I recently got a message from a friend who was reading my blog (thank you, friend!) and they were surprised at my pessimism towards my writing. Keeping that in mind, I think I'll try and remain objective in this posting rather than focus on the blood, sweat, and tears I poured into each and every revision.
The assignment: to write an episode of an hour-long drama of our choosing. My classmates chose Mad Men, Friday Night Lights, Brothers and Sisters, and House.
My reasoning behind choosing the show: It's just so amazing! There are so many possibilities for a story!
The pitfalls: trying to write for a medical show when you know nothing about medicine (and I mean NOTHING), nor had watched that many procedurals before, is difficult. Collectively, I have probably spent a week on wrongdiagnosis.com. My difficulty in putting the facts behind the storyline because I tackled so much with words like olivopontocerebellar something-something, caused me to focus on the medicine way more than the character.
What I've learned: focus on the character. The plot comes next. This is the writing division at USC's biggest mantra.
How it will change my writing: I will never ever ever ever ever write for House again. Except, maybe, if I feel that I need to prove that I can do it. Actually, I have this nagging desire to write a whole new episode as soon as school is out for the summer. But that's pride talking.
2 comments:
I was drawn to this post because I also hate loving House. I find the struggle you describe with writing about medicine very interesting. I'm sure writers often have to write in settings in which they don't know much about the subject matter. I see how your solution of focusing on the character is helpful. I have to wonder, though, if knowing more about the situation would inform how characters in that field would behave? Don't you need to know a lot about the subject to know how characters in that world act everyday? I think it's interesting that while you need to research to be truthful, you also have to separate yourself from the research to write a good episode. That sounds really difficult. Bravo!
I think the thing to keep in mind is that most procedurals take a lot of liberties with the worlds they portray. CSI is the classic example, where they routinely use technology and techniques which are either still in beta or don't exist at all. Medical shows, too, tend to put telling a gripping story ahead of actual procedure.
I suspect this is why so many medical dramas (House, Grey's Anatomy, etc) make the majority of their characters into self-absorbed, petty jerks. It makes it more believable when they don't follow procedure and make mistakes no real doctor would ever make. It's just a theory of mine.
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