Category: Resources

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

REWRITE YOUR LIFE

We’re constantly revising our lives here at TVWriter™. The way we see it, if we can just get it right we’re bound to get that Big Reward we’ve been searching for. You know, like selling our screenplay….

by Kara Holden

I love writing.  I do.  Love the creation of something that has never existed in the world before, love the way dialogue plays in my head, love the sound the keys make as I transcribe it to the page.  But today I have a confession to make: as much as I love writing, I hate rewriting.  Even now, I’m about ready to chuck my computer into the washing machine and set it on spin if my husband gives me one more note to make this opening paragraph “punchier.”  There.  Punchy enough?

I know, I know, don’t blame the messenger.  And the truth is, like the famous quote points out, writing is rewriting.  But the necessity of it doesn’t make it any easier.  It is difficult, tedious and sometimes painful work.  It hurts to whittle away words that hard work have wrought – to “kill your darlings” as Faulkner once quipped.  Hard to look at your own work with a critical eye (or to stop being so critical in some cases).  It is difficult to cut away lines you love, characters you have grown to adore and scenes you are proud of, simply because they aren’t moving the story forward. read article

In Their Own Writ Dept: John Steinbeck on Writing

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“If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that makes a bad story. For a bad story is only an ineffective story.”

John Steinbeck

10 FOOLPROOF STRATEGIES TO DEFINITELY, MAYBE MAKE IT IN HOLLYWOOD

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by Jessica Cabot

All the time young college students who don’t know any better are asking me, “Hey, Jessica, how do I make it in the entertainment industry? How can I get a job as a writer’s assistant like the one you used to have?” I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have a lot of help along the way on my career journey. It’s the least I can do to pay it forward and divulge my insider industry secrets.

As such, the following are my top ten pieces of advice for people who aspire to be more like me and waste their lives pursuing delusional pipe dreams:

1. BE NICE? – People are always complaining that everyone here is a jerk, so if you’re nice you’ll probably stand out. Standing out is good. read article

The Hero’s Journey Meets the Screenwriter’s Journey

And now the kind of love story we understand.

An analysis of a writer’s love of storytelling. A hero’s journey indeed.

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by Loren-Paul Caplin

Why the f*%K do we do it? read article

John Ostrander: Apparent Contradictions

John Ostrander Apparent Contradictions by John Ostrander

None of us are the same person all the time. We change according to the people we are around; they draw different aspects of us out of ourselves. A sibling may draw us into the role of younger or older sibling automatically. A guy talking with other guys may talk and act one way and, on seeing a pretty girl, turn around and talk and act completely differently. Have you ever said or felt that a certain person brings out the best or worst in you? It’s probably true. You do it to others as well.

What’s true in life should be true in our writing. One of the major purposes of supporting characters, major or minor, good or bad, is to draw out aspects of the protagonist. There are differences between who we think we are and who we actually are and it’s other people and/or difficult situations that draw these out and reveal them to ourselves or to the readers of our stories.

Nothing reveals a character more than contradictions. The deeper the character, the more profound the contradictions. Let’s do an exercise. Take a sheet of paper and on one side in a vertical column write attributes or virtues that a character may have. For example, our character Jimmy Bill Bob is friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. That’s right – a real Boy Scout. Now, draw a line down the center of the page and in a column opposite the first attributes, write their opposite. Be creative. You can’t use un – as in unkind or ir- as in irreverent. Find words that you feel mean the opposite of the word on the left hand side of the line. I’ll wait. read article