Tag: TVWriter™

DEXTER & BURN NOTICE: Fun in the Sun? Or Something Much Darker?

And now, a little overthink for those of you who prefer it when your cortexes go ka-blam!

Miami Justice: Two Sides of the Same Coin – by Ben Adams

Why do we punish? And why is it so much fun to see punishment doled out? From crime procedurals like Law and Order to superheroes dominating the box office inThe Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers, we seem to have a collective fascination with the punishment of wrong-doers. But where does the urge to punish come from? Why are we so insistent that the wicked suffer? Because that’s the key question – punishment, but it’s very nature, is generally backwards looking. Punishing the murderer doesn’t bring back the dead. What good does it do anyone to inflict further suffering, even if it seems like someone “deserves” it? My colleague Matthew Belinkie has explored the legal side of punishment at length, so I’m going to turn my attention towards the extra-legal side of punishment – the vigilante. read article

The Best Websites and Software for Brainstorming and Mind Mapping

Because thinking is easier than writing:

from How-To-Geek

FreeMind

FreeMind is a free mind-mapping program written in Java. It supports folding and unfolding with one click and the ability to follow HTML links stored in the nodes to websites or local files. You can drag and drop nodes to copy one or more nodes and to copy text or a list of files from outside the program. read article

Kathy Fuller: Fictional Realism Required?

So even though I refuse to watch the Walking Dead, I saw this on Pinterest today:

which spawned a little nine comment discussion on realism v. escapism. Your mission as a writer is to make your made-up story as “real” as possible. Some people, including a few folks on Pinterest, don’t think that’s necessary, while others get highly annoyed when something implausible occurs and takes them out of their suspended reality. This basically happens all the time in the action genre: the bad guys can’t shoot the broad side of a barn while the main character is always dead on accurate, for example. That’s become an action staple, so no one questions that leap in logic anymore. read article

Love & Money Dept – TV Writing Deals for 11/25/12

Ratings & Demos Note: We’ve been amazed to learn via our own internal ratings system that Luv & $$ is the least read department of TVWriter™. But we’re forging ahead anyway cuz everybody knows ratings are bogus.

  • Jessie Miller & Bennett Wolin (no credits cuz they’re newbies – yay, newbs!) have sold a sitcom pilot script, THE MESSED UPTONS, to NBC. (Hey, didja catch that subtle pun in the title? Not bad, huh?)
  • Neil Tokin (RICHIE RICH) is adapting Kate Braestrup’s novel, Here If You Need Me, as a “spiritual” drama series pilot for CBS. (Whatcha think of that “spiritual” thing? Yeah, we’re pretty meh about it too, even without knowing any details.)
  • Novelist Ayelet Waldman is writing LOCO, a CBS drama about a couple who take in their best friends’ “unusual and gifted” children when said friends are killed. (Askin’ yourself if you coulda sold this idea if it’d been yours? Yeah, us too…and we all know what the answer is, don’t we?)
  • Kenan Thompson (SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE) is writing, producing, and starring in an untitled NBC sitcom about a New Yawk kinda guy who moves into his in-laws’ house in the burbs. (Askin’ yourself if his wife moves in with him? Yeah, us too…but maybe she won’t cuz that way there’s more casting money for, you know, Kenan?)

Wow, TVWriter™ & CBS’ Les Moonves Finally Agree on Something

Good to see that the Les(s) Man is finally facing reality:

USA Today reports that Les(s) Moonves, Chairman of CBS Corp – which means he controls CBS, Showtime and half the CW – now claims to have been waiting, waiting, waiting for the glorious moment when alternate programming like DVR viewing, online streaming, mobile viewing, etc. to dominate the television world…and now that time has come. read article