Tag: Spec Scriptacular Contest

Love, Relationships & the Female Writers of UNDATEABLE

Life is supposed to be a learning experience, yeah? And writers are supposed to learn as much as we can so we can pass our knowledge along to readers and viewers, right? Ever think about what TV writers are learning?

(from left) Undateable writers Allison Bosma, Laura Moran, and Amy Pocha.
(from left) Undateable writers Allison Bosma, Laura Moran, and Amy Pocha.

by Jessica Radloff

Although working on a show about dating and relationships doesn’t necessarily make writers experts, it certainly helps open their eyes to all sorts of scenarios and solutions. They are, after all, in a room with 10 other people talking about relationships every single day. So, we wanted to ask Undateable‘s three female writers, all of whom are in committed relationships, what they’ve learned from writing for the show.

Meet Allison Bosma, a married Wisconsin native, who actually had actors Brent Morin (Justin) and Rick Glassman (Burski) in her wedding! She originally moved to Los Angeles seven years ago to be an actress (and even auditioned for Undateable), before she discovered writing as a passion. Her writing partner on the show is her husband, Jon DeWalt. read article

What TV Shows Still Haven’t Learned About Writing Female Leads of Color

From our vantage point here at TVWriter™, it sometimes looks as though the more TV execs, producers, writers et al learn about their subjects and their viewers, the more they start needing to learn. Case in point:

by Princess Weekes

It started with Susie Carmichael.

Like most children of the ’90s, I was obsessed with Rugrats and dragged my mother to see both feature lengths films in theaters. Now, I wasn’t a huge fan of Susie; she was too perfect, and although I didn’t realize it at the time, too manufactured. I much preferred the volatile and antagonistic Angelica. However, I remember sitting in the theater wondering, “Why isn’t Susie in the movie?” read article

Larry Brody on Making Your Scenes Flow

flow_by_waqarwru

The TV Writer on TV Writing
by Larry Brody

Over my years running various TV series I’ve been amazed at how many professional writers don’t understand the basics of good storytelling. In a nutshell, the trick to working out your plot is to always remember that the scenes must flow from and to each other in a progression that takes into account three different elements of audience appeal. As in, the scene progression must be logical, surprising, and climactic.

What this means is that everything that happens must grow out of what happened before. On one level, given the personalities of the characters and the situation they are in, each plot point must be inevitable. And on another level, these inevitable twists and turns mut be such that the reader or viewer could never have predicted them.

Sound paradoxical? Crazy? Let’s take a true crime example. The kind of thing that happens all too often in real life. read article

2016 WGA TV Writing Award Nominees

WGA

TELEVISION AND NEW MEDIA NOMINEES
(for shows airing in 2015)
by Team TVWriter™ Press Service

DRAMA SERIES

The Americans, Written by Peter Ackerman, Joshua Brand, Joel Fields, Stephen Schiff, Lara Shapiro, Joe Weisberg, Tracey Scott Wilson, Stuart Zicherman; FX

Better Call Saul, Written by Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, Gennifer Hutchison, Bradley Paul, Thomas Schnauz, Gordon Smith; AMC read article

Hurtling Toward the TV Remake Apocalypse

sherlock

by Peter Bradshaw

This article was originally published in the UK, but the situation is dire here in the good ole USA as well. Pity the poor TV executives who are running “dangerously low” on beloved old media content to re-imagine, re-do, and de-fang. What will they do when they – shudder – run out?

An awful crisis is unfolding in the world of film and TV writing, a crisis that I learned about when I had coffee recently with a top British producer. We are reaching peak reboot. The number of out-of-copyright pop culture figures or mythic icons who can be reinvented and reimagined for a modern age, or sexed up in their original setting, is running dangerously low.

Sherlock has obviously been done. So has Merlin. King Arthur is being done again on the big screen. Dracula and Frankenstein are always being summoned from the grave, the cultural undead; and The Mummy’s being remade – again. read article