Category: Resources

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

Know Thy Elevator Pitch!

If you want to sell yourself you have to be ready to make your move at all times. Know your stuff! Know your strengths! Know your elevator pitch!

elevator ninjaby Richard “RB” Botto

It’s been said that luck is where preparation meets opportunity. Only one of those things is completely in your control?—?preparation. Whether you’re a screenwriter, a filmmaker, an entrepreneur or anyone else trying to draw attention and support to a personal or professional endeavor, there’s no excuse not to have your elevator pitch down cold. It needs to be practiced, honed and memorized so that when opportunity rears its head, the words roll off your tongue with an undeniable confidence.

This is a horror story, but please don’t avert your eyes. read article

HOUSE Creator David Shore Explains Why TV Writing Is a “Magic Trick”

And you thought it was hard work, right? Silly humans!

by Etan Vlessing

david_shore_a_pHouse‘s David Shore has gone from a medical to a crime drama with his upcoming Fox supernatural series Houdini & Doyle.

That keeps the Emmy Award-winning showrunner on familiar ground with House, about the curmudgeonly Dr. Gregory House, a brilliant doctor solving medical mysteries. Houdini & Doyle, to debut on Fox in the U.S. and ITV Encore in the U.K. in spring 2016, features crusty Brit Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, played by Episodes star Stephen Mangan, grudgingly partnering with American and master escape artist Harry Houdini (Michael Weston) and New Scotland Yard to solve crimes with an unexplained supernatural slant. read article

“What I Learned About Writing in Acting School”

TV comedy writer par excellence Earl Pomerantz nails it for all us up-and-comers:

actingclass

by Earl Pomerantz

“My mind alights on the memory of Robert O’Neill, who taught at and ran the “Actors’ Workshop” which I attended when I lived in London during the 60’s, the “Actors’ Workshop” specializing in teaching the “Stanislavski Method” acting technique.

England is not the natural terrain for “Method Acting.”  That’s growing watermelons in Kansas.  In contrast to the “Method’s” introspective methodology, the English acting approach is traditionally of the “outside-inside” variety.  Slap on a mustache and you’re Hitler. read article

The Difference Between a Great Story and a Shitty Story

…Is often very, very small. And yet it could be the absolutely biggest thing you need to know:

mindthegapby Charlie Jane Anders

Hollywood people often say that it’s a miracle there are any good movies at all. Because so much can go wrong, and so many random things have to go right, for a movie to avoid being a hopeless disaster. I can believe this, because in general the difference between the good and bad versions of the same story is often razor-thin.

This is kind of a depressing thing to realize, because you would kind of hope that it would be easy to tell if a story is going to work or not. Like, either your soufflé rose or it didn’t, right? And you ought to be able to tell if a story is “clicking” or if it’s just kind of a mess, because the pieces either fit together neatly or they don’t. read article

Larry Brody on Outlining and Writer’s Block

EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to the first in what we hope will be an ongoing weekly series of writing tips and tricks from our Beloved Leader, LB, AKA this guy.

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The TV Writer on TV Writing
by Larry Brody

One of the big differences between beginning writers and old pros is that beginning writers are always telling me how much they love sitting down at the keyboard and winging their scripts, while the pros invariably stress the importance of having a good outline before they start writing. read article