This article by Mark Sevi was first featured on the PLOTPOINTS PODCAST with Mark Sevi, Mary Claire Anderson and Toby Wallwork.  Available on iTUNES.

Today I’d like to focus on not a writer, or specific film but a franchise that spans both television and film.  That has engendered parodies.  Massive merchandising.  Conventions.  And continues to re-invent itself for over 50 years.

Star Trek.

The latest version premieres Sunday night on CBS Television and then goes to CBS streaming which is a pay service.  Whether or not that business model proves to be successful is yet to be seen but there is no doubt that there is a massive amount of anticipation for the newest entry into a universe conceived by master story teller Gene Roddenberry.

Roddenberry, a successful TV writer had written dozens of episodic TV scripts for series as varied as Highway Patrol, Mr. District Attorney, I Led Three Lives, West Side, Boots and Saddles, and others.  He has over 105 credits as a writer.

Frustrated at what he perceived were the limitations of what could be done on the network on issues like bi-racial relationships, political commentary, and hot button topics of the day including the highly charged Vietnam War, in 1964 Roddenberry put his interracial crew of explorers in outer space seeking new worlds of creative  freedom.

This is basically a transcript of a podcast segment (www.plotpoints.com) done about great writers we admire. 

PODCAST RSS LINK / iTunes Link

Imagine you're a genius.

You start life as a boy named Allan Stewart Konigsberg.  At the age of 15, in 1950, you begin writing jokes and you never stop.  You change your name to Woody Allen.  By the time you're 27 you've written thousands of jokes and gags.  According to some sources 20,000 in 1962 alone for the top comedians of the time.  You also work for the Tonight Show and Candid Camera, with Larry Gelbart, Dick Cavett, Syd Caser - on and on with the best and brightest of that era.  Because you're a genius at what makes people laugh.

And also because you work your ass off.

Dick Cavett said of Allen: "He can go to a typewriter after breakfast and sit there until the sun sets only interrupting work for coffee and a brief walk, and then spends the whole evening working.  15 to 18 hours at a time."

Given Woody Allen's work ethic, his incredible, seemingly natural wit, and his drive for perfection, the rest, as they say, is history.

This is basically a transcript of a podcast segment (www.plotpoints.com) done about great writers we admire. 

PODCAST RSS LINK / iTunes Link

 So goes one of the most iconic monologues in television history by TV pioneer Rod Serling who wrote, directed, produced and acted in the series, The Twilight Zone.

A small anecdote that came out of my research is that Rod Serling initially had it as sixth dimension until a producer asked him what happened to the fifth one.

Among the resources I tapped for this article was the American Masters documentary called "Submitted for your Approval."

It opens in an operating theater - tense moments ala The Twilight Zone.  Black and white.  Men and women in masks in tight shots.  Eyes darting...

Actress Lee Grant's voice says:

Submitted for your approval.  The man in cardiac crises is Mr. Rod Serling: writer, producer and agent provocateur of a certain electronic medium he helped to create and which, by way of thanks, kindly ushered him out the door.  But that is of no particular concern of his at the moment because this is Tuesday, June 28th 1975 and thanks to a million cigarettes and a heart with its own a flair for the dramatic Mr. Serling is on the cutting edge of infinity. Mr. Rod Serling who once remarked that he'd like to be remembered as a writer is about to get his wish.  During a short stay in a small town called yesterday - found on any map...in The Twilight Zone.
    American Masters Rod Serling: Submitted for Your Approval

The American Masters documentary starts with that excellent voice over and rolls into a sometimes harsh but always contemplative examination of a true writer's writer.  Someone who was as tortured by his work as much he was celebrated for it.  Who loved success but hated the hypocrisy he knew he participated in as part of that success.

In case the title isn't descriptive enough, Monsterpalooza is a fan-based convention of all things horror.  It's not as big as ComicCon, the big daddy of fan-driven conventions, or even Wondercon (just recently passed) but the convention is growing and might someday challenge even the bigs.

In most ways, it resembles those other conventions:  lines to get in (later in the day though,) busy, happy crowds of people of all ages, cosplay, t-shirts shouting out big love to both popular and arcane IPs (intellectual properties) but the levels are all definitely lowered somewhat.  After all, MP has only been around since 2009 and it's still a youngin' compared to the others which have been around for decades-plus. 

