Category: Resources

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

Working on Saturday Night Live taught me about the ruthlessness of TV

Old showbiz saying: “If I can talk you out of going into the Industry, you wouldn’t have made it anyway.”

Neither we nor the writer of the following article are trying to talk anybody out of going into showbiz.  Nevertheless…well, see for yourself:

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by Steven W. Thrasher

Seeing Saturday Night Live turn 40 makes me feel really old. I worked at the show in seasons 24 and 25, when I was 25. I feel old remembering that Tina Fey was the head writer, didn’t appear on camera and wasn’t a celebrity. I feel geezerly recalling that there was only one internet connection in the SNL writing offices; and outright ancient thinking back on how I copied and pasted Xeroxes of newspaper stories for the writers pre-mass use of Google, and made tape-to-tape analogue video copies for the actors because YouTube hadn’t been invented. read article

Herbie J Pilato: Trek Flick Reboot 3: What it Should Be

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by Herbie J Pilato

So what should the next Star Trek feature film be about?

First and foremost, it better be good.

It will be released in 2016 (Summer? Christmas?) – which will commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the original TV Trek’s debut on NBC way back in ’66. read article

TV Writing Master Class from HELIX Showrunner

Well, not really a class. More like a series of tweets. But great tweets. Terrific tweets. Helpful as hell tweets.

You’ll see:

tumblr_inline_nj07m35Zyy1sh4rty read article

Peggy Bechko: Grandpa Was A Character – A Writer’s Inspiration

by Peggy Bechko

NIGHT OF THE FLAMING GUNSI have spent a bit of time recently reflecting on my early beginnings as a writer and the transformation that has happened over the years. Life is change after all and nothing ever stays the same.

Currently I write a lot of things. Novels, screen scripts, commercial copy, and pretty much anything that comes my way that sparks my interest. I’ve published with major houses, optioned scripts and done some self-publishing.

But, what I’m centering on here is my beginnings; that which brought me to this point. read article

Peggy Bechko: Writers Facing Conflict

godzillakingkong by Peggy Bechko

Have you really given thought to conflict? It’s the life blood of your story creation.

I mean think about it. When people have something exciting/terrifying/ dangerous happen to them and they survive to return home to their regular lives what do they talk about? Their regular lives of the out-of-the-ordinary thing that happened? The fact of the matter is, people generally relive those scary/exciting times even when it’s something they might like to put behind them (like a factory explosion, or wartime experiences of a soldier or the collapse of the towers on 9/11). Why are we like this? A psychologist might be able to tell you but I can’t. The obsession people have with thrills is something that’s been around forever. Consider the Romans, the Spartans…us!

But conflict isn’t just one person batting another over the head. There’s all kinds of conflict. And even if you’re the mellow sort who avoids conflict in your life, you can’t avoid it altogether because sometimes it’s brought to you. Additionally it would be silly to try to avoid conflict in your storytelling because you’d end up with no story. read article