Category: Opinion

John Ostrander: How it Feels When Your Characters Come to Life in Other Media

GOING WALKABOUT
by John Ostrander

They grow up so fast.

I’ve worked on/created a number of characters in my writing career, trying to define them through my writing. They exist first in my head and then become incarnated through my words and stories and the depictions by the artists. In some ways, they are like my kids – my murderous, nasty kidsGrimJack

In the movie Stranger Than Fiction (one of my Mary’s fave films and the most atypical Will Farrell movie ever), the writer of a novel finds that her lead character – who she was planning to kill off – is a real person and comes face to face with him. I don’t think I’d ever want to do that for the main reason that I tend to make the lives of my protagonists pretty miserable. If I’m their creator, I’m a pretty asshole god. I have very good reasons for doing these terrible things – it reveals character and makes a better story. At the same time, I’d never want to meet any of them face to face. I’ve given them cause to do really nasty things back to me. read article

Peggy Bechko: More Online Writing Resources

solar-energy

by Peggy Bechko

Okay writers – you’re on the web, you’re working, so now’s the time to share a few more links that might well be very helpful to writers of a variety of stripes.

First and foremost for screenwriters. I know you’ve been there, or I hope you have, but if you’re just starting out and haven’t focused in yet, check out Writer’s Guild of America, West. You don’t have to be a member, and it’s packed with lots of helpful materials. There’s contract info, screenwriting credit info, lots of writing tools and you can register your script there if you want. You can learn the lingo as well, screenwriting terms, etc. Head on over and root around. And if you need it, their  script registry is here.

And if you write scripts you just gotta read ‘em. So Simply Scripts is good at  and Drew’s Script-o-rama was still out there last time I checked. read article

Are This Season’s Diverse Shows Ushering in a New Era of Multicultural Television?

freshofftheboatby Pilot Viruet

“Instead of people coming in and seeing a Chinese face and going, ‘Huh?’… They see a white face and say, ‘Oh, hello white friend! I am comfortable!’” — Fresh Off the Boat, “Pilot”

In the first episode of ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat, a new fish-out-of-water sitcom about a Taiwanese-American family that moves from DC to suburban Orlando, patriarch Louis Huang (Randall Park) floats the idea of hiring a white greeter for the steakhouse he owns so white people will feel comfortable when they walk in and spot a familiar face. It’s a clueless, optimistic line that is played for laughs, and Park’s delivery is laugh-out-loud funny. It’s also a line that works on multiple levels, because it speaks volumes about the current television landscape and its irritating approach to diversity: Networks cater to white audiences by always promoting white faces — or trying to universalize the nonwhite narratives that they do have in an attempt at mass appeal — rather than taking chances on stories whose characters don’t superficially resemble the majority of their viewers.

Fresh Off the Boat is the first Asian-American sitcom in 20 years, since Margaret Cho’s All-American Girl, which ran for just one season (also on ABC) in 1994. The show is doing great in terms of both ratings (Episode 5, which aired February 17, had more viewers than Parks and Recreation and New Girl combined) and criticalresponse — as are the other diverse freshman programs airing on major networks this season: ABC’s clever sitcoms Black-ish and Cristela, Fox’s infectious musical drama Empire, and The CW’s telenovela-inspired Jane the Virgin, which earned lead actress Gina Rodriguez a Golden Globe award. read article

Jorge c Perez: Not a Violent Man

by Jorge c Perez

Jorge-c-Perez
Not a violent man. And yet…

Joan Didion once wrote “ Writing is an act of violence, a way to impose your will on a world.” I’ll use that as a framework to write about my (almost) military approach to landing a TV staff writing position, which is the goal of the NHMC TV Writing Program (and all of the TV writing programs). I’m hoping to commit acts of violence for 12-16 hours a day. For pay. Which would make me a writing mercenary;)

Since my last post during the November 2014 fellowship – sponsored by ABC/NBC – I’ve been hunkered in my bunker. I’ve procrastinat – uh, researched – by watching a lot of the sponsoring networks’ shows to prepare for staffing meetings.

I was hired to rewrite & polish a feature film script starring Michael Madsen entitled TWO CRANES. So I’ve officially gone pro as a writer. I submitted two original projects to the Sundance ShowRunner lab, and am preparing materials for the HBO TV Writing program. read article

Peggy Bechko: Writers Beware – Scams Abound

 predator

 by Peggy Bechko

Hey writers, have you ever played whack-a-mole?

Well, that’s a little sample of what the writing life can be like when dealing with scammers, con artists and all sorts of other low-life characters who have no respect for your abilities or dreams and only want to turn that to their own monetary benefit.

If you aren’t very careful you can spend thousands of dollars being lured on by empty promises, false representations and their fabulous expert (I use the term sarcastically) recommendations for which they in fact have no expertise at all. read article