 For years I've been railing against the general perception of science fiction in Hollywood.  Without spaceships, aliens and laser beams it isn't scifi, the consensus thinking goes.  As a lifetime reader and 20+ year writer of scifi I know better. 

I've been the victim of pseudo scifi thinking from producers and film execs.  Two or three of my films and/or scripts have fallen to the thinking that something "alienish" has to happen to grab and entrance people.  "How about a shapeshifter character?"  "We need more alienish shit, Mark." "Three more heads need to explode." This in a film where no heads exploded.  "But it's not sicifi - it's horror!" Uh...

This is a series of occasional articles on my experiences writing "Devil's Knot."

As writers we need to always remember that any movie based on a true story has real people's lives behind it.  Everyone surely knows and understands that.  It's hard, though, to embrace that thought wholly when you're trying to fulfill  story obligations and decisions, and when the story you are trying to tell is as complex as "Devil's Knot."  This is a lesson I took from my work on my script for "Devil's Knot."  It took me a while to fully "get it" but I did.  I carry that lesson with me now and for always.

If you don't know, "Devil's Knot" is a non-fiction book by journalist Mara Leveritt that explores the truths and falsehoods behind the accusations of murder in Arkansas in 1993.  It was made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth in 2005.  Witherspoon played one of the mothers of one of the victims and Firth played a private investigator.

The background: In 1993, after a horrifying discovery that three eight-year-old boys were brutally killed, three teenage boys, Jessie Misskelley (16), Jason Baldwin (17) and Damien Echols (18) were then railroaded by a court and community panicked and hungry for closure. 

What happened was terrible and frightening by anyone's standards.  The mind boggles at how anyone can torture, mutilate and kill three eight-year-old innocents.  Anyone responsible for that just doesn't seem human.  The term demonic did and does easily come to mind and was used frequently by the residents of that area at the time.

Recently, a student started a very complex script.  It had flashbacks, flash forwards, non-linear narrative framing, illusion, delusion and just about every other non-standard story device you can imagine.

When I read his synopsis I cautioned him the story probably wouldn't work as envisioned.  For one thing, it was horribly complicated - I've been doing this for 20+ years and I wouldn't attempt it.  And, although the student was a good writer in other ways, this was his first script. 

He started it several times, getting feedback about the things that worked (not much) and what didn't (a lot) and he worked to improve it.  And although it has gotten a bit better and more digestible it still doesn't work.

But not for the reasons I thought although those are still there.

Without getting into too much detail his story involved a man who was destined to be destroyed and in the process the world.  That seems like terribly important stakes, right?  The entire fate of the world.  And it is.  The problem is that the man was fighting against something he couldn't see.  And by extension, something we couldn't see,

This is not a drama like "A Serious Man" where his actions caused a problem.  This was big picture, big world stuff - a very large, supernatural agency that was out to get this guy.  It had big scope and big villains...

But we never saw them.

Jeff Lyons doesn't like the appellation of "GURU" - he considers his insights as basic understanding of story and how drama unfolds. 

And he should know.  He's studied his craft for years, applied it to many seminars, including a yearly event at the Producers Guild (PGA) and many, many events like the one we had on Saturday in Fountain Valley.

40+ rapt attendees absorbed Jeff's wisdom and knowledge on how to break a premise line (more than a log line, less than a synopsis) into components and tease out the story under the story.

In a word, he was fantastic.

Rather than cover the event in detail I will point you at the videos embeded in this article and Jeff's book "Anatomy of a Premise Line" available on Amazon (LINK TO BOOK ON AMAZON).

Our sincere thanks to a terrific student and teacher of story.

Video (also available after the jump) courtesy of one of our wonderful board members, the incomparable Rudy Garcia.

There's also gallery of photos up by another great board member, Robert Rollins:  (LINK TO PHOTOS)

This wonderful movie, "Ideal Home," could not have come at a more symbolic time from a standpoint of the dialogue that is occurring in this country.  I'm not going to stand up and say it's an important movie but it sorta is.  Because it's about people, not stereotypes or labels, and we need so much more of this and less of that.   We need to be reminded that no one category of men or women has an exclusive on love, relationships, anger, or pain.

