Category: By TVWriter.Com

Why Character Names are So Important

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We’ve posted a lot about naming your characters. (In fact, Peggy Bechko’s column on the subject was hugely popular here on TVWriter™ just last week.) And there’s a reason for that.

In modern culture, the first thing we do when we meet somebody is ask, “What do you do?” Because when we like to think that knowing the kind of work a person does enables us to actually know the person as well. read article

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 11/1/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Michaela Watkins, Damon Jones & Teddy Riley (SNL, GROUNDLINGS, PARTY DOWN respectively) are creating the USA comedy BENCHED about a female corporate attorney who has a public nervous breakdown that -duh – changes her life. (We dunno what aspect of this is funnier. The attorney having a public nervous breakdown part, the female woman-type person having a public nervous breakdown part, or the life-changing part. But our sides are aching from all the laughter we’re holding in.)
  • Kevin Falls (THE WEST WING) has teamed up with actor Rob Lowe to bring ABC a new drama series called THE POINT, about a single mother and her teenagers who move from Indiana to Malibu in 1976. (Yeppers, it’s supposedly based on Rob’s years growing up in Malibu. But if this baby gets on the air and we decide to watch, it’ll be for one reason only – a certain magical 6-letter word starting with “b” and ending with “i.” And only when our Significant Other isn’t, um, home. You didn’t know we were such a class act, didja?)
  • Stacy Taub (GLEE) is writing what’s described as a “dental comedy” pilot for ABC. (Cuz everybody knows how funny dentists are, especially when they have you in the chair.)
  • Sam Sklaver (BORED TO DEATH) has a deal to write another ABC comedy pilot, this one with a name: THE ALZHEIMER’S PROJECT. (Cuz everybody also knows that people with dementia are even funnier than dentists. Just ask our poor Uncle Jerome. And don’t worry about hurting his feelings cuz he won’t remember the question anyway.)
  • Alexandra Cunningham (DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES) is writing the pilot for a rebooted version of MURDER, SHE WROTE, for NBC, about a hospital administrator who self-publishes a mystery novel and, you know, gets hooked on solving crime. (Cuz why concentrate on what made the original show work when you can screw it up a whole new way?)
  • Bill Chais (FRANKLIN & BASH) is adapting Thomas Sniegoski’s series of fantasy novels about an angel who embraces earthly life into a police procedural series for NBC. (Let us all read responsively: “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” And don’t be embarrassed if you want to add on the “Why hast thou forsaken me?” bit.)

2013 New York Television Award Winners

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by Team TVWriter™ Press Service

Here’s the scoop. The whole scoop. And nothing but the scoop. So help us New York:

At an awards ceremony last Saturday at the SVA Theatre in Manhattan this evening, NYTVF(www.nytvf.com) announced the winners of its Independent Pilot Competition (IPC) in 11 categories, including “Best of the Fest” and NYTVF Critics Award honors to “Re:Verse” and “Killer Moves,” respectively.

Additionally, NYTVF announced the winners of 20 development deals from its network, studio and digital partners. Along with its partners, NYTVF has brought a record 31 development deals to independent television creators in 2013, including 11 which were announced earlier this year. read article

“The Stanley Parable” is the Best Written Game We’ve Played in Years

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We just played a free demo of this amazing game. Except that it isn’t really a game, it’s an exercise in making choices.

Except that it isn’t merely an exercise, it’s an entertainment. read article

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 10/31/13

Latest News About Writers Who Are Doing Better Than We Are

  • Aaron Buchsbaum & Teddy Riley (newbs!) are developing a CBS comedy called ON THE FENCE about “the shifting dynamic  of friends as they navigate their late twenties.” (At last, our life brought to the wee screen Oh, wait, although we definitely are part of a shifting dynamic and are in our late twenties, we don’t – sob – have any friends. Why does this series have to mock us? Why?)
  • Ryan Shiraki (AWKWARD) is writing a Fox comedy about a working class family in Bakersfield. (This show is billed as “based on Shiraki’s real-life upbringing in Hawaii….” Of course. Bakersfield-Hawaii. Everybody knows they’re practically the same.)
  • Greg Malins (HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER) has sold ODD COUPLE FAMILIES, a comedy about people who have to spend way too much time with their kids’ friends, to Fox. (Where, evidently, none of the D-Peeps has kids cuz let’s get real here. How much time does any parent ever spend with the parents of their kids’ pals? Nada, right? Unless – oh God – my parents weren’t like everybody else?)
  • Chris Fedak (CHUCK) is writing an untitled NBC drama pilot about people who get a new chance at normal lives because of an anonymous organ donor. (This better be a horror project about the donor being a strangler/mass murderer cuz otherwise we’re heading to Netflix whenever this show is on.)
  • Keenan Ivory Wayans (if you don’t know who he is, fuhgeddaboudit) is writing the pilot for a comedy series about “what happens when the whitest guy in  America marries into a…close-knit African-American family.” (What happens? What happens? Why, hilarity happens, of course. Cruel, mocking derisive Wayans humor…which we just happen to luv.)
  • Rebecca Sinclair (90210) is developing a surfer drama set in 1961 for The CW. (Cuz all us kids born after 1985 have a great big bone on for Malibu life back when our mommies and daddies were toddlers. Wow, talk about can’t miss!)