Weeds: The Archive

Our final TV show archive!  Thanks for putting up with me as I archive all these old posts.  The upside is that I didn’t take the summer off like I usually do. 

• The Ultimate Pilot Story Checklist: Weeds
• Straying from the Party Line: The Lack of a POV Character in Weeds (and Why Satire Must be Center-Cut)
• Rulebook Casefile: Potential Energy in the “Weeds” Pilot
• Storyteller’s Rulebook: Strong Metaphors Aren’t 1 to 1
• Storyteller's Rulebook: Know and Show the Bad Reasons
• Storyteller’s Rulebook: Great TV Heroes Should Be Self-Aware, But Not as Much as They Think They Are

Transparent: The Archive

A brilliant show.

• The Ultimate Pilot Story Checklist: Transparent
• Straying from the Party Line: Transparent and the New Reality of Streaming
• Rulebook Casefile: The Masterful Subtext of Transparent
• Storyteller's Rulebook: Let Words Belie Actions (But Make Sure We Notice)
• Storyteller’s Rulebook: Let the Listener Rewrite the Scene
• Rulebook Casefile: Showing Off a Spectrum of Moods in the “Transparent” Pilot

The Sopranos: The Archive

 Lots of good stuff here, especially the Masterful Weave breakdown.

• The Ultimate Pilot Checklist: The Sopranos
• Rulebook Casefile: The Masterful Weave of The Sopranos Pilot
• Rulebook Casefile: The Short-Lived Framing Sequence in the Sopranos Pilot
• Straying from the Party Line: Separating Plot and Character Scenes in the Sopranos Pilot
• Rulebook Casefile: Details from Life, from Research, and from Imagination in the Sopranos Pilot
• Storyteller’s Rulebook: Add Realism, But Don’t Subtract Unrealism
• The Hero Project #9: Freud and Jung and Tony and Don
• Hero Personality Profiles, Part 2: The Underappreciated
• Storyteller’s Rulebook #7: Movies Are About Change, TV is About Fate
• Storyteller’s Rulebook #41: Drama Is How It Is, Genre Is How It Feels
• Storyteller’s Rulebook #152: Give Every Hero a Part of Yourself

Scandal: The Archive

A great pilot that’s worth studying.

• The Ultimate Pilot Story Checklist: Scandal
• Rulebook Casefile: Swiftly Differentiating the Ensemble on “Scandal”
• Rulebook Casefile: Art vs. Entertainment in the “Scandal” Pilot
• Storyteller’s Rulebook: Use Ironic Set-Up and Pay-Off Dialogue
• Storyteller’s Rulebook: Hypocrisy Can Build Sympathy
• Straying from the Party Line: Overdoing the Ticking Clock in the “Scandal” Pilot
• Rulebook Casefile: The Effortless Moment of Humanity in the “Scandal” Pilot

Modern Family: The Archive

I had a lot to say about what this show does wrong and what it does right.

• The Ultimate Pilot Story Checklist: Modern Family
• Straying from the Party Line: The Failure to Bring Different Classes Together on Modern Family
• Storyteller’s Rulebook: Stay on the Edge of Edgy
• Rulebook Casefile: Backstory vs. Front Story on Modern Family
• Rulebook Casefile: Generating Empathy in Modern Family (as Opposed to Trophy Wife)
• Straying from the Party Line: Co-Equal Heroes in the Modern Family
• Rulebook Casefile: Concise Comedy in Modern Family
• Storyteller's Rulebook #129: Comedy Requires Pain
• The Ironic Statement of Theme on "Community"

Mad Men: The Archive

My all-time favorite show.  I miss it badly.

• The Ultimate TV Pilot Checklist: Mad Men
• Straying from the Party Line: “Mad Men”
• Rulebook Casefile: The Importance of Being Good at Your Job in “Mad Men”
• Rulebook Casefile: How “Mad Men” Creates Its Own Sense of Right and Wrong
• The Hero Project #9: Freud and Jung and Tony and Don
• Storyteller’s Rulebook #42: People Only Want What They Want
• Storyteller’s Rulebook #96: The Difference Between Literature and Entertainment
• How to Create a TV Show, Part 15: Establish the Philosophy And/Or Theme

How I Met Your Mother: The Archive

Yes, I wrote all these before the finale but I’d do it all over again because I thought the finale was brilliant, heartbreaking, honest TV.  If you hadn’t figured out the mom was dead years in advance I don’t even know what show you were watching.