Paul Rudd and Brit Steve Coogan play an odd-couple, gay couple.  Actually, let's take the "gay" out of the equation and just say couple.  Odd is optional but wholly accurate.  Rudd is a producer/director who sometime longs for a bigger stage (the Rachael Ray show) and Coogan is a world-renowned chef who can be "fabulous" anywhere.  They live in the Southwest in a stunning home and have a nearly-perfect life.  They entertain the mayor, shoot Coogan's cooking show and bicker constantly. 

Unfortunately, their little slice of paradisaical routine has become familiar, stale and toxic.

I admit that I am a sucker for these shows.  A body is found or a person is killed and a flawed detective has to solve the crime.  Along the way will be surprises, twists, solid drama and a killer you probably could guess - well, maybe.

"Cardinal" is just such a series Giles Blunt’s acclaimed crime novels "Cardinal" takes place in the cold climes of the North Bay, Ontario.

Let me also say that 10 episodes can be a long sit.  With ten episodes the attenuation of actual narrative thread is almost always guaranteed.  "Forbrydelsen" at 20 episodes didn't seem long at all; The American version, "The Killing" did.  So maybe it's just the way the story is told.  But I like that I like that "Cardinal" is six.  That means that we won't have to put up with much filler and we'll get more actual connected story.

When I grow up I want to be The Kings. As in Robert King and Michelle King who were responsible for the incredible "The Good Wife" and "The Good Fight" which picks up after the main character of the "The Good Wife" (Julianna Margulies' Alicia Florrick) has left for other pastures.

I'm going to steal this excerpt from Wikipedia to explain the main premise because it covers everything needed to say:

The series follows Christine Baranski as Diane Lockhart, as she is forced out of Lockhart, Decker, Gussman, Lee, Lyman, Gilbert-Lurie, Kagan, Tannebaum, & Associates after an enormous financial scam destroys the reputation of her goddaughter Maia (Rose Leslie) and Diane's savings, leading them to join Lucca Quinn (Cush Jumbo) at one of Chicago’s pre-eminent law firms.

The series stars Baranski, Leslie, Jumbo, Erica Tazel, Sarah Steele, Justin Bartha and Delroy Lindo, and features Paul Guilfoyle and Bernadette Peters in recurring roles. The series is executive produced by Robert King, Michelle King, Ridley Scott, David W. Zucker, Liz Glotzer, Brooke Kennedy and Alison Scott, with Phil Alden Robinson producing and co-writing the first episode.

What all that means (basically) is the original show is back but different.  Between "Wife" and "Fight" the Kings did a short-lived political satire show "Brain Dead" which involved alien critters invading the brains of people in Washington and creating even more politically polarized parties.  Hmmm.  Truth is very much stranger that fiction.

I have been a comic book fan since childhood when my dad would take me and my sisters to the local drug store to peruse the offerings after church on Sunday; something I'm sure the priests would not have approved of. 

"Powerless" would have been a welcome addition to that ritual although I'm positive it would never have been considered at that time.

The concept is simple: the world has superheroes from the DC Universe and some that haven't been created yet, I'm assuming.  I'm at a disadvantage here because beside the big marque characters I haven't followed a lot of any comic book series for a while.  "Jessica Jones" was new to me although I did remember "Luke Cage."  I can't honestly tell you what DC has been up to - but "Powerless" is a fun step!

In this world, as you can easily imagine, there is a lot of collateral damage in any superhero/super villain fight.  Marvel has already covered this somewhat in "Jessica Jones" a heroine who lives in a post-Avengers battle world where superheroes aren't loved for the destruction they've instigated while saving the world.  Supervillains are one thing, yo; getting to work when entire blocks are closed down due to buildings falling is entirely another.

I wonder at times if I would enjoy being a TV or movie critic.  I do like finding gems and telling my friends and students about them.  Shows that inspire me to be a better writer are always a treat.  But then there's the other end of the spectrum so that would all be a wash I guess. 

In the middle somewhere is most of what I end up watching.  Not groundbreaking material, like "Archer" or "Game of Thrones" but well-conceived and well-written like the two shows in this article.  Both "Riverdale" and "24 Legacy" are well-above middle ground though.

I didn't think I was going to like "Riverdale" - it's not exactly geared to my demographic.  But I did.  A lot. 

