Category: Opinion

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

Peggy Bechko on Enhancing Your Writing

From Peggy’s blog:

Three Observations On How to Add Punch In Your Writing – by Peggy Bechko

Okay, first, as writers, we (at least most of us) know we need to flavor our writing with sensations that go beyond sight and sound. We add things like the aroma of chicken grilling, the smell of tangy perfume, the feel of a too-heavy gold chain dragging against the back of a neck, the feel of a chilled breeze ticking up one’s back beneath a jacket or the really sour taste of overdone lemonade to add life to our writing. You know, stuff everyone experiences, maybe notices. read article

Update About Amazon Studios

From the amazingly wonderful blog written by John August, who knows this stuff better than anybody. Wow.

Articles like this are just the tip of the iceberg at johnaugust.com. (In other words, GO THERE!)
Alert: The following was not written by John but by Reader Mike (but it’s still informative as hell).

Amazon Studios at AFF

Amazon Studios has been a much–discussed topic on both the blog and the podcast. Last week at the Austin Film Festival, the company made a presentation explaining how they work with screenwriters.Reader Mike attended and took notes, which he generously offered to write up.

first personA little bit about my background: I started out working at a production company as an intern and as a reader, kept working at writing and eventually got representation from a manager and an agent. I’ve had scripts go out and I’ve done the studio water bottle tour a couple of times, but have yet to earn a single penny as a writer.

I consider myself in that grey, ugly pool of zombie writers: Part alive, but mostly dead inside. 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

Bob Tinsley’s Been Thinking About New Media

…And, frequent TVWriter™ visitor that he is, Bob has a few questions (as well as an opinion or three):

LB and Munchman seem to believe that web series are, if not THE future, one of the major elements of the future of TV (is that term even relevant anymore? More later.) writing. I decided to force Monkey Mind into investigating this phenomenon. read article