Category: Resources

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

Should You Write a Novel or a Screenplay?

We admit it. We’re not big fans of Huffpo since Adriana sold out. But this thoughtful piece is definitely worth reading. And hell, we’d like it to be seen by as many peeps as possible cuz we’re pretty sure the writer didn’t make a dime:

by Priyanka Kumar

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Over a decade ago, as a graduate student at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-TV, I was living a double life. By day, I attended my screenwriting classes, took notes, and asked thoughtful questions; by night, I worked on a literary novel. Actually, I was so wrapped up in this novel that I was hoping to sequester myself during Christmas break and get a chunk of the book written then. read article

LB: Words of Wisdom from a Writer Named After the State I was Born In

And if that ain’t the worst sentence ever written on TVWriter™, I don’t know what is.

Or, in the words of playwright extraordinaire Tennessee Williams:

dt.common.streams.StreamServer“We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.” read article

What Exactly Does “Written By” Mean?

Hint from LB: Not what it used to.

Oh, man, this article really makes me feel old:

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by Justin Halpern

The other night I was sitting and watching television with a good friend of mine. He works as a paramedic and couldn’t give two shits about the entertainment industry. We were watching a rerun of The Simpsons, specifically, the one where Sideshow Bob tries to kill Bart and destroy television in Springfield. It’s one of those classic Simpsons episodes where every line is quotable, and afterward my friend said “Whoever wrote that one is a fucking genius.” read article

TV And “The Lawful Good”

This is an amazingly overthought article. In fact, it could be the most overthinking we’ve ever seen anywhere.

Well done, Overthinking It! Yess!

lawful-good-meme read article

Our Last Post Relating to DOCTOR WHO’s 50 Anniversary

Probably. Maybe. Whatever:

Writers Explain Why ‘Doctor Who’ is ‘Like Writing Seven Shows At Once’
by Graeme McMillan

Tomorrow sees the 50th anniversary of the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who, television’s longest-running sci-fi show and — in recent years — one of the fastest-growing genre franchises around the world (The anniversary is being celebrated with a global simulcast of a special episode “The Day of the Doctor,” with additional 3D screenings in U.S. cinemas on Saturday and Monday).doctor_who_50th_two_doctors

The longevity of the series means that those currently creating the show grew up watching it — not that the familiarity makes their jobs any easier. “Writing Doctor Who is not like writing any other show. It’s like writing seven shows at once, it’s so extraordinarily demanding,” said Chris Chibnall, who’s written for the show since 2007 under showrunners Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat. read article