My #Emmy take: #Shogun is great. #TheBear is great. #AbbottElementary is also great. #Elementary was great. There should be separate categories for shows that spend 10-20 million an ep and/or only do 8-10 episodes vs. shows that make 18+ ep for 5-7m each. Congrats to the winners! They're totally different animals and shouldn't be compared to each other.

The Hegelian Dialectical approach to #TVWriting scenes.

Thesis: Driving character wants something.

Antithesis: Another character or force opposes that want.

Synthesis: The world changes, causing the character to modify their approach/understanding/goal.

1/? This applies to scenes and or sequences as a whole but can also apply to any given exchange of dialogue or action. Some examples:

2/?

Guys! Guys!

I did some math. Not even hard math, and here’s what I figured out.

If you’re NOT vaccinated, Covid-19 is 20x more deadly that the flu.

If you ARE vaccinated, COVID-19 is 1/15th as deadly as the flu.

Anyway. Math. For reference.

Deadliness multiplier:

20 unvaxxed vs COVID-19
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1 The Flu
1/2
1/3
1/4
1/5
1/6
1/7
1/8
1/9
1/11
1/12
1/13
1/14
1/15 Vaccinated vs COVID-19

Saving a Cancelled Show! A #TVWriting spew. 1/? So your favorite show just got cancelled! Can you save it? Maybe. But it's complicated. Fan support has absolutely helped save shows like #StarTrek #Lucifer and #TheExpanse, for example. But it's really really hard. I'll try to explain why. 2/?

Randomly decided to watch #DS9 “Emissary” for the first time in a decade or so. Great opening! We meet Sisko in battle against hopeless odds. He loses his wife and saves his son all in the first five minutes. Rooting interest established. 1 Struck by the handheld camera work in the opening sequence, which was unheard of for #StarTrek at the time. Adds tension, energy, and verisimilitude. 2

How to Kill a Character. A Writing Spew in Many Parts. (Inspired by various recent pop culture events.) /BeginSpew 1 Okay, you’re a writer. You’ve got a mess of characters. You want to move your audience. So it’s time to take out the old writer’s ax and chop chop chop! But how do you do it with maximum impact without your audience turning against you forever? 2

So... what’s the hardest part of #TVWriting, you ask? (You are a metaphorical construct, but whatevs) Is it the long hours? The pressure? The actual struggle to fill blank pages with perfect words? No. TBH, it’s the constant soul-crushing rejection. 1 For every TV show that makes it to air, there are dozens that were pitched, several shot. Stacks of scripts and pitches as high as the sky, each representing hundreds of hours of work. 2

Got a little free time, so let's try something new. Let's roll-up a #RuneQuest character! The new edition from @Chaosium is beautiful, and character creation reminds me a bit of Traveler. Very involved. I'm going to go completely random and see what we get. Here’s the #RuneQuest character sheet for those of you playing at home.

So... been thinking a lot about all the beautiful scripts out there that will never seen the light of day. The stillborn and the misbegotten. They'll never be filmed. They're just paper now. How would you like to read one? Tell you what... I'm going to post my failed Syfy pilot Defender here, one page at a time, for the next 95 days. It's got starships and sword fights, space battles and ballroom dancing. And yes, some kissing.

Want to know what it’s like to run a TV writers room? Try DMing a #DnD game! BEGIN SPEW! #TVWriting 1/? No seriously. Refereeing a #DnD game may be the best training you can get for running a TV writers room. #TVWriting 2/?