Peggy Bechko: Name Those Characters – A Writer’s Puzzle

baby_nameby Peggy Bechko

Have you toyed with, fought with, howled at with giving names to your characters when you’re writing? Have you developed a character, followed him or her, saw them through all sorts of tight spots and just knew the name wasn’t right? Ask any parent, there are many factors that go into naming a child and those characters in your novel you write are just like your children.

Names are important. An obvious fact.

Just think of a name and an instant preconception springs to mind. If the name doesn’t fit the character it’s difficult if not impossible to get/keep things moving on the written page. Names can reflect our personalities, our background or ethnicity or faith. read article

BUILDING YOUR WEB SERIES AUDIENCE

Some precious words of wisdom that so many of us need to take closely to heart:

by Joe Thomas

webseriespromotion-268x300So you’ve come up with a great idea for a web series, now what? Sure, it all starts with the concept, then moves right into scripting, budgeting, casting, production; you probably already know the routine, but getting your series on film or data card is really only the beginning. Think about it, the most incredibly produced, artfully written and Emmy worthy performances are all going to go poof if nobody sees it. The most daunting and difficult phase of creating a successful web series is building an audience.

Building that audience MUST start with a fully workable plan. It’s not as simple as throwing it up on YouTube and catching a few thousand Twitter followers and Facebook likes. No. It’s not simple at all. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the odds are stacked against you from the beginning, and they’re getting worse every day. Look at the trade sites, how many real Hollywood players are migrating to the web series platform? How many major networks and web sites are jumping into the web series arena with their own original web content? Every day the numbers go up, and with those numbers come dollars – real dollars. The major players will win simply because they can outspend you. Even Kickstarter is seeing a major swing in the A-Listers that are turning toward crowdfunding. How in the world can the ‘little guys’ compete with that? read article

All the Ways Hollywood Tried to Ruin GRAVITY

TVWriter™ isn’t a film site. Oh no, no, no, no, no. We’re committed to TV.

But we’re also committed to excellence, and the following article is a look into a Most Excellent little film you might’ve heard of called GRAVITY and how so many things that could’ve totally screwed it up…didn’t.

Yay, team! read article

Troy DeVolld: FRESH MEMORIES OF A SHORT, OUTRAGEOUSLY LUCKY LIFE IN REALITY TELEVISION

Troy originally published this on The Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors. But we think it belongs here as well:

by Troy DeVolld

devolldJust this June, as an extension of the Television Writers Summit event in Tel Aviv, I participated on a panel at Tel Hai College in northern Israel. With me were a writer from Everybody Loves Raymond, a former Spelling/CBS/Paramount exec and another writer whose career to date has been an even divide between traditionally scripted television and reality. If you’d have told me in advance that we’d spend more than half of our panel time fielding questions about reality production, I’d have thought you were completely bats… but that’s exactly what happened.

I’ve only worked in reality for thirteen years, but in just that time, I’ve worked on two dozen reality series, a number of them running multiple seasons. In the free-for-all world of reality television, shows can pump out two or three full runs a year, which certainly keeps me busy. read article

Sorry, Big Media, Looks Like Piracy Isn’t Killing Content After All

Good news for creatives and audiences alike, courtesy of none other than the London School of Economics:

London-School-of-Economicsby Ernesto

The London School of Economics and Political Science has released a new policy brief urging the UK Government to look beyond the lobbying efforts of the entertainment industry when it comes to future copyright policy. According to the report there is ample evidence that file-sharing is helping, rather than hurting the creative industries. The scholars call on the Government to look at more objective data when deciding on future copyright enforcement policies.

Over the past years there have been ample research reports showing that file-sharing can have positive effects on the entertainment industries. read article