• The Ultimate TV Pilot Checklist: How I Met Your Mother
• Straying From the Party Line: How I Met Your Mother
• Rulebook Casefile: The Vainglorious Moment of Humanity in “How I Met Your Mother”
• Rulebook Casefile: Unique Point of Entry in “How I Met Your Mother”
• Storyteller’s Rulebook #206: Have a Reversible Metaphor
• Finally: the Corrected Statement of Philosophy on "How I Met Your Mother"

Community: The Archive

How many of these people are starring in their own shows right now?  (I guess Joel McHale and Danny Pudi’s new shows just got cancelled, but Brie, Olver, Glover and Jacobs are going strong.)

• The Ultimate Pilot Story Checklist: Community
• Straying from the Party Line: Unambiguous Right and Wrong on “Community”
• Rulebook Casefile: The Framing Device (and Unsafe Space) on Community
• The Ironic Statement of Theme on "Community"

Cheers: The Archive

This was one of the first ones I did, back when I didn’t do as many posts about each one.  I should go back and add some more at some point.  There’s certainly no shortage of things to say about this great pilot.

• The Ultimate TV Pilot Checklist: Cheers
• Straying from the Party Line: Co-equal Heroes on “Cheers”
• Rulebook Casefile: Invoking National Pain on “Cheers”

CSI: The Archive

A fantastic pilot that launched three shows and at least two dozen seasons.

• The Ultimate Pilot Story Checklist: “CSI”
• Straying from the Party Line: The Lack of Decision Making Power on “CSI”
• Straying from the Party Line: Undifferentiated Philosophies on “CSI”
• Rulebook Casefile: Dramatic Questions on “CSI”
• Rulebook Casefile: The Disposable POV Character on “CSI”

Breaking Bad: The Archive

I’ve had a lot to say about this show over the years, partially because it was I was blogging almost the whole time it was on.

• The Ultimate Pilot Checklist: Breaking Bad
• Straying from the Party Line: The Lack of Hard Choices in “Breaking Bad”
• Straying from the Party Line: Sacrificing the Other Characters In Favor of the Lead in “Breaking Bad”
• Storytellers Rulebook: Save Your Flashforwards For Stories With (Initially) Passive Heroes
• How to Build a Scene: Evaluating every scene in one episode of Breaking Bad
• How to Build a Scene, Epilogue: Mix and Match
• Storyteller's Rulebook #126: Some Scenes are More Ambitious Than Others (Further evaluating every scene from that episode)
• Rulebook Casefile: Empathy Lost and Regained on “Breaking Bad”
• Rulebook Casefile: Everything and the Kitchen Sink in the “Breaking Bad” Pilot Script
• Storyteller's Rulebook #124: Every Scene is a Mini-Movie

24: The Archive

No, I’m not going to update these TV checklists, just archive the posts, if that’s okay.  Can we all pretend the most recent season of this show never happened?  Good!

• The Ultimate TV Pilot Checklist: 24
• Straying From the Party Line: 24
• How to Create a TV Show, Addendum: Create Sparks
• Rulebook Casefile: Character Descriptions in the “24” Pilot Script
• Rulebook Casefile: Predicting National Pain in “24”
• Storyteller’s Rulebook Follow-Up: A Hero Split In Two
• How to Alienate An Audience, Part 4: The Hero Agrees with Everybody

Film School Confidential: The Archive

Don’t go to Film School, folks!  There’s a fair amount of anti-MFA stuff in the book, but there used to be a lot more before we slimmed the autobiographical element.  Here it is in all its gory glory.  Feel my rage!

• Film School Confidential, Part 1: A Confession
• Film School Confidential, Part 2: It’s Worse than Nothing
• Film School Confidential, Part 3: It Feeds Your Worst Instincts
• Film School Confidential, Part 4: You're The Whale
• Film School Confidential, Conclusion: Instead of Film School, Listen to the Crickets

Mackendrick's Rules: The Archive

Writer-director Alexander Mackendrick made underrated movies such as The Man in the White Suit, then became a revered film professor and published a great book called “On Filmmaking.” Commenter J.S. found a list of 41 Mackendrick truisms online, so I spent a few days discussing how those excellent rules lined up with my own advice... 

• Mackendrick's Rules, Part 1: Rules 1-10
• Mackendrick's Rules, Part 2: Rules 11-21
• Mackendrick's Rules, Part 3: Rules 22-31
• Mackendrick's Rules, Part 4: Rules 32-41

Beyond Good Vs. Sucky: The Archive

This was my very first attempt to break down writing into different categories and give a list of advice on each.  Still lots of good stuff here.

