McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

rules on watching telivision for writers

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meg_evonne:
I write every morning from 6 until 8. Some of that might be head time, but usually it's butt in chair. I listen to Direct TV's 856 channel which is what my grown kids call elevator music. It works for me. On Sunday mornings, I often write much longer. Then I'll relent and listen to AM news shows while I work. Generally that means I listen to the stories I'm interested in and the others I use as background sound.

When I'm deep in creating, it doesn't matter what's playing because I sink deep into the routine, but if I'm revising (which seems all the time now) I have to be much firmer about that background noise.

Frankly, it's all getting jumbled up now and I'm having to really hone those concentration skills and squeeze in more hours. There's a lot of other 'busines' stuff you need to do like the website, twitter, emails, Facebook, communication with potential endorsements, communication with friends who read the revisions, and all your bios and the synopsis you wrote doesn't work for on a cover--so you have to redo all that. Add in some love time on the press' site and requests for blogging etc. It's frustrating. Not complaining, because hey--at last, but still I'm jealous of how free I was previously.

That means the 'business' stuff happens during the evening while the tv runs to keep me company. i've been seeing a guy since last Feb and that adds in time pressure.

It's something I'm desperately trying to manage.

I meandered off topic. It's nice to voice out my worries though... Thanks for the question.

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
I don't have a television, and my writing computer has no internet connection.

I'll second Paynesgrey on watching TV shows for insight into story structure, they do interestingly different things from prose fiction but you can still learn from them.

Paynesgrey:
Yup.  We can learn from both good and bad (lazy) storytellers... TV has a surplus of the latter; understandable given the Suit Desk Things who do things by focus groups or "what's always worked before... or who want the writing dimmed down to the lowest common denominator of the audience.

Examine what felt cheap and predictable; where you felt let down and unimpressed by some predictable "big reveal."  Then compare that to those shows where you where either completely blindsided by something which you didn't expect, yet happened to be well within the bounds of plausibility.  Where you're surprised as Hell, but find yourself saying "Huh.  That made perfect sense."  In particular, look for stuff that you saw a possible outcome coming, but felt rewarded for getting it right, like you accomplished something.

Tropes, how to avoid them, how to tickle and twist them into something useful.

Also, compare storylines where the writers knew where they were going (Babylon 5, Legend of Korra, Fringe) to those shows that had a great concept, great characters... but floundered and meandered aimlessly (X-Files.)

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: Paynesgrey on January 07, 2015, 12:41:09 AM ---Also, compare storylines where the writers knew where they were going (Babylon 5, Legend of Korra, Fringe) to those shows that had a great concept, great characters... but floundered and meandered aimlessly (X-Files.)

--- End quote ---

Heh.  B5 is kind of depressing as an example of someone who knows where they are going storywise getting to do enough of it that its visible and then being messed about by forces beyond their control in ways that seriously bugger up their ability to deliver the rest; I think the take home message there is "there are reassuringly fewer other people involved in the process of making novels."

I couldn't stand Fringe, didn't even make it through the first season, and haven't got to Legend of Korra yet.  But in the interests of positivity, the example that comes to my mind of a current show that's written to a defined structure, and that is doing some awesomely tight and clever story things, is Gravity Falls.  I am in awe of some of what that's done, and really hope that Alex Hirsch manages to keep doing it; I gather depressingly much of what he does these days is fighting with Disney's internal standards people to get them to let him do the things he wants.

Paynesgrey:

--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on January 07, 2015, 04:16:48 PM ---Heh.  B5 is kind of depressing as an example of someone who knows where they are going storywise getting to do enough of it that its visible and then being messed about by forces beyond their control in ways that seriously bugger up their ability to deliver the rest; I think the take home message there is "there are reassuringly fewer other people involved in the process of making novels."

I couldn't stand Fringe, didn't even make it through the first season, and haven't got to Legend of Korra yet.  But in the interests of positivity, the example that comes to my mind of a current show that's written to a defined structure, and that is doing some awesomely tight and clever story things, is Gravity Falls.  I am in awe of some of what that's done, and really hope that Alex Hirsch manages to keep doing it; I gather depressingly much of what he does these days is fighting with Disney's internal standards people to get them to let him do the things he wants.

--- End quote ---

Agreed on B5, and Crusade in spades...

Fringe's first season was largely "Creature of the Week," which doesn't do much for me... but when they started weaving threads together, it turned out that there were some interesting story arcs to be had.  Seems like networks insist now that the first half season be stand-alone, creature/caper/crook of the week for fear that Joe Audience will tune in on the 4th episode, and not know what's going on.  I've seen a number of shows that started annoyingly simplistic turn into something worthwhile after that initial warm-up.

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