Category: Resources

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

Kelly Jo Brick: The Write Path With Craig Silverstein

A series of interviews with hard-working writers – by another hard-working writer!
by Kelly Jo Brick

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Aspiring writers often wonder how the pros got where they are. The truth is, everyone’s story is different, but there are some common elements: dedication, persistence and hard work.

Writer Craig Silverstein (TURN: WASHINGTON’S SPIES, NIKITA) built the foundations for his writing career back during his days at the University of Michigan where he had the great fortune to study under screenwriter Jim Burnstein (Renaissance Man, D3: The Mighty Ducks). read article

Peggy Bechko on Fear of Flying – or Success

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by Peggy Bechko

Okay, writers, listen up. Pretty prevalent amongst us is shyness and even out and out fear of success.

How, you ask can this be possible? If we’re writing with the aim of having a script produced or a novel published how can it be that we actually fear that which we strive for?

This is a deep psychological subject on which many articles have been written. So we’ll skip the discussion on whether it exists, it does. Look inside yourself and I’ll bet you spot at least some degree of it as it seems that there’s something about the writing life that attracts just this kind of people. You know, like you and me. read article

In TV Comedy, the WRITER is Still King/Queen

Put the greatest comic improvisers in the world into a studio with cameras turning, and what kind of end product do you get?

If it’s a scripted comedy show, you get the words as written by the writers, with just a few adjustments. Because “scripted” still means “saying what we wrote” for some very good reasons indeed (not necessarily having all that much to do with the, you know, writing, either):

Will somebody put a big red diagonal line thru this, please?
Will somebody put a big red diagonal line thru this, please?

by Christy Grosz

Comedy might have the reputation for being loose and spontaneous, but when it comes to garnering laughs for TV series, writing and refining is often the key to the humor. While some shows leave room for improvisation, both HBO’s “Veep” and Netflix’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” (pictured) achieve their style from a heavily scripted process. read article

John Ostrander on Getting $$$, Credit and Satisfaction from the SUICIDE SQUAD Film

Suicide-Squadby John Ostrander

There’s a lot of attention focused on the Suicide Squad, what with the movie being filmed right now and coming out next year, and, yes, it’s based on the version of the Squad that I created back in the 80s and, yes, I should see some money for the use of Amanda Waller (not the Squad per se since it already existed in another form in the DCU) and that’s all pretty cool. Might as well tell my version of how this all started and give some credit where credit is due. You may have heard/read some of this before but I’m at the age where repeating stories is de rigeur so let’s do this.

My first shout out goes to Robert (“Bobby”) Greenberger who was our first editor on the Squad. I had met Bob at several conventions and while waiting in airports afterwards for our respective planes. I was working only for First Comics at that point; I hadn’t yet moved up to the major publishers. Bob and I got along really well and he broached the idea of my doing some work for DC. I was perfectly amenable and we started talking what I might do.

I loved the title “Challengers of the Unknown” which was lying fallow at the time. I considered, then and now, that this was one of the great titles in comics. All by itself, it conjured up possibilities. Really cool. read article

Is Norman Lear Rebooting ALL IN THE FAMILY?

Now this is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

Legendary writer-producer Norman Lear was on CNN last week and said he’s thinking about rebooting ALL IN THE FAMILY and maybe doing a Hispanic version of ONE DAY AT A TIME. (And if you don’t know about those shows, it’s definitely time to google and go, “Wow” when you see what Lear, who created both series, was doing in the ’70s.)

Here’s a transcript of Lear’s interview on RELIABLE SOURCES: read article