My Blog

Killer Podcast

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Author Lewis Perdue is podcasting his own audio version of his recent novel THE PERFECT KILLER. You can download the first two chapters for free and hear Lew reading the book himself.  Lew tells me that he’s found the experience "far harder than he ever imagined" but that he’s getting better at it as he goes along. Give it a listen and judge for yourself.

Hawaii Lee-O

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The Honolulu Star-Bulletin ran an interview with me today, pegged on the series of library visits I’ll be doing in Hawaii next week.  There are quite a few inaccuracies (eg. I never saw an unreleased HAWAII FIVE-O movie, I saw the unaired revival pilot) and misquotes (eg. I never wrote spec scripts for DIAGNOSIS MURDER), I’m still very pleased with the article.

Blowjobs in Space

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On last week’s episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, we learned
that one of the heroes has been seeing a hooker and paying for sex. In and of
itself, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. We’ve seen characters to do
this on TV before…but can you imagine one of the noble heroes of the last four STAR TREK series or the two
STARGATE shows paying for blowjobs, much less admitting they need, want, and
have sex? I just love the way BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is taking a sledgehammer to
the boring cliches, stale formulas and
cardboard heroes that have hobbled TV scifi series for decades. 

To be fair, FARSCAPE started the cliché-breaking trend in TV
scifi, but then fell into a blackhole of hopelessly maudlin melodrama and
needlessly confusing story-arcs  that
sucked the fun out of the show and actively discouraged new viewers (for a
while, there were two versions of the lead character on two different ships…as
well as two versions of the main villain, one of whom only existed in the mind
of one version of the hero). FARSCAPE became so self-involved and groaningly
angst-ridden that even regular viewers like myself needed healthy doses of
No-Doze and Advil to make it through an episode.

BATTLESTAR manages to sustain involving story arcs, and be
gritty and dark, without losing the exhiliration and the pure fun. And, unlike
FARSCAPE, the show can deal with weighty issues and human drama without taking
itself so damn seriously.   

I think BATTLESTAR may be my favorite show on the air right
now (at least until DEADWOOD and THE SOPRANOS return).

By the way…how anyone could watch the new BATTLESTAR and still pine for the crappy, corny, campy show from the late 70s is beyond me. This is one case where the remake is far, far, far better than the original in every conceivable way.

The Pot of Gold

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I got this email today:

love your blog.  could you give me a rough ballpark range of how much money a show creator makes when the successful show hits 100 episodes and goes into
syndication.   5 mil?  25 mil?  50 mil? is it based on a percentage of what they pay for the rights?

It all depends on how good a deal the creator’s agent managed to strike for his client when they did the pilot.  It also depends on how big a hit the show is and how much it sells for in syndication. What a creator makes could be any of those figures you mention…or much, much more…or much, much less. 

For instance, the creator of  TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT probably didn’t make as much as Larry David did on SEINFELD, though both sitcoms reached 100 episodes and went into syndication, . JAKE AND THE FATMAN ran for five years…but has never been in syndication.  IT TAKES A THIEF ran only three seasons but has been rerunning for decades.

What is Suspense?

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Author Joe Konrath gave some advice on his blog on how to create suspense. It read, in part:

Writing is a lot like teasing your younger brother with a secret.

The longer you hold it over his head, the more worked up he gets.

All
stories, no matter the genre, can benefit from suspense. The tension
doesn’t have to be in the form of the bad guy stalking the hero. It can
be much simpler, much less dramatic, but still make the reader want to
keep reading. For example:

"You seem upset," Jack said. "What’s up?"

"I’ll tell you later." Herb said. "In private."

And we have suspense.

No, what you have is bad writing and an irritated reader. I like Joe a lot and, ordinarily, I think he  gives very good advice.  This time, I have to disagree with my friend.   The example he shares isn’t suspense… it’s a cheat, something weaker writers use when they don’t know how to generate any real suspense, which comes from character and conflict, not gimmickry.

Suspense is about conflict, about the obstacles between the hero and his goal. Suspense is about stakes — personal, physical, and emotional — and a race against the clock. Suspense is about the unknown and a head-long dive into it. Suspense is not about contrivance and word-games.

The example Joe gives is the literary equivalent of the TV moment when the heavy opens the drawer in his desk to gaze at his gun…or the serial killer sticks a knife in a picture of his next victim…or the bad guy picks up the phone and says to someone "Sgt. Hooker is nosing around. He must be eliminated before he stumbles on our evil plan"… or having key plot points happen during the commerical so the viewer won’t be aware of them.

I was about to leave a comment telling Joe why I think his advice this time is dead wrong but several other novelists, like Rob Roberge and my brother Tod, beat me to it (they also teach writing at UCLA and UC Riverside). Here’s what Rob said on Joe’s blog:

this so misunderstands the nature of suspense…suspense occurs when
the reader says "What will happen next?" It doesn’t occur when the
reader says "What is happening?" This is a cheap gimmick…and good
writing, no matter the genre, avoids gimmicks…to not say what’s going
on (as in the example you use where a character asks a question and
then have it unanswered), is the sign of an insecure text that doesn’t
trust there’s enough story to hold the reader with good writing and
characters, so they use manipulation and beginner’s tricks.

And here’s what Tod said:

I read a book recently by a crime novelist of some renown who shall
remain nameless and this is exactly the sort of drama building he did
— cryptic conversations that augered for a big reveal somewhere later
on, but which only served to annoy me as a reader, primarily because
the narrator knew all the answers but chose not to share them with the
reader. It felt like a short cut in place of actual emotion and drama.
As a writer, I knew what this writer was doing, could see it taking
shape 100 pages before the big reveal came and I thought, in my writer
hat, Oh, this is a silly thing to do. As a reader I thought, as I sat
out by my pool, Oh, give me a break, just tell me the damn piece of
evidence!

What are your thoughts?

Oops for OPs

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Screenwriter John August does a post-mortem on his aborted Fox pilot OPS. His post provides a  fascinating glimpse into the world of television development.

When a pilot is announced, it shows up in Variety.  Everyone knows about it. 
When a pilot dies, it dies quietly in the corner…

… the show was announced as a “put pilot,” which means that when Fox
made the original deal with Jordan and me, one of the conditions was
that they basically promised to shoot the pilot. In reality, I’m not
sure there is such a thing as a put pilot.

In the case of Ops, there was a substantial penalty that Fox agreed
to pay in the event they didn’t end up shooting the pilot. In a few
months, I’ll get a check with a few zeroes for my trouble. Given how
much time and money it would have taken to shoot the pilot, it’s almost
certainly for the best the train stopped where it did. There’s no sense
producing a pilot if the network didn’t want the show.

When to Go POD

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I got this email the other day:

Hi. I’ve been enjoying your blog. Can you give me an opinion here? I’ve written a book for a local businessman here in XYZ. He
wants to get 500-1000 copies published to give to customers, relatives, etc. I notice you say NEVER to pay anyone to publish your book. Does that apply
in a case like this, where we’re really not concerned with selling through
bookstores, publicity, etc.–just want the copies?

This is actually the perfect use of print-on-demand self-publishing.  While I think it’s a mistake to use POD to self-publish your novels, going to a company like iUniverse to print your annual reports, classroom materials, family memoirs and other non-fiction work in trade paperback form to give your students, relatives, employees, investors, etc. makes a lot of sense.  It’s also great if you’re a lecturer, motivational speaker, instructor, etc. who wants to sell your work at your seminars.

For instance, if my book SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION WRITING ever falls out of print, I could see making it available on iUniverse through their Author’s Guild/Back-In-Print program (so it would cost me nothing at all). Would I print out 1000 copies and try to sell it/distribute it myself to bookstores? Hell no.  But there’s  no financial downside for me in offering a new edition for anyone who wants to buy it — as I have done with my UNSOLD TELEVISION PILOTS book.

 

Giving Your Life to TV

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I was looking for something on my hard-drive and came across this article I wrote for "Written By," the WGA Journal, back when I was an executive producer on DIAGNOSIS MURDER. At the time, I’d read a number of interviews with showrunners, boasting about how they worked days, nights, and weekends on their shows. So I wrote this piece and was inundated with letters from showrunners…and lowly staff writers…thanking me for it. I thought I’d share the article with you:

There’s a strange perception among writer/producers in TV that the quality of a person’s work increases when the quality of a person’s life suffers. Of course, no one says it that way, at least not in the interviews I’ve been reading with show-runners in Written By, TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly
and other publications the last few months. These writer/producers brag about how they work seven days a week, well into the night, to the detriment of family, health and sanity, purely to maintain the quality of their shows.

They believe the one thing that separates a true writer from a hack is a willingness
to sacrifice one’s marriage and health to the show. Quality demands absolute
dedication to the series, nothing else matters.

One writer/producer brags that when he’s in production, he has no life and that he regularly, and repeatedly, calls his writing staff over the weekend to go over story points, script notes, and other issues. Clearly, there is no escape from  quality.

Another attributes his years of drug addiction to the pressure of turning out “high quality” scripts for A-list series. Now he’s no longer on drugs, is remarried, and is content working on mediocre shows… the implication being if he returned to doing an acclaimed show, he’d be jamming needles between his
toes in no time.

The show runner of a cult hit boasts that success hasn’t weakened his resolve to do his best work, that’s why he still eats breakfast, lunch and dinner at his office nearly seven days a week. Thank God. If he ate a meal with his family, his series might never recover.

I’m a show runner, and my series is in the top 20, but now I know why it’s not a cult hit. Why I don’t have an Emmy or a WGA award. Why I’m not widely acclaimed and much admired.
Because I try to get home in time for dinner with my wife and daughter.  Because I try not to work on weekends. Because I try to put my family first and my show second.

Sure, I work late some nights, even some weekends, and so does my staff. But it’s the exception, not the rule. If it wasn’t, then I think that would make me a lousy show-runner.

I guess that means I’m doomed to mediocrity. I’ll never have to worry about forgetting someone in my Emmy acceptance speech.

Actually, I think what these show-runners are saying is ridiculous. It’s trendy, sexy and hip to say you’re suffering for your craft. It’s not trendy, sexy and hip to say you’re inept at balancing your personal and professional lives.

It’s sad, not admirable, that they are holding up their misery, and the misery they demand of others, as something to be proud of. The correlation they find between addiction, marital woes, and physical distress and “quality” is merely a rationalization for professional disorganization and personal weakness.

I’ve worked for show-runners like that, and I never will again.

These people not only work themselves to exhaustion, divorce, and cardiac arrest, but demand that everyone working for them do the same. Any staffer who puts their family before The Show (ie favors quality of his life over qualify of the work) is a coward, a slacker, a hack, and worst of all, not a team player. The truth is, these show-runners aren’t demanding enthusiasm, creativity, and devotion
from their staffs, what they are really looking for is co-dependence.

It is possible to have a hit show without sacrificing everything that’s important in life. It is possible to do “quality work” and still make it home for dinner. It is possible to win the acclaim of critics and the respect of your peers without having the numbers for a good divorce lawyer and an understanding drug counselor in your rolodex.

It just doesn’t look good. It doesn’t make you sound as tough, ballsy and dedicated. Writers, in fact, like the image. The problem is that too many of them are trying to live up to it.