Here are some of my favorite posts from the blog.
A
glossary of tv writer terminology
Choosing a Story
September 2006: It's
been done already
February 2007: Old
copyright
March 2007: True
crime
March 2007: Talent
borrows
March 2007: Releases
April 2007: Write
for love...?
May 2007: Books
as bankable elements
June 2007: Be
original in a movie spec
June 2007: It's
not about you
September 2007: Write
big or write little?
September 2007: Why
are you telling the story?
October 2007: The
three most important things I teach
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?
May 2006: Faking
technical info
August 2006: A
foolish consistency
October 2006: A
rose is a rose is a rose
June 2007: Day
players good
June 2007: Two-parters
August 2007: Rule
of Joss
August 2007: Closing
in on an outline
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
March 2006: Dire
situations
March 2006: Surprising
characters
April 2006: Not
what it's about
April 2006: How
long to tell your story?
June 2006: Sequelae
June 2006: It's
important to the main character
July 2006: Interweaving
July 2006: Interweaving,
continued
July 2006: Similar
characters
July 2006: Stealing
August 2006: Real
characters
September 2006: Feed
your head
September 2006: Deus
ex machina
October 2006: How
simple?
November 2006: Craft
v. software
November 2006: Casting
about for details
November 2006: Not
just evil, but fun evil
December 2006: It's
Christmas, tell your stories
December 2006: Cursing
and broadcast
January 2007: Jilted
January 2007: Amazing
but true
January 2007: Who's
the main character?
January 2007: Late
hooks
February 2007: No
act structure
March 2007: Act
outs in pay cable?
March 2007: Three
acts vs. four
March 2007: Magical
realism vs. magic
May 2007: Adaptation
by Amazon
June 2007: Expectations
/ satisfaction
July 2007: Writing
against casting
July 2007: TV
acts, structure, and stories
August 2007: Thank
you for not smoking
September 2007: Names
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: Images
as story
April 2006: NIGHT
and DAY
May 2006: IM
all over that
May 2006: Numbers
of pages
June 2006: VO/OS/ON
PHONE
July 2006: Character
info
August 2006: The
value of setting impossibly high standards
August 2006: (Overlapping)
December 2006: Montage
January 2007: The
right images in the right order
February 2007: TV is
compressed reality
April 2007: White
space
May 2007: Quotes
August 2007: The
scenes you want to write
October 2007: Song
lyrics
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
June 2007: Still
funny?
October 2007: Plussing
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
March 2006: The
benefits of lazy revisions, or, serendipity
April 2006: How
do you get to Carnegie Hall?
June 2006: Follow
the pain
September 2006: Sloppy
writing on staff
September 2006: Into
it now
November 2006: Staying
ahead of the audience
November 2006: Make
it a character flaw
February 2007: Writing
and rewriting
March 2007: Unique
selling proposition
August 2007: His
master's voice
Production
Writing
it small
Why
our producer doesn't like block shooting
October 2005: Identify
the gorilla
February 2006: Editor's
cut
July 2006: Second-guessing
Serenity
November 2006: $14
steadicam
November 2006: A
bottle show is inside
December 2006: Casting
December 2006: Auditions
December 2006: Why
a short?
December 2006: Diss
approval, continued
December 2006: Good
adaptations
December 2006: Do
you need storyboards?
January 2007: Franchise
May 2007: Accidents
will happen
June 2007: Walter
Murch
August 2007: Controllable
situations
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
November 2006: Not
just for Battlestar fans
January 2007: Awesome
retcon
March 2007: Who
addresses notes?
March 2007: Who
addresses notes, part two
August 2007: The
mythical man month
Your TV (and Movie) 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...
March 2006: Study
hard
March 2006: Movin'
on up
March 2006: The
Canadian market
April 2006: Canadian
looking south
April 2006: Representational
arts
May 2006: Agents
who charge you
May 2006: Don't
ask me if you're good enough
May 2006: Split
territories
June 2006: $100
a meeting
June 2006: How
to get better
June 2006: Nudging
agents
June 2006: Agent
thoughts
July 2006: Ignore
this advice too, if necessary
July 2006: One
agent, two agents, three agents, four
July 2006: Hip
pockets
July 2006: My
new agent
July 2006: Getting
it about getting in
July 2006: Queries
by email?
August 2006: Manager
contracts
August 2006: Selling
September 2006: Negotiating
September 2006: Late
beginners
September 2006: Agents
v. lawyers
September 2006: For
free, again
September 2006: RTFM
September 2006: You
learn something new every day
October 2006: A
moving question
October 2006: Fly
on the wall
October 2006: Advice
from a scientist
October 2006: Aury's
story
October 2006: NYFA
November 2006: Messages
November 2006: Another
reason why you want an agent
November 2006: Writing
samples
December 2006: Credits
January 2007: Animation
January 2007: Scale
is a minimum, not a maximum
February 2007: When
do you go out?
February 2007: When
to query
February 2007: Be
brave like Frank Gehry
March 2007: Get
close to it
March 2007: How
long? How much?
April 2007: Finding
an individual agent
April 2007: The
"take" meeting
April 2007: School
April 2007: Got
rights back
April 2007: CFC
June 2007: How
much?
July 2007: What
kind of agent?
July 2007: Suit
jobs
August 2007: Spec
city
August 2007: International
film distribution
August 2007: Specs
v. writing on spec
August 2007: Dreams
on Spec, part 2
August 2007: More
on Dreams on Spec
September 2007: Chain
of command
October 2007: Time
to give up?
Specs and Pitches and Queries
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?
March 2006: Comics
and Hollywood
April 2006: WGA
list
April 2006: Dramatis
personae
April 2006: This
is the kind of feature spec you should be writing
April 2006: Three
days of meetings
June 2006: Technical
questions about covers
June 2006: Spec
territory
June 2006: Know
a director?
