Category: By Larry Brody

LB: TVWriter™’s New “THE BASICS OF TV WRITING” Mini Site

We’ve all gotta learn the ropes!

So there I was, looking through this site so I could nod, Godlike, and say to myself, “It is good.” And while, yes, I thought TVWriter™ looked pretty damn good I also had this nagging feeling: “Something’s missing.”

The same nagging feeling I would have each time I finished the first draft of a script for, oh, HAWAII FIVE-0 or STREETS OF SAN FRANCISO or THE FALL GUY or MIKE HAMMER or any of the other shows I’ve written/produced.

It’s a feeling I hate. This tingling “What’s wrong?” sensation. Because it’s a call to action. I can’t go forward – can’t do anything else in the world – until I figure out the problem and fix it. read article

LB: TVWriter™ Passed a Milestone Last Weekend

TVWriter™, which started way back in 1997 as “The TV Writer Home Page,” passed a milestone last week: Our 1000th blog post in our current format, which began on June 1, 2012.

Supplementing our basic How-To Write This, That and the Other Thing page content, we’ve blogged about a lot of topics over the past 5 months, including announcements about the various TVWriter™ contests (that’s the People’s Pilot and Spec Scriptacular to be specific) and classes (TVWriter University, natch), interviews with showrunners, advice to future sitcom writers, various peer-produced/user-generated web series, why Charlie Sheen rocks, DOCTOR WHO (and the Doctor Who Puppet), Louis C.K,. writing and productivity tips up the wazoo, TV series reviews, everything the minions and I could think of that would make life better/more fulfilling/easier/more entertaining for writers, aspiring writers, and fans. read article

munchman: The Writer of GROUNDHOG DAY Tells How He Does It

Danny Rubin, whose credits include GROUNDHOG DAY and HEAR NO EVIL, has a book out called How to Write Groundhog Day. Inasmuch as I love the film, I’m hoping the book is great. Here’s a helpful sample:

How to Write Groundhog Day: 10 Rules for Screenwriters – by Danny Rubin

Last summer another list of writing rules popped up, this one in a Sunday edition of The New York Times.

The comfort of rules can be very important to a writer’s motivation because telling them the truth (there are no rules and nobody knows anything) is for most people not useful and a little intimidating. read article

LB: Congrats, Creative Bros & Sisters, These Guys Say We’re All Nuts

Back in college, my parents made me visit a psychologist because they wanted me to get along better with others. During the first session, after she and I had talked for awhile she started writing away on her notepad.

When I asked what she was writing, the psychologist said, “My diagnosis.”

“Already? How can you do that so soon?” I said. read article

LB: Comic Books on the Newsstand When I was Born

Because what could be more important for any writer than this:

To be precise, these are just some of the comics on the sales racks in the month/year I was born. But the reason it’s only some is because this is all I could screen capture. Every single other comic also popped right up on the page. read article