Someone emailed me recently, asking why I don’t write for TV . The short answer is, nobody has asked me. The long answer is much more complex and much of the reason I don’t lose too much sleep over the fact that (in this reality, at least) I write novels and not TV episodes.
It really gets down to characterisation. A novel (and in stand-alone movies, too) characters must undergo a journey, where they start at one point and travel, be it physically or spiritually, to another point. In fact, without a significant journey, the book won’t work. Any story where the character has learned nothing by the end of the tale is going to fall flat, leaving the reader with the feeling of “well, what was the point of that?”.
Weekly TV characters, on the other hand, have to mark time. They are defined largely by their ability to repeat the same formula each week, to keep the viewers coming back. So whether they are discovering a new superpower, defeating the monster of the week, winning a court case, or solving a crime, that’s what they do and they’d better do it every week, or else. I’m not talking soap operas here. They can change characters at will, and have much larger ensemble casts to play with, and are therefore not quite as restricted as series that rely on a small number of characters (or even a single character) to carry the story.
TV characters are rarely allowed to evolve and grow, and if they do, it’s usually only in the most limited sense. Dare to deviate from this and you have either break-through TV that will make you millions and win lots of awards, or you’ll cop a lot of flack because your characters change significantly, from one season to the next.
If you want an example of this, take the X Files. Scully the sceptic and Mulder the believer were the perfect foil for each other and offered a fabulous balance that made every episode a joy. For about the first 5 seasons. And then we run up against the problem with TV land. You see, after 5 years, Scully had seen so much, and been through so much, that it was absurd to think she was still the same sceptic assigned to keep an eye on “Creepy Mulder” from season 1. But that was the formula and when they messed with it after Mulder left, the series fell in a heap because it just didn’t have the same feel.
Then you have a writer like Joss Whedon, who quite deliberately evolves his characters and makes them grow, who copped quite a bit of criticism (particularly in Buffy’s 6th season) for Buffy not being the same ditzy cheerleader she was in season 1. By that time, Whedon argues quite rightly, she’d died, been resurrected and stopped half a dozen Apocalypses. That sort of thing has to leave a mark, you know.
I know this doesn’t apply to all TV shows, and the “reset to zero at the end of each episode” philosophy isn’t as prevalent as it once was, thanks to shows like Lost and Heroes . (Remember Bewitched, where Darren never changes his stance on Samantha’s use of magic to perform housework, or the neighbours who never wise up?) But if you look at the experiences of many TV characters, they go through trauma after a trauma with no apparent lasting scars. Literally. (Note… it’s perfectly all right to maim and otherwise scar supporting characters, btw.)
If you think I’m off the mark, here, tune into any episode of Law and Order (in any of its various incarnations), which you can watch out of sequence, any season, be certain you’re going to get the same thing. Law and Order has the art of marking time down to a fine art, which is why it’s so successful and will probably still be going strong in fifty years, by which time it’ll be Law and Order: Space Patrol, with our noble detectives and lawyers solving crimes in outer space.
So, despite the different characterisation requirements, would I write for TV if I had the chance? Of course, I would (although whether I would be any good at it is a different issue altogether…LOL). And I know many other writers who feel the same way (Trudi Canavan has a secret hankering to write for Charmed and make them do it “properly” hehehe).
To make characters engaging, to write consistently under extreme pressure, year after year, keeping the series fresh and enjoyable, is a true talent and I take my hat off to those writers who do it with such ease. I think they are underrated and probably not appreciated nearly enough for their skill, which is a shame, because as the recent writers’ strike in the US proved, without the writers, nobody in TV land has a job and we would be doomed to ever more dire reality TV shows. Oh dear…
Jennifer Fallon
