40 years worth of TV writing experience and info, yours for the taking.
If you check out the film On the Rocks on Wikipedia, here’s what you’ll see:
On the Rocks is a 2020 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Sofia Coppola. It follows a father and daughter (Bill Murray and Rashida Jones) as they tail her suspicious husband (Marlon Wayans).
A lesson in fortitude. It took writer Scott Frank 14 years to get his script for The Queen’s Gambit made into a film not only one of the most popular in the history of Netflix, but also beloved by critics. Here’s part of the story:
And here’s another, deeper part from Screencraft.Org:
Long before I got into the television business, back when I was a television viewer, I would go off on a rant about cop shows at a moment’s notice. “Why are people’s lives always in danger?” I would shout. “Why does TV always have someone looking down the business end of a gun?”
Now that I’ve been writing a good long while, I know the answer. The reason television gives us so many cop shows and medical shows and lawyer shows is that in those situations something very important is always at stake – usually someone’s life. You don’t get higher stakes than that, and without the risk of a very big loss, all the audience can do when it sees your hero being agitated is yawn and say, “Who cares?”
LB’S NOTE: Stephanie Bourbon’s helpful column, originally scheduled for last week but bumped because of the shocking events on Capital Hill, presents us with much-needed advice about a part of our lives we can, in fact, control..
Hello Dear Writers!
Even when I don’t have a show in production tons of spec scripts are sent to me. Most are spec screenplays, but both they and the spec teleplays share one common flaw. Their writers are so worried about overwriting that they under write the material and fail to draw the reader into the characters’ state of mind.
If your reader isn’t pulled into the story and made to know and share the feelings of the characters, especially the main characters, then your script isn’t going to work. It won’t appeal to producers or actors or directors, and if by some chance it gets made it will fall flat to the audience.