Featuring...
Jane Espenson
Writer/Producer for Buffy the Vampire Slayer

com-e-dy: A literary work which is amusing and ends happily. Modern comedies tend to be funny, while Shakespearean comedies simply end well. Shakespearean comedies also contain items such as misunderstandings and mistaken identity to heighten the comic effect. Comedies may contain lovers, those who interfere with lovers and entertaining scoundrels. In modern Situation Comedies, characters are thrown into absurd situations and are forced to deal with those situations, all the while reciting clever lines for the amusement of the audience.

Jane Espenson, Mocha-ing it
e bo up at the Espresso Pump.
The above comes from a definition of terms as applied to comedy. Ironically enough this rings true with every aspect of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel universe that we have so grown to love and not so totally understand, at times. But one thing we have come to understand is that in the Jossverse, when you ask yourself, where’s the funny? You know it can usually be found . . . in the Jane! As writer and now producer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Jane Espenson entwines more comedic talent that has appeared on the page in one season than most writers have achieved in the life span of an entire series. Founded on the sense that the characters live through the words with a reality which gives them depth and understanding, she creates a medium for us to feel, trust, and best of all laugh with them and for them.

 WELL DOCTOR, IT ALL BEGAN . . .

Forever wondering where such talented people discover, in themselves, that they have something special to offer the world is always amazing. Jane is no exception as she takes us on a curious course that led her from childhood dreams to a 247 year old vampire with a soul. "I wanted to be a writer well before high school," Jane explains as to when she first decided she wanted to become a writer. "As long as I can remember and I not only wanted to be a writer but I wanted to be a TV writer. When I was like 13 years old I tried to write a M*A*S*H* spec. It was always what I wanted to do so I don’t think anything that happened to me in high school made me want to be a writer more than I already did.
"I think it was
watching a lot of
TV. I always tell
young people,
'watch a lot
of TV.'"
But obviously, particularly writing on a show like Buffy, things that you do in high school inform your writing for the rest of your life. You know, it’s such an incredibly emotional time that the things you felt then stay with you."

At such a young age she had quite a jump start on a career that seems not to have had too many hills to conquer. But at 13 you're not writing for Speilberg, so the inspiration was coming from somewhere else. "I think it was watching a lot of TV. I always tell young people, ‘watch a lot of TV,’ " she says laughing. "I think there is nothing better for teaching you to be a TV writer then to have watched a lot when you were young because you sort of end up internalizing a lot of what makes it work and not work because you just absorb it. And I also think it’s important to watch, not passively, to watch it really analytically." Once you can take a story apart and see how it works you start to learn how to put one together. "I was always making up stories for my favorite characters and to me it felt like cheating if it wasn’t a story they would do on the show." One of the things Joss teaches is never have your characters do something that they wouldn’t naturally do, so Jane was already in the zone there! "Yeah, I suppose in a way I was.

The Harry Potter
novel Goblet of Fire.
I was trying to figure out episodes of my favorite shows, Welcome Back Kotter or I watched old re-runs of Hogan’s Heroes and things, Get Smart. I would try and think of stories for them. So I think I always wanted to do this. Most of my colleagues sort of grew up a lot more on movies, dreaming about writing for movies but for me it was always TV."

 The age of the Internet offers today’s kids with something new to fill their free-time void. Where as Jane and I filled ours mostly with television when we were growing up, it would seem that they don’t watch as much as we did. "It’s a shame," she replies half jokingly. "No, it’s really not. Who knows if writing for TV is going to be the thing. I mean, in another 20 years I guess it’s gonna all be one box and you do everything on it. As long as kids are exposed to narrative they will turn into writers and I don’t think it’s better to be a TV writer then to write movies or content for the internet or novels. I mean, I love that kids are reading the Harry Potter novels, it’d be great if they all grew up to be novelists." Taking the next educational leap to college didn’t exactly amerce Jane in the world of literature or journalism but rather away from writing. "I majored in computer science and then I added a double major in linguistics. I took one play writing course in college which I found very frustrating because they made us actually perform the plays that the other people in the class had written.
"I don't want to
be the center of
attention. Well at
a party, if I'm
looking really
splendid, sure!"
I would be so stressed out all week long about having to get up in front of the class and act that I really did some of my worst writing," she admits laughing, "because I couldn’t concentrate on it and I was so aware, I don’t know, it did not work for me that particular course. So I was doing completely other things."

It’s interesting that she didn’t have an acting bug or anything more creative. "I did in high school," Jane recalls. "I was involved in the local community theatre. And for a while toyed with the idea but it’s just completely wrong for my personality. I don’t like to be looked at, I don’t want to be the center of attention." Really? "Well, at a party, if I’m looking really splendid sure!" she concurs with a big laugh. "I mean, actors have to be willing to look foolish and I’m not willing to look foolish." This may be the inspiration behind Anya’s standup routine in Buffy’s season finale of Restless. Maybe a bad nightmare of Jane’s come to life? We may never know, but what surprised me about this was that Jane speaks brilliantly as witnessed during the writers panels down in Atlanta at Dragon*Con. Sure she spoke for a captive audience but it was great listening to her, I mean, who knew shrimp could be so funny! "Well I love teaching and I love public speaking," she explains, "to me that’s different. Acting, throwing yourself into a character, it takes a very specific personality type and it’s just not mine."