• Storyteller's Rulebook: Beyond Good vs. Sucky
• Beyond Good vs. Sucky, Part 2: Character
• Beyond Good vs. Sucky, Part 3: Story
• Beyond Good vs. Sucky, Part 4: Structure
• Beyond Good Vs. Sucky, Part 5: Dialogue
• Beyond Good vs. Sucky, the Conclusion: Theme
• Beyond Good vs. Sucky, Epilogue

The Shining: The Archive

Yay, it’s my final updated checklist ever!  (Unless I do the TV checklists.  I don’t think I will because those checklists were only slightly updated.  I still may archive them though.)  Unexpectedly, this movie did a pretty terrible job with the checklist, mainly because it kept switching heroes.

• The Ultimate Story Checklist: The Shining
• Straying From the Party Line # 6: Tag-Team Heroes in The Shining
• Specific Genre Structures, Part 3: Horror
• Rulebook Casefile: Exchange of an Object in The Shining

Infographic on Theme

Hi, everybody! Before we do the next archive, a reader named Martin Cavannagh asked me share a big infographic he made about Theme. He defines Theme slightly differently than I do, but there’s a lot of good insights here, so I’m happy to share it. Check it out!

The First 15 Minutes Project: The Archive

 So back before the Road Tests of the Ultimate Story Checklist, I had a series where I would go step by step through the first 15 minutes of a film or TV pilot and figure out how they got us on the side of the hero.  Many of these eventually got checklists, but many never did, so they can only be found here (How have I never done The French Connection or The Apartment?) The above graphic is from the fifth piece below where I went through the first four and noticed something: One shortcut to sympathy is to have your white character high-five a black person. 

• The First 15 Minutes Project #1: Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs
• The First 15 Minutes Project #2: The 40 Year Old Virgin
• The First 15 Minutes Project #3: Popeye Doyle in The French Connection
• The First 15 Minutes Project #4: Mickey Ward in The Fighter
• The First 15 Minutes Project #5: Shortcuts to Sympathy
• The First 15 Minutes Project #6: Rick Blaine in Casablanca
• The First 15 Minutes Project #6: The Little Tramp in Modern Times
• The First 15 Minutes Project #7: Dave in Breaking Away
• The First 15 Minutes Project #8: C.C. Baxter in The Apartment
• The First 15 Minutes Project #9: Jake Gittes in Chinatown
• The First 15 Minutes Project #10: Dave Chappellet in Downhill Racer
• The First 15 Minutes Project #11: Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley
• The First 15 Minutes Project #12: Richard Boyle in Salvador
• The First 15 Minutes Project: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• The First 15 Minutes Project: Cady Heron in Mean Girls
• The First 15 Minutes Project: Peter Parker in Spider-Man
• The First 15 Minutes Project: Max Fischer in Rushmore
• The First 15 Minutes Project: Juno McGuff in Juno

Problem, Opportunity, Conflict: The Archive

I enjoyed making graphics like the one above, and it was a bit of a let-down to realize that none of them were going to make it into the book, but it’s probably for the best.  It might have made it harder to set up the audiobook.

• Problem, Opportunity, Conflict, Part 1: The Problem with Inciting Incidents
• Problem, Opportunity, Conflict, Part 2: How It Works
• Problem, Opportunity, Conflict, Part 3: Test Run
• Problem, Opportunity, Conflict, Part 4: How It Plays Out

The Meddler: The Archive

This was a series I did where I would take a movie or book, break down all my problems with it, and then pitched my rewrite of all or part of it. I just had a blast re-reading these.  I put a tremendous amount of work into these.

• The Meddler #1: Some problems with The Town...
• The Meddler #2: ...And My Fixes For The Town
• The Meddler #3: Some problems with The Ghost Writer...
• The Meddler #4: …And My Fixes for The Ghost Writer
• The Meddler #5: Some Problems with Julie and Julia...
• The Meddler #6: ...And My Fixes For Julie and Julia
• The Meddler #7: Some Problems with Walk the Line...
• The Meddler #8: My Fixes for Walk the Line, aka Man in Black
• The Meddler Presents: Harry Potter Week!
• Meddling With Harry Potter Book 4
• Meddling With Harry Potter Book 5
• Meddling With Harry Potter Book 6
• Meddling With Harry Potter Book 7
• The Meddler #9: Some problems With Flags of Our Fathers
• The Meddler #10: ...And My Fixes For Flags of Our Fathers
• Gone Girl Meddler Week, Part 1: Where the Movie Blows It
• The Meddler: Gone Girl (Book and Movie), Part 2: Amy’s Nonsensical Plan
• The Meddler: Gone Girl (Book and Movie), Part 3: The Three Big Pregnancy Problems