Category: Resources

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

Peggy Bechko Muses About Writing With A Partner

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by Peggy Bechko

I’ve been a writer a lot of years and mostly have gone it alone. You know, that typical, writer sequestered alone in (my case) a lovely office with dog at my feet, plotting and writing away.

But what happens when things change? When the career takes yet another turn (most careers have many of those turns) and life hands this writer a new direction and simultaneously a writing partner?

For starters, with a great writing partner, things pop and sizzle as never before. We end each other’s sentences and marvel at one another’s ideas. Effortless. Satisfying. Fun! It gives us chills!! read article

Angela Santomero on How to Create a Hit Kids’ Show

Angela Santomero is the creator of Nick Jr’s BLUE’S CLUES, PBS’s DANIEL TIGER’S NEIGHBORHOOD and SUPERWHY, Amazon’s CREATIVE GALAXY, and others. In other words: She knows what she’s talking about. So listen up!

More about and by Angela Santomero

How to Get Hired as a Video Professional

TVWriter™ visitors have demonstrated time and time again that they you love how-to articles almost as much as those about getting a proper gig. So we’re happy to present this post which – oh, how fortuitous – just happens to cover both beloved arenas:

Video-Pro-Cover-865x505by Rebecca Case

Sometimes, we find ourselves searching for work in a certain niche that we think we belong in, but it’s important you don’t let preconceived notions limit your access to quality opportunities. For example, many of us come out of school certain that we will become professional, classically-defined filmmakers but, frankly, those jobs are limited.

If you haven’t already, consider other kinds of production, like commercials, reality television, or even corporate marketing and training videos. There are many opportunities to be creative and produce beautiful work in areas you may not be thinking about (often with the added bonus of a more preferable work/life balance). read article

LB on Characterization Part 2

Hey, writers, get yourself a Job!
Hey, writers, get yourself a Job!

The TV Writer on TV Writing
by Larry Brody

Once you the writer have given us, the audience, characters with whom we can sympathize, your next job is to give these new people some “tsuris,” which is Yiddish for “Trouble with a Capital T.”

As Aristotle pointed out a couple of years ago, effective writing comes from building up to a climax, which means that once you’ve established the basic situation for your character – the need the character has that must be fulfilled, or the problem she, he, or they must solve – you’ve only brought yourself to the starting point. Often, that point is one relatively small but nevertheless unmanageable stress. Let me repeat that – “relatively small” yet most definitely “unmanageable.”

This is not going to be a permanent situation for your hero or heroes, not by a long shot. Because even then, right at the get-go, while the hero starts working like a house afire to dig out of the crisis at hand, your job is to ratchet up the pressure and make things even tougher. read article

Troy DeVolld Tells Us What (Fill in the Blank) is Really Like

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by Troy DeVolld

This year, I’ve given myself a great present for Christmas: A get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to the recurring question, “What’s (name of reality celebrity) really like?”

Ask anybody who’s met a celebrity exactly once what they think of them, and you’re going to get an absolute answer based on a tiny interaction. That moment eventually crystallizes into a summary “great guy/gal “or “total jerk/bitch” response. That assessment somehow never takes into account the way the celebrity was approached, as the teller/hero of the story, the “toucher of the garment” as it were, always bases their evaluation on how they were received in that moment. Someone I know scared the living hell out of a television actress recently, literally running after her in a parking lot to vomit praise at her. The verdict on return? “What an unfriendly bitch.”

Really? read article