{"id":1539,"date":"2005-06-08T10:14:00","date_gmt":"2005-06-08T17:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2005\/06\/08\/how-the-sausage-is-made\/"},"modified":"2005-06-08T10:14:00","modified_gmt":"2005-06-08T17:14:00","slug":"how-the-sausage-is-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2005\/06\/08\/how-the-sausage-is-made\/","title":{"rendered":"How the sausage is made"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning, a Whedonesque.com news item led me to the blog of Doris Egan<\/a>, television writer and formerly staff on the now-cancelled Tru Calling<\/span>. Aside from explaining a never-finished arc for that show– which might have been interesting, if they’d ever fully committed to dealing with the mythology of the series instead of the more pedestrian movie-of-the-week stuff– she tells some fascinating stories about being a TV writer.<\/p>\n

Along with John Rogers’ Kung Fu Monkey<\/a>, these posts have convinced me that I never want to be a writer in Hollywood. Sure, you may get to collaborate with great people, and learn the ins and outs of story structure (which I need), and occasionally be responsible for a great scene or moment or line of dialogue (the ultimate ego boost), but you have no real control over the final product. You’re not an author, you’re an employee.<\/p>\n

Says Ms. Egan:<\/p>\n

I have never been on a show where every angle of logic and consistency was not debated in excruciating detail [by the writing staff]. For as long as it took. I mean, I’m sure there are shows where that doesn’t happen. I just haven’t been on them.<\/p>\n

And yet, I have been on shows where plotholes and cheap’n’easy cliches appear on-screen.<\/p>\n

Yes. What leaves the writers’ room is often much more logical and consistent than what appears on screen. Why this is would take a full entry of several hours, and I would just be scratching the surface…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest of “Breaking the story”<\/a> for some examples of things that can go horribly wrong between script and screen. All things considered, it’s a minor miracle that any good<\/span> TV shows and movies ever actually get made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning, a Whedonesque.com news item led me to the blog of Doris Egan, television writer and formerly staff on the now-cancelled Tru Calling. Aside from explaining a never-finished arc for that show– which might have been interesting, if they’d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[1,133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}