Re-envisioning the "Archie" comics (or maybe the comics are now like this - I don't know) has the characters of Archie, Veronica, Betty, Jughead, Reggie and others living large in Riverdale: a small town with dirty undercurrent, including big time murders and hot affairs between teachers and students.

THE RANT

Who exactly do you think you are?  Are you a writing genius who has figured out what took the rest of us many months, maybe years to understand?  Has one of your masterpieces gotten so many kudos that you now think you should be elevated to a place that normally takes hundreds of hours to accomplish? 

This is a rant, pure and simple.  You won't learn shit about screenwriting and you'll probably dislike me by the end of this article - if you even get that far.  Fine.  I accept your disdain.

Just don't ask me how to find an agent, manager, production company or anything else until you've written at least three scripts and those scripts (at least one) have gotten a lot of good word of mouth from someone beside your mom.

Deal?

What am I on about?  Simple.  I had a student ask me how to market his/her script.  I stopped what I was doing, blinked three times and had to ask him/her to repeat it. 

I mean, huh?  At the very least, finish a script first then ask me that question.

How in the world can anyone think they're ready to sell anything if they haven't been working for a certain amount of hours to hone their craft?

If you're doing it right as a writer, you're channeling the societal gestalt and the world in general in which you live both locally and globally.  At this moment in time, you're observing the situations taking place societally, politically, culturally, internally, and also exploring the past as things become apparent to you.   Movies and TV are reflections of our world but they also serve to show us truths from the past that cause us to explore further.

This is all to say that what you think is some sort of Hollywood conspiracy is just the hard, cold facts that there are a lot of writers out there processing the same information as you - and then they are writing that information into articles, scripts, novels, etc.  You shouldn't be surprised if more than one person has your idea and has written it.

But you also never capitulate to those "thieves."

Admittedly, I'm late to this party.  I've only been watching "Archer" for the last few seasons although I have recently gone back and I am re-watching everything from the first season that debuted in 2009.

How was I so blind?  I heard the word-of-mouth from a friend whose opinion I trust and didn't follow up on it.  I saw the awards, I heard the reviews...I just didn't act on any of that. Damn my lazy viewing spine!  I have miles to go before I sleep and watching a show this terrific should be on everyone's first up list.

And thank god for streaming.  Netflix specifically which has most of the seasons available allowing me to continue to right this egregious wrong.  ?

Write Truthfully In Imaginary Circumstances
Explore the Mythology Inside You

As a science fiction fan and screenwriter, I often chuckle at the axiom to “write what you know” - as if Isaac Asimov, a rather robust, Jewish man, knew what it was like to be a spinster scientist or a robot. How exactly did J.K Rowling, a then thirty-year-old, unemployed, working-class mother, create a young, male wizard who went to an exclusive magical school in a mythical land?

People write young, old, male, female, alien, king, peasant, and every variation imaginable. What’s their secret? Good research? A keen observational eye? Channeling a secret muse? Yes, and perhaps. But let me share what is really meant by “write what you know”. It means write your truth - write what you already know as a human being.

Are women and men really that different? Don’t we all share the sting of rejection, the joy of love? Emotionally-speaking, isn’t life, in all its myriad variations fundamentally the same for those in the bush and those in the Hamptons? Is the inevitability of a terminal disease different today than it was 100 years ago?

So how to bridge the gap between what we know and what we don’t empirically understand?

It's rare for me to find myself laughing aloud at a show, especially one that's done by a network.  "The Mick" made me guffaw several times.  Yes, guffaw - don't judge - that's the word I want and it perfectly describes my reaction to this delightful new comedy.

"It's Always Sunny in Philladephia" alum Kaitlyn Olson spreads her wings (and if you saw the pilot you'd know just how clever a usuage of a cliche that is) in this excellent and hilarious show from producers/writers Dave and John Chernin who were also a bigpart of "IASIP."

The premise is ridiculous and simple:  Olson (Mackenzie "Mickey" Murphy, AKA The Mick) is trying to hit her millionaire sister up for some cash at a party when the FBI swoops in and arrests sis (Poodle) and her husband.  Mickey is tapped to watch the kids for one night on the promise that sis will give her the funds she denied her earlier.  Unfortunately, Poodle and hubby have to flee the country and Mickey is stuck for a while longer watching the brood.

Cumberbatch Rocks the Free World

Like Star Wars But Different