Category: Opinion

Peggy Bechko: Yikes! They Want Me to Write a Logline!

by PeggyBechko

Have you taken time to sit down and consider a logline for your script? Of course you have – presuming you’re writing scripts. And I’d go so far here as to say it’s not a bad idea to consider loglines and how they’re created if you’re a novelist as well. It’s kind of your ‘elevator pitch’.

Everyone is forever in a hurry so I’m going to give some space to what NOT to do when thinking about creating a logline, aka the short pitch if you’re writing other things and want to get a short pithy hook out there to snag an editor or producer.

Producers and Editors are notorious for being in a hurry and expecting a pitch or a logline to grab them all on its own. I don’t blame them really. They’re buried under scripts and manuscripts and meetings and a lot more that we, as writers, don’t think about. Is it so unreasonable to not want to have to slog through even more paper than they already do? read article

Larry Brody: How Not To Write A Great TV or Film Script

by Larry Brody

Just what you need to start off the week: 18 non-rules (because the Brode doesn’t believe in rules) guaranteed to bring your beloved pet TV or film project to a lowly and humiliating end.

1. Start without an outline and wing it.

2. Don’t bother having a central theme. read article

In This Corner, TV. In That Corner…The Working Class?

What’s that you said? “Why won’t TV show people who aren’t rich?” It’s a good question, especially for this aging TVWriter™ minion who as a proud Gen Xer can uncategorically state, “Because was ever thus.”

Luckily for all of us, here’s an article that explains it much better:

read article

Peggy Bechko: Stuff Writers Shouldn’t Do If They Plan on Being Successful

by Peggy Bechko

Writers of all stripes get feedback from all sorts of people – sometimes it’s solicited and sometimes it just jumps out at you. We handle all that feedback in a lot of different ways. But, there’s the feedback from knowledgeable sources we all have to pay strict attention to.

When a screenwriter gets it from on high and is told where a script may be lacking, that’s not a time to argue. When a novelist gets feedback from an Editor or Publisher, that is not the time to argue. read article

LB’s Writing Credo

Ah, but is it???

by Larry Brody

We all see and hear, all the time. I’m talking the dreaded BAD WRITING, self-indulgent, uncommunicative stories, poems, TV shows, films, web series, YouTube videos.

I’m not saying everything being presented to us is bad. Most of it isn’t. But there’s enough of the let’s-call-it-“disappointing” stuff to make even the most open-minded pop culture fan cry.

(Pop culture? Where did that expression come from? Oh yeah, the 1960s, before everyone living in the world today but a few old rock stars and obsolete movie stars were born.) read article