Writing another Modern Family script: writing the script.

I did some actual writing this and last week and managed to write my third Modern Family spec script. Like I did with my second script for this show, my writing routine consisted of writing two pages a day, and that was basically it.

So, when I last time wrote here about writing this script, I thought about the storylines. However, I didn't really come up with any beats then. I had some ideas for the first two storylines but I was pretty much clueless about the third one. This meant that I had to do some serious thinking.

Not surprisingly, I feel that my third storyline is probably the weakest. The idea is about Cameron having a bathroom accident which leads to Jay and Phil coming to the rescue - kinda. This storyline wasn't easy to write but perhaps it taught me the most. I had to try to make the implausible somehow plausible.

Nevertheless, the first storyline was about Claire and Mitchell going to Sun Valley with Lily to figure skate. There they introduce Lily to the wonderful world of skating. They also manage to meet Brian Boitano - the olympic gold medalist (and an Emmy winner).

For some reason Boitano recognizes Claire and Mitch from their 'fire & nice' days and they decide to go for a lunch together. What happens is that this storyline culminates in Brian being disappointed with his life - or at least he's having a sad emotional day. This was for the sake of the story of course.

This storyline wouldn't really have been relevant without referencing the song 'What Would Brian Boitano Do?'. I just had to do it and Cameron gets the honor to sing the song over the phone, which hopefully helps to make this episode funny.

The third storyline was about Luke having a date. This was a good idea but I didn't initially have enough material to make it meaningful or emotional. That is before I came up with the idea that Alex is seemingly the only one who doesn't know.

So the way it goes is that Luke has a date, Alex is trying to figure out what's going on, then she's told she's pretty much the only one who doesn't know, then she confronts Luke about it and finally gets to know the reason why he didn't tell her - which makes her like him even more than she used to.

Those are basically the three storylines and I have to say that I was pretty afraid of writing this script. It's not easy to write when you have set the bar too high for yourself. Thankfully, I managed to write it and now I can finally do something else.