40 years worth of TV writing experience and info, yours for the taking.
Here ya go, ladies and gents, a wonderfully written and insightful piece that definitely taught this TVWriter™ minion a thing or three that I can’t wait to incorporate into the next script somebody pays me for. (Yeah, well, that’s my excuse for not writing; what’s yours?)
Take a look. We’ll be pretty darn surprised if you don’t agree:
“Breathes there a man with a body part so dead that he’s never wished he was called ‘sexiest man alive?'”
Etymologist Arika Okrent may or may not have given our question above any thought, but there’s no doubt that she’s thought long and well about the phrase itself. And, as usual, her knowledge and research expertise are our gain:
While we writers often feel like the unsung heroes of Hollywood, we do keep the Hollywood planet rotating on its crazy axis. As storytellers, we’re the Master Chefs in the Creativity Kitchen. Without a rippin’ good yarn and characters bursting with vitality, they’ve got nothin’!
For our Pilot to be green-lit, for the first season to have a ‘brother’ and then a sister, there must be dynamic ‘character interaction’ lighting up every page, within every episode and across seasons.
The language of TV and screenwriting is constantly changing, just like everything else in the universe – well, our little corner of it anyway – and this TVWriter™ minion has to admit that sometimes even I don’t know what people way smarter than I do are talking about.
Case in point: The phrase “Inciting Incident.” This term has had me scratching my head for years. Does it replace “The Call to Action?” or does it supplement it? I never was able to figure it out till I saw this article on the interwebs last week.
Ah, enlightenment at last! Thank you, Script Reader Pro!
Sometimes it seems as though the phrase “being employed” automatically means, “Help! I’m being harassed.” Or are we all just snowflakes, melting when we should be standing firm?
With the whole writing staff watching, waiting to work, our boss would be trying on pants. A tailor was taking his measurements. When he was satisfied, he told the tailor he’d like thirty pair of these pants sent to his home in LA, and thirty pair sent to his summer home.
Thirty pair? Sixty total? That’s a lot of pants. What was going on?