A New Category of Writing Books
For some reason when you dig into books on writing, all the same ones crop up: Writer’s Journey, STORY, and half a dozen others. Rarely are these books linked or associated with books on TV writing, probably because they deal mostly with screenplays and novels. There is a concrete divide, at least on Amazon.com, between writing for novels/screenplay and writing for TV.
I’ve been noticing some tricks used in shows like Battlestar and Stargate SG-1 that seem to be following some common structures and devices. As a result, I ordered a whole new batch of books on writing, this time dedicated to TV writing. TV writing is an entirely different beast, requiring a much more solid bag of tricks to keep a TV series alive and the viewers interested.
Any of you familiar with this area at all? Assimilated any useful tricks?
Rest assured I will share some of my findings here.
It’s research time again!
5 comments
Trackbacks/Pings
Leave a reply
Comments
April 4th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
That’s interesting, Eric. I’ll look forward to hearing what you learned from those books.
I just finished an interview with screenwriter Dale Launer (the first part will probably post 4/27). What he said about TV that struck me is that those writers are far more well respected than screenwriters. I know that doesn’t tell you anything about craft, but I thought it was interesting. Here’s the direct quote:
“TV – with its gigantic appetite for content, has pushed aside the star theory, pushed aside big producers, and now it’s the head writer/show runner is the most powerful. And makes the best material. Funny, but directors are treated respectfully in TV, but they don’t have anywhere near the power they have in movies. TV pretty much treats directors the way the old studio system did.”
April 4th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Therese, that “gigantic appetite for content” forces the writing teams to have a reliable, managable system for developing stories for each episode and arcs as a whole.
All that talk of systems gets me excited. :)
April 5th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
There’s a book I have at home.. I’ll have to get the title and give it to you. Good book on script/screen writing. I personally find the media fascinating. You look at writing a completely different way. It’s almost as if you have just tell the story by speaking, and giving direction (for what the eye sees. It’s going to see a red chair, but you don’t get to tell how that red chair feels when you sit in it. The character/actor gets to do that through their actions…)
I haven’t studied ’structure’ of the story as much, but I wouldn’t mind one of these days really getting into screen writing and it’s inner workings.
April 5th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
I think the great strengths of studying script writing, and t.v. scripts in particular, is the emphasis on dialogue and action. They focus on getting the story moving forward and all that backstory stuff has to be gotten across to the viewer quickly. Sometimes that’s good, but sometimes I like reading a book because it delves into character.
Anyway, I think understanding the 3-act structure and some of screenplay techniques is valuable.
April 5th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Kathleen… TV doesn’t use 3 act structure. They have an entirely different formula for plotting. That’s one of the main reasons I want to study TV writing.
Also, the writers use things like step sheets and beat sheets, which I’ve never even heard of… there are methods that TV writers use which are clearly different from both novel and film scripts. That separation of TV writing processes from the processes used by writers in other mediums is fascinating.