[Writer Posts] Using TV for Fun and Characters
I watch too much television. It’s true. I do. But I love it – for the most part. There is a lot of crap out there, but there’s some good stuff. I’ve used my time watching TV to help refine some of my own writing – seeing character relationships that work, figuring out genres and tropes. And I use TV to see what NOT to do in some cases – where the formulas are so very obvious it hurts. However, the what TO DO stuff many times outweighs the NOTs. And a lot of my current favorites are summer series on cable channels.
Okay, so I will admit that I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Saved by the Bell (guilty pleasure). There’s something about Mark-Paul Goesslaar‘s portrayal of Zach Morris that amuses the crap out of me. Which is why – when there are several really, really good reasons to NOT like TNT’s Franklin and Bash, I can’t stop watching it. It’s not quite a comedy, but it’s not your typical lawyer show. It has moments of foulness that have me shaking my head and thinking there’s no redeeming quality, but then it turns around and has a point or something in the story that makes it all okay – and it’s not just Malcolm McDowell being almost comic relief in his mentorship. Or poor Diamond Reed’s character getting his world-view knocked askew. Most of it is that Peter Bash is basically Zach Morris all grown up — which is Mark-Paul Goesslaar at his very, very best — Con Man with Heart of Gold.
On the other side of the spectrum is USA’s White Collar – also with a Saved by the Bell connection. I LOVE, love, love Tiffani Thiessen in White Collar. Her character, Elizabeth Burke, isn’t QUITE as perky and good as Kelly was, but there’s a sweetness and a functionality there that I’ve always been drawn to – and the fact she’s a supportive wife in the face of her FBI agent husband’s demanding job. She’s not the “stuck at home” wife that keeps demanding her husband spends time with her. She’s an actual partner in the marriage