Author: LB

A legendary figure in the television writing and production world with a career going back to the late ’60s, Larry Brody has written and produced hundreds of hours of American and worldwide television and is a consultant to production companies and networks in the U.S. and abroad . Shows written or produced by Brody have won several awards including - yes, it's true - Emmys, Writers Guild Awards, and the Humanitas Award.

‘Latvia: Europe’s Nation of Introverts’

Latvians are often self-deprecating about their culture’s tendency towards introversion, but could this personality trait be the key to their creative identity?

LB’s NOTE: I fully intended to have another post about tips for PEOPLE’S PILOT 2018 entrants today, but a funny thing happened on my way to my keyboard: The Brodys got a new puppy.

More likely than not, considering how popular dogs are in the Western world. (I hear they’re popular in the East as well, but not necessarily as friends or pets…) you know what that does to the best of intentions.

It’s – Layla, Queen of Digestive Services. Oh yeah!

Right – it turns them into grist for the real purpose of puppy owning life: Cleaning up pee and poo. So instead of writing anything, here I am, hysterically living the life (read, “breaking in the pooper scooper and buying newspapers by the half ton”  for the adorable little creature on the left. read article

Speaking of PEOPLE’S PILOT 2018: “I entered a screenplay contest & got terrible feedback. What do I do?”

by Larry Brody

Speaking of PEOPLE’S PILOT 2018, as we’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks, it’s time to interrupt my meticulously crafted series on the competition, how it works, and how entrants can maximize their chances to do well with this column about, well, how entrants in any creative contest can maximize their chances for the most important result of all – feeling good about themselves.

In other words, a recent entrant into another writing contest – not PEOPLE’S PILOT 2018, or any other year – send me the email the other day, and I believe it’s important to deal with the issues it brings up. read article

Larry Brody sees ‘Upstart Crow’

It’s from BBC! It’s about Shakespeare! It’s funny in a way the Shakespeare we all had to read in school never was!

And it’s oh oh oh so true!

In other words, Gwen the Beautiful and I have just finished re-binging Upstart Crow,  the Shakespeare sitcom, and every two minutes my wonderful wife groaned at a line or two spoken by David Mitchell as Shakespeare and gave me The Look. read article

Self Publishing? Where?

Regular TVWriter™ visitors know that we think that contemporary self-publishing and its various platforms is the best thing to happen to literary life since…well, since the last best thing (which we’re pretty sure was before our time.)

So, for all those who have the courage and strength to write things that will actually be read instead of performed (OMFG! All those words!), we happily present this recent find:

How to decide where to publish your books when self-publishing
by Nathan Bransford

Once you’ve decided you want to pursue self-publishing, it’s helpful to make two important decisions as early as possible: read article

Larry Brody: Is TV Art? Does It Matter?

’70s edginess. The way it was.

by Larry Brody

NOTE FROM LB: Every once in awhile something good – really, measurably good – comes out of something you’ve done and makes you realize, “Hey, life ain’t so bad after all. This excerpt from my long out of print nonfiction, nonclassic book, Turning Points in Television, is about one of those times actually, remarkably, miraculously, happening to me.

The year is 1980, and I’m standing in the lobby of the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco on a cloud-enshrouded Saturday night, having a little not-so-friendly discussion with the manager because I’ve come to the City on a whim only to find that there are no rooms at the Inn. Any Inn, including this one, where I’ve stayed a million times before.

I feel foolish as hell, so I hide it with anger and a voice loud enough to be heard across the Bay. Having grown from a Chicago kind of kid to a Hollywood kinda guy, I’m screaming my credits at the manager in the firm belief that they’ll cause him to cough up a place I can stay. read article