We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. We think this project and its creators have great potential. If you’re an aficionado of s-f action this one, as Stan Lee used to say, is for you, pilgrim.
Oh, and CARGO and its creator-writers Aaron Walker Sr. and Daymond Roman came thisclose to being winners in the People’s Pilot Contest 2013:
This recent episode of Outlander titled “Je Suis Prest” follows Jamie (Sam Heughan)training his men to be soldiers and fight for Bonnie Prince Charlie, while Claire (Caitriona Balfe) tries to deal with a dramatic event from her past. (I mean her future. I mean the future but still her past…oh well, if you’re a fan you know the premise, right?)
To Those Who Haven’t Viewed This Episode: Be warned. This review may contain spoilers.
THE GOOD:
If you are a TV writer, you probably don’t need to worry about getting the grammar perfectly right, because most often than not, you will be required to write dialogue spoken by people using jargon or street lingo, which needs to be more believable and close to the way we speak in real life. You think David Simon obsessed over grammar when he wrote Homicide: Life on the Streets or The Wire? Surely not.
But still, you will have your work cut out for you, because you need to get all the nuances, punctuation, spelling, and the style just right, especially if your TV show is dialogue-oriented, otherwise it’s just going to sound wrong. This also means that using grammar-checking apps is out of the question, because they still aren’t on the level where they are able to emulate actual human speech.
Hiring an editor is great, but expensive, which means the only viable option is for you to all the proofreading and editing yourself. For that reason, we suggest you try out the following 7 tips.
Actors know it, savvy TV and screenwriters doing the rounds of the marketing circuit know it and ‘newbies and aspirants’ better know it too. Lead with your most compelling material. The first time – any time – you send out material is not the time to leave your best until last.
Because unless they fall in love with your first, it will be your last.
Actors, you’ve got 10 seconds of your first reading. Writers,You have the top half of the first page and that’s being magnanimous. The ‘slow burn’ in either profession just doesn’t impress – unless you’re already successful and the producers and executives in charge know you and your style. Otherwise, you absolutely mustput under a bomb under their butts from the get-go or they’ll pass.
Of course you do.
But who in the world wants to add the drudgery of genre research to the already all-to-difficult task of actually, you know, writing our spec masterpieces? (Especially spec pilots.)
Fortunately for all of us, Netflix has already looked into the matter. and quite deeply and helpfully. They know which types of shows are watched the most quickly (Thrillers! Horror stories!) and which just kind of creep from the To Watch to the Watched…Whew… (Political dramas! Historical dramas!).