Category: Resources

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

Peggy Bechko: Tips for Writing Your Logline or Blurb

by Peggy Bechko

Not this kind of logline. Damn it, you guys!
Not this kind of logline. Damn it, you guys!

Okay writers, time to focus. Whether you write books or scripts or both, you’ve heard this before. You’re going to have to learn to condense. You’ll need to create book blurbs or tweet length synopsis or loglines, or whatever you label it in order to promote your work and sell it.

Don’t go and tell me you’re a novelist and you can’t write anything shorter. I said that once – a long, long time ago – then I learned how to do it.

What are the bare bones of the story you’re trying to tell? How are you going to put that across in just a few words for a ‘high concept’, or a sentence or two for a book blurb? read article

So you wanna write for TV — here’s help

An insider writes about TV writing for a publication that’s as outsider as you can get…and there’s much here for all of us newbies to learn:

Jay Tarsesby Trai Cartwright

“Want to learn how to write for TV?”

This question came from Jay Tarses, a legendary Hollywood TV writer and the old curmudgeon I was now working for. “See those shelves? Read those.” The shelves he pointed to were 8 feet tall, just as wide, and packed solid with TV scripts. I’d never even seen one before, much less 7 million of them. read article

LEGALLY BLONDE Writers Discuss Their Creative Process

ALO-024273Kirsten Smith & Karen McCullah

Back in 1991, our Beloved Leader Larry Brody decided he’d had it with showbiz and drastically changed his life, packing up the belongings that meant the most to him – um, that would be cowboy boots, his Ludwig drum kit, his comic book collection, and his best friend, The Navajo Dog – threw everything into a teeny little Mitsubishi 4×4 and headed for, New Mexico to, well, to live with Indians, actually.

Even while residing on the Santa Clara Pueblo, just north of Santa Fe, LB couldn’t quite call it quits and ended up teaching screen and TV writing and production at The College of Santa Fe. After a few years, to the joy of fans everywhere (and the dismay of executives everywhere also), a more enlightened and relaxed LB (we think it was the ‘shrooms) came back to L.A. and set about revolutionizing Saturday morning animation with shows like THE SILVER SURFER. read article

Leesa Dean: Adventures of a Web Series Newbie

entourage-w82

Chapter 71: Four Bad Things
by Leesa Dean

This week has been nuts. Insanely busy writing, planning, setting stuff up. Had three meetings scheduled. Two were cancelled/postponed. And the third was a bust. This summer has been interesting…and challenging.

The third meeting wasn’t for the TOP SECRET big project I’ve been working on this past year. It was with a small level agent who reached out through a friend. We chatted via email and I agreed to meet for drinks. Full disclosure: While I am hoping to connect with an agent, in general, I’ve found that small level ones–meaning ones not connected with a large agency, or formerly from a large agency and starting their own–are normally a waste of time. So why’d I take the meeting? Two reasons: 1) My friend asked me to (this agent is trying to build a cool client roster) and 2) bigger agents aren’t exactly banging down my door right now.

The signs that the meeting was gonna be a bust were all over the place. Here are Four Bad Things that were tip-offs that this was not meant to be: read article

Peggy Bechko: Writers Don’t Wait For Inspiration

hunting club

by Peggy Bechko

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” Jack London

One of my favorite quotes on writing. I don’t know how many writers still carry that image in their heads that a writer sits around contemplating until struck with a brilliant ideas at which point said writer begins to write in earnest. Hopefully not many.

I don’t know how many readers also have that same image of writers in their heads. To both camps I say, get it out. Stomp that idea to death and do it now. read article