Category: Resources

40 years worth of TV writing experience and info, yours for the taking.

John Ostrander on DOCTOR WHO (and the Kids!)

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by John Ostrander

Doctor Who, the long-running BBC TV series about a humanoid alien transversing through time and space with his companions, has wound up its current season, its tenth since it’s return following a long hiatus. The current actor playing the part, Peter Capaldi, is the fourth actor (or the fifth depending how you number it) since the show returned or the twelfth or thirteenth since the show’s inception. The numbering differential is a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey thing.

The show has sparked a discussion among the fans lately because, well, that’s what fans do, especially of a cult science-fiction show such as this one. There’s great passion and great heat as usual with these things along with the absolute conviction of one side that they are right and that those on the other side are wrong. It doesn’t matter which side of a debate you’re on, the other guy is wrong. There’s a lot of passion and maybe some thought and that’s what happens with a fan disagreement.

The current issue under debate is that Doctor Who began as a children’s show back in 1963 and it should always be a children’s show. The position of some is that the current monsters are often too scary for children, the continuity has become too complex for children, the relationships are inappropriate for children. read article

Peggy Bechko Shares 10 Great Writers’ Quotes

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by Peggy Bechko

Some of my favorite writers quotes about writing that I simply must share with you! What better time than the beginning of a new year to take a break from writing and reflect a bit, both soberly and with some humor?

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
—Ernest Hemingway

Who can argue with that? read article

How to Make People Fall in Love With Your Ridiculously Competent Hero

LB’s been blogging here about creating TV series characters that viewers will want to watch and care about. One of his favorite critics – and a hell of a writer – has her own highly perceptive view of the subject:

heroloveby Charlie Jane Anders

We all love characters who are good at what they’re doing. Nobody wants to root for someone who screws up constantly or walks into traps we can see a mile away. But at the same time, it can be hard to love someone who’s too perfect. So how do you make us believe in, and love, a major badass?

So I’ve been working for a couple months on this essay about how to make a character competent and believable/relatable. And with this week’s tempest-in-a-stormtrooper-helmet about whether Rey is somehow TOO competent, this issue became suddenly timely. So here are the thoughts that I was already noodling on for the past several weeks. read article

John Ostrander Ponders Heroes and Their Origins

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by John Ostrander

As I mentioned in a previous column, I’ve been on a Rex Stout/Nero Wolfe reading/re-reading jag as of late and have been enjoying it greatly. As other commentators have noted, the pleasure in the Nero Wolfe novels is not so much the plots, which have been noted as serviceable, but in the characters, especially the rotund and eccentric genius, Nero Wolfe, and his wise cracking legman and assistant, Archie Goodwin.

(Sidenote: when I first met the late and great comic book writer/editor, Also Archie Goodwin, I meant to ask him about Wolfe but decidedly, I think prudently, that he had probably gotten enough of that in his life. End digression.)

Stout had written 33 novels and 39 short stories on the pair between 1934 and his death in 1975. After his death, his estate authorized further Wolfe and Goodwin adventures by Robert Goldsborough who has written ten books, one of which was Archie Meets Nero Wolfe, a prequel to the Nero Wolfe stories telling the tale of how the two first met. read article

Confessions of a Journeyman Hollywood Writer

What does making it as a TV writer really mean? Those who’ve been around for awhile but haven’t become star show runners all say it’s pretty much like this:

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by Bryan Behar

In a digital-era where “sitcom writer” sounds almost as contemporary as “telegraph operator” or “CompuServe tech support,” I was astonished to realize I just finished my 21st show in 20 years. Or as my writing partner pointed out, if we were comically and racially mismatched buddy cops, we’d be one week from retiring to a sailboat. Worse, we may actually be at an age where we are too old to be “too old for this shit.” read article