July 2006: Music
July 2006: Arcane
medical knowledge
November 2006: Online
pitches
December 2006: When
is a show ready to spec?
December 2006: Spec
question
December 2006: Continuity
December 2006: How
to spec a House
January 2007: Unsolicited
screenplays and what to do with them
January 2007: Pitches
and synopses
January 2007: Pilot
thoughts
January 2007: Execution
independence
February 2007: Querying
spec scripts
February 2007: Spec
pilots and staffing season cont'd
February 2007: Staffing
season, part trois
March 2007: No
act outs? Horrors!
March 2007: Click
this link
March 2007: Specs
for cancelled shows?
March 2007: Query
letters
March 2007: Specs
-- Canuck or Yank?
March 2007: Pace
yourself
March 2007: Medical
consultants
March 2007: Spec
ep queries
March 2007: Pitching
at PitchIt
April 2007: What's
a spec pilot for?
April 2007: Guessing
game
April 2007: Pitching
networks
April 2007: What
to send with your pilot?
May 2007: This
gets your spec passed around
May 2007: Sneaky
kwerries
May 2007: Sneaky
kwerries
July 2007: Template
July 2007: Why
it's hard to sell an outline
July 2007: Not
fanboys; execs
July 2007: And
a time to every purpose
August 2007: Britspecs
August 2007: Previously
on...
August 2007: Character
description
September 2007: Following
up
October 2007: Who
needs a bible?
October 2007: Serialicity
October 2007: TV
spec queries
October 2007: More
on TV spec queries
October 2007: Staged
readings
October 2007: Double
querying?
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
April 2006: Weaving
A and B stories
September 2006: Against
bibles
November 2006: Bibles
and how to get them
June 2007: Episodic
v. serial
August 2007: Where
to begin
September 2007: Children
and dogs
Shorts
March 2007: Shorts
and short shorts
March 2007: Camera?
April 2007: Short
film mistakes we've made
April 2007: HD
v. HDV
May 2007: Fun
is important
May 2007: Da
film is okey dokey
June 2007: Rough
cut
July 2007: Sound
editing
July 2007: Sneak
preview
October 2007: Distributors
Reading TV (and Movies)
Where
to find tv scripts to read
More
where to find scripts
March 2007: Show
bibles
April 2007: Bad
screenplays?
May 2007: Can
I ask a production office to mail me a current script?
September 2007: Post
your scripts?
Watching TV (and Movies)
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
March 2006: Old
teens
March 2006: The
Bedford Diaries...
April 2006: Once
and Again
May 2006: How
to watch TV
May 2006: Has
Grey's jumped the shark or what
September 2006: Jericho
September 2006: More
bitching about Studio 60
October 2006: I
think I'm in love
October 2006: Go
thou (and watch Firefly DVDs)
October 2006: Ain't
nothing like the real thing baby
October 2006: Jericho
is beginning to pall
October 2006: Our
Mrs. Reynolds
October 2006: Is
FNL best as movie, TV show, or book?
October 2006: FNL
and the red states
October 2006: Latest
Studio 60
October 2006: The
Body
November 2006: Slings
and Arrows
November 2006: Why
is Studio 60 better?
December 2006: Daybreak's
demise
December 2006: Broken
Flowers
December 2006: Semper
ubi sububi
December 2006: Darkness,
tragedy, violence
December 2006: It's
The Odd Couple meets Dick in classical Rome
January 2007: Brave
writing in Rome
January 2007: Denis
and I advise Aaron Sorkin
January 2007: Things
not to do when you're a famous writer
February 2007: FNL's
five acts
March 2007: Insight
into Zodiac?
May 2007: Rewriting
movies you just saw
June 2007: "Fixing"
RotK
June 2007: That
darn Sopranos finale
June 2007: John
from Cincinnati
July 2007: Not
Wilde about it
August 2007: Unlikeable
/= compelling; or, Californication
August 2007: Potter
bashing
August 2007: Paradise
Now
September 2007: Tell
Me You Love Me pilot
September 2007: Back
to You
September 2007: Journeyman
pilot
October 2007: Friday
Night WTF?
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
Stephen
Gallagher, part 1, part
2, part
3, part
4
John
Rogers, part 1, part
2, part
3, part
4
Ken
Levine, part 1, part
2, part
3, part
4
Tom
Fontana, part 1, part
2, part
3, part
4, part
5, part
6, part
7
Bridget
Carpenter, part 1, part
2, part
3
Ellen
Sandler, part 1, part
2, part
3, part
4
Alex
Epstein, part 1, part
2, part
3, part
4, part
5
CanCon
July 2007: The
WGC on the latest CRTC proposal
July 2007: Jim
Henshaw guest-rants about the CRTC
September 2007: All
your quirk are belong to us
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
March 2006: Copyright
infringement
March 2006: Title
sequences
March 2006: Naming
your character
April 2006: Story
consulting and credits
April 2006: Short
film scripts
April 2006: Q.
When is a polish not a polish
May 2006: Tragedy
is comedy without the punchline
June 2006: Similarity
breeds contempt
June 2006: Smokers
on screen
July 2006: Hero
oddness
July 2006: A
message about the comics medium
August 2006: Push
the envelope
September 2006: Lessons
from the poker bot
October 2006: Q &
A
October 2006: Epagogix,
or, the Borg
October 2006: Groupthink
October 2006: Biting
the hand that feeds
December 2006: Gratuitous
violence in Apocalypto?
January 2007: Why
I don't like screenwriting competitions
February 2007: When
I hear the word "pistol," I reach for my culture
June 2007: Paper
bag test and casting
July 2007: Home
of the brave?
July 2007: Mobisodes