Here they are, the most viewed TVWriter™ posts during the past week:
Month: November 2014
JOHN OSTRANDER: BELIEF SUSPENDED
by John Ostrander
There’s the concept in fantastic literature known as the “willing suspension of disbelief” by which the reader/audience accepts fantastic elements in a story that are not found in reality, 
semi-believing them for the moment for the sake of the story. If the creator is invoking it, he or she must be careful not to jar that suspension of disbelief.
It’s an important concept for those of us who labor in the fields of SF, fantasy, horror, and comics. Two things I find crucial to make the concept work – an internal consistency within the story and a consistency within the continuity. By an internal consistency I mean that something that was given as true on page five remains true on page thirty. If the character knows something they can’t suddenly un-know it just for the convenience of the plot. Likewise, if something has been established as part of the continuity, you can’t just disregard it willy-nilly. It doesn’t mean that continuity can never change but there needs to be reasons that it changes unless you’re going to do what DC does and just throw the baby out with the bathwater and start continuity over.
Something else that confounds my suspension of disbelief is when something in the story just ignores reality. I went to Independence Day and I wasn’t expecting much, just a good mindless action film. Unfortunately, there was incident after incident of things that were just patently impossible that it threw me right out of the story. To wit: Air Force One is taking off despite explosions going on all around. In fact, one explosion almost engulfs it. It comes up the tail of the plane before the aircraft manages to speed away. Never mind that the shock waves would have torn the plane apart – it was a Cool Visual.
Cartoon: Boffo on Being a Writer
Which brings up the question: Do you know any writers who actually send manuscripts out via snail mail anymore?
But then again, Mr. Boffo is a newspaper strip, and we don’t know anybody who reads newspapers anymore either.
Oh, wait, LB has a neighbor who spends all morning, every morning, poring over the NY Times. Some things never change.
Cargo 3120: The Making of a Sci-Fi Franchise #6
Entry 6 On to the Advanced Class
by Aaron Walker Sr.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: The Story So Far starts HERE)
The advanced class was where things really got interesting. The class was down to only four weeks in length. On the surface this was a good thing, but in reality it meant you had a lot of work to do, and a short period of time to get it done.
The focus shifted from the mechanics of screenwriting, to matters of story and character development. The first hurdle was clear: The script was just too long. The first attempt at Cargo was meant to be a T.V. movie in hopes to get picked up as a full blown series, which was why the script was 117 pages. So Larry tasked me with trimming that bad boy down to no more than 90 pages.
Showrunners! Take the Ken Levine Challenge
We, um, dare ya.
Yeah, you heard us.
