I’m not the only one who got chills when I realized the opening scene was in fact Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) going back to rescue Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe). The reason it was so effective was that up until that point, the movie had been ramming into plot point after plot point like a juggernaut: we’d already seen whether Dom could let go of his major foil, the phantom of his beloved wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard); we’d already chased the bandits down layer after layer of dreams to see if they could pull off the ultimate, business-busting mind heist.
There was just one question left as the van nosedived into the water: Could Saito and Cobb make it out before the dream was broken, or would they spiral in limbo forever?
Returning to the opening scene solved that question.
What L Word should have done: fasten the opening tidbit to its coda
Anyone who’s watched the last season knows the main question is: Will Sophie tell her fiancée, Dani, that she slept with her (Sophie’s) best friend, Finn? Will she have the courage to do so before they get married?
We follow Sophie into her rehearsal dinner to an ecstatic Dani. Dani’s father gives a toast, finally warmed up to his future daughter-in-law. Sophie is clearly uncomfortable, but — the scene just cuts away, jumping to 15 hours earlier.
There isn’t enough of Sophie’s internal struggle beyond facial expressions. The camera takes too much of a distant, external view, and there isn’t a clear marker (like even an eyebrow raise) to prompt us into the flashback.
Instead of revealing that cheating is a deal breaker for Dani during the coda of the opening scene, after Sophie has already listened to the toast, we should have gotten that information much sooner.
The director could have taken the anxious sounds (high-pitched ringing, heart beating, hard breathing) and camera angles (swirling, coming in and out of focus) of the same scene later on and added just a bit of that to taper out of the opening tidbit, cluing us into what Sophie is feeling. At the very least, the scene should’ve ended with a close-up of Sophie. This would have made the promise (How is Sophie going to resolve this?) much more dramatic and obvious (Oh shit, has Sophie not told her yet? She must be freaking out.).
I understood logically that Sophie confronting Dani was the climax, but when we returned to the rehearsal dinner halfway through the show, I didn’t feel any stakes — because the writers hadn’t built them up properly.
The show did a great job of re-introducing all the characters and their plot lines. But if the promise and climax of this episode rested on Sophie and Dani, then Sophie and Dani should have been highlighted throughout.
Instead of having Sophie confess her struggle to her boss, Alice, at the 20-minute mark and then jumping straight into the rehearsal dinner scene, we should have seen Sophie confess earlier in the show — like at the beginning, on the morning of her rehearsal dinner. Then, when Alice met with Bette and Shane to catch up, she could have let it slip. She was struggling to advise someone on what to do, and maybe Bette and Shane could have skin in the game.
Instead of revealing that cheating is a deal breaker for Dani during the coda of the opening scene, after Sophie has already listened to the toast, we should have gotten that information much sooner. Maybe instead of receiving a text from Dani asking for help with wedding seating arrangements, Micah should have received an SOS from Sophie, cluing us in to how much Sophie is struggling to (not) tell Dani. This would up the stakes of Sophie’s dilemma and get us more invested.
2. Introduce character motivations with bold, quick brushstrokes
It’s hard to strike a balance between making your character’s intentions clear and not being too on-the-nose. You want the viewer/reader to understand what drives a character without insulting their intelligence by spoonfeeding them.
To borrow language from the tattoo reality competition show Inkmaster, this season premiere of L Word Gen Q got in there, made bold, one-take lines, and got out. Within the first minute of seeing them, we know what each character wants.
Micah wants to help out with his friends’ wedding — but is distracted by love problems of his own. The first time we see him this season, he’s hurriedly pulling on his clothes while staring at a SOS text from Dani. He’s clearly just slept with his ex, who saunters half-naked out of the bathroom. Still, Micah asks for distance until his ex finalizes his divorce, then scurries out of the room to help Dani with seating plans.
Carey, brilliantly portrayed by Rosie O’Donnell, wants to be respected — as a loser. She barges into Bette’s kitchen, breathlessly apologizing for nicking her mail but offering to touch it up on the spot. She brings baked goods from a bakery she’s never tried to her first meeting with her fiancée’s ex-wife, and she has no qualms (why would she?) admitting that she cashed in a deal from Groupon to buy them, or that she has no idea what the goods are.
Angie just wants her moms to be happy — but wants to know more about herself. She admits it feels weird to meet Carey’s (her new mom’s) family before meeting her biological father, but is quick to stifle her wants when her moms hesitate.
A typical teenage daughter, Angie says so much more with her body language than with her words, pouring a glass of milk like it’s no big deal she just asked to meet her biological father, darting her eyes back and forth to scan for approval, lighting up when Carey suggests taking a DNA test to track down family members. My mom often bursts into laughter and tells me she can tell I’m not listening, just nodding along to appease her. I couldn’t tell what she meant until I watched Angie “yeah yeah yeah”-ing to Bette.
3. Revive characters by making them solve new problems: a case study with Gigi
So many characters get written off (death, moving away, disappearing undercover). How can writers do the opposite: save a character who, according to the natural progression of the story, should have been booted out?
Gigi was a fan favorite, melting our hearts with her tumbling curls, smoky eyes, and power suits — she was like Bette Porter, but huskier, more primal.
Bette’s ideal type sounded a lot like Gigi.
Gigi’s main purpose in Season 1 was to spice up the relationship between Alice and Nat, Gigi’s ex-wife. But polyamory proves hard to manage, especially when an ex is involved. In an over-the-top finale ending, Nat barges onto Alice’s talk show to profess her love and dedication to two-person monogamy. (All while Roxane Gay watches on.)
Many were sad to see the throuple go; some, like me, were sad to see Gigi go. She was one of my favorite characters.
I yelped when Gigi shoved herself into Alice and Nat’s car, stuck in the slow crawl of school drop-off traffic. In seconds she jokes about getting back together, chortles, quietly scolds Nat for forgetting something, and exits. Alice and Nat are clearly flustered. “Annoyed,” they say, but “nervous” is more likely. “We have to get rid of her,” Alice decides.
Later, in line with the quick, bold brushstrokes mention above, Bette describes her ideal type, someone who sounds a bit too much like her: a driven career woman with kids of her own.
My wife gaped. “Oh my God.”
I giggled: Bette’s ideal type sounded a lot like Gigi.
Maybe a bit too conveniently. Anyone who’s watched the original series knows the reigning queendom of Tibette: Tina and Bette, destined for each other no matter how imperfect, our version of Ross and Rachel.
The writers know us too well. “You sure about that?” Shane asks.
“You’ve always wanted more of like a wifey wife wife kinda type,” Alice reminds her on our behalf.
The setup is brilliant because:
- A) It allows a new plotline for Bette without introducing new characters; it’s economic while addressing the question of what Bette will be up to now that she doesn’t have a political campaign to run like in Season 1.
- B) It saves Gigi from being written off the show.
- C) The chemistry was already there, even if the characters had never met on screen.
- D) It effectively turns the throuple into a love rectangle. This is the type of messy, incestuous lesbian dating pool drama we signed up for.
I’m all a’giddy with new questions: Does that steamy kiss signal a steamier future for Bette and Gigi? Will Alice and Nat really be able to keep Gigi out of their heads and bed? Will Bette face off with Alice-Nat for Gigi’s heart? Or will Gigi make it out of the L Word web with her own plotline, not as the romantic interest of somebody else?
One fail and two major wins
Though there was a major area for improvement, The L Word: Generation Q demonstrated efficient character setup and a brilliant character save. Next time, it would make more sense to thread the central story line throughout the episode, to seed the tension more upfront, and/or to fine-tune the execution.
