This show is painfully funny. Yes, that’s a compliment. A huge one. Check it out:
The Premise:
Month: June 2015
Herbie J Pilato: I owe my career to David Gerrold
by Herbie J Pilato
Decades ago, when I was just a young lad growing up in Rochester, New York, I used to frequent with my parents the Wegmans supermarket in Gates Chili, New York, a suburb of Rochester.
Today, Wegmans is a mega-store that is known around the country (and in some parts of the world!) as one of the finest grocery establishments in existence.
It was then (circa 1970), too, if on a somewhat smaller scale
How To Raise The Stakes In Your Story Without Wrecking Your Characters
TVWriter™ has always had a soft spot for Charlie Jane Anders, and there’s no question why: She’s absolutely the best person on the interwebs writing about science fiction today. It’s lucid thinking and prose like this that make her a gem:
by Charlie Jane Anders
The best science fiction and fantasy stories are impossible to tear yourself away from — and often, that thrilling sense of momentum comes from the sense that the danger to the world keeps getting bigger and scarier. But how do you raise the stakes without sacrificing your characters?
This is a huge challenge — we’ve all come across stories where fully-fledged three-dimensional characters get weaker, and less believable, the more massive the scope of the threat they’re facing becomes. The only antidote to this is twofold: to raise the stakes in a way that stays grounded, and to stay focused on your characters, even as the plot ramps up and up.
From College Professors to ABC TV Series Creators
Not long ago, Robin Russin and Reza Aslan were teaching in the MFA Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts programs at the University of California. Today the have a series, OF KINGS AND PROPHETS, on the schedule at ABC. How’d they do it? How can we do it?
Read on:
by Bettye Miller
A television drama developed by Robin Russin and Reza Aslan, professors in the M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts program at the University of California, Riverside, will air on ABC this fall.
Diana Black on Creating Characters Actors Want to Play
EDITOR’S NOTE: If you’re a new writer trying to break into the biz, more than likely you’re doing all you can to write in a way that’ll impress the gatekeepers, AKA agents, producers, and executives. But you also need to write in a way that works for those actually working on the production. Foremost among them are actors because hey, let’s face it, we really don’t have a show or film without ’em. Actors are the reason audiences tune in – or out – and, ultimately, if the actors don’t like the writing, well, the writer’s in deep you-know-what.
Because of the above, TVWriter™ is proud to present the first in what we hope will be a long series of articles about how to write the way actors need things written. How to give them something to do and somebody to be. Your guide in this series will be Australian actress and writer Diana Black. Take it away, Diana!
Writing for Actors – 1
by Diana Black
‘Still waters run deep…’