Monday, March 20, 2006

Our irregular compendium of posts I think have relatively more signal than noise...

Here's a roundup of some posts you may have missed.

A glossary of tv writer terminology

Springboards

Challenge your core cast's strengths
October 2005: Trust your core cast
November 2005: When your main character lags
November 2005: After the pilot script
December 2005: Second episodes
December 2005: On to our second script
December 2005: Secret, secret, who's got a secret
February 2006: Metaquestion?

Beating Out the Story

How do you get away with plotholes?
Making plotholes fun
Characters and their dumbass mistakes
On characters and the dumbass mistakes they make, part 2
On calling for backup, part 2
What can happen offscreen?
Nothing can happen offscreen
Time cuts
Train wrecks and telegraphing
Second thoughts on telegraphing
Addressing viewer expectations
Tracking expectations
Losing the audience's trust
Fully resolved by first act out?
Suspense v. surprise
Compressed reality
On step outlines
The Sucky Point
Getting past the Sucky Point
Going for the gimmes in the 4400 pilot
October 2005: Writing the pilot
October 2005: Tell your story out loud
November 2005: Write a synopsis to tell a story
February 2006: Episodic vs. serial, again
March 2006: The ole episodic vs. serial question
March 2006: Shifting genres
March 2006: Clever Grey's, or mirrors make you reflect

Scene Work

Have uncommunicative characters explain each other
The cut away from the predictable conversation
The conversation at cross purposes
Format wars
Good playing dialog vs. good reading dialog
October 2005: Fineness in dialog
December 2005: Dialect resource
March 2006: Silents is golden

Comedy

Three Tools from the Comic Toolkit
Where's the comedy?
Comic commitment
Simple plots
December 2005: Comedy screenplay format
March 2006: Comedy is someone else's nightmare

Rewriting

On taking notes
When to pull the plug
The Writer Bomb
September 2005: Rewriting rules of order
November 2005: Rewriting for dollars
February 2006: How much to charge?
February 2006: Rewriting notes

Production

Writing it small
Why our producer doesn't like block shooting
October 2005: Identify the gorilla
February 2006: Editor's cut

The Writing Room

Credit the room, not the writer
Why you must have a writing room
Writing personnel titles
March 2006: Two ways to co-write

Your TV Career

Your foot in the door, or why you should intern
On staffing season
Best Screenwriting School in the World. And it's free, too.
Be a back door man. Or woman
Script coordinator vs. writing assistant
Getting onto a show
Never say "no"
Contests and fellowships
Working with people who can't tell good from bad
Working for less than scale
Why you need an agent, part 37
September 2005: Read for experience, not for long
October 2005: Money and freedom
October 2005: Open-source feedback
October 2005: Don't find an agent in TO if you want to make it in LA
November 2005: Trust your agent
November 2005: Learn from the other
December 2005: The mentor debate
December 2005: Act like you're where you want to be
January 2006: Oh Canada
January 2006: How old is too old?
January 2006: Managing your agent
January 2006: On contract negotiation
March 2006: Talent borrows...

Specs and Pitches

Pitches & Pitch Bibles (Longish post)
Two things any pitch needs to answer
What network do you want your show on?
A few more words on TV spec scripts
Why you must have specs
Why not just write the specs, already?
Network first, or producer first?
Write a spec pilot?
September 2005: How not to date your TV spec (too much)
September 2005: Pitches and spec pilots
November 2005: Spec page count
December 2005: Topicality
December 2005: Surreal killers
January 2006: Spec script title page
February 2006: Tell yourself your story
February 2006: What if
February 2006: Character pass
March 2006: Will they buy your spec pilot without a showrunner?

Bibles and Templates

The attractive fantasy
I just read a bad bible
What is Gilmore Girls's template?
Blowing the template on Corner Gas?
Why Tour of Duty sucks
Character names
Backdoor pilots
Who's core cast?
What's the poster?
Episodic vs. serial
October 2005: Bible is battle plan, not blueprint
October 2005: Procedural vs. character based
December 2005: BBC on templates
December 2005: Diversity pass

Reading TV

Where to find tv scripts to read
More where to find scripts

Watching TV

Watching with 9 year olds
Canadian SF?
More sex please
Car wreck TV
What naughty girls those L Word girls are
24 has jumped the shark
Watching Firefly
Project Greenlight, the fake break
October 2005: TV drama moves to five acts
October 2005: Don't write clip shows
November 2005: It's the audience's show
November 2005: Five acts and weak act outs
December 2005: Write the other half
January 2006: ER pilot
February 2006: I hate Meredith Grey even more

Interviews

Paul Guyot, part 1, part 2, part 3 A "guyot" is an underwater seamount, in case you're wondering.
Shelley Eriksen, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5
Jacob Sager Weinstein
Chris Abbott, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5
September 2005: Stephen Gallagher, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
December 2005: John Rogers, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4
February 2006: Ken Levine, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

Miscellaneous

Characters in SF&F
Writing Animal Characters
Remedial storytelling, or why Kerry lost
Sheherezade
On telling the truth
Redistricting, a modest proposal. Nothing to do with TV, but I wish someone would pick it up and run with it.
December 2005: Let's put the Saturnalia back in Christmas; or, villains

Labels: spec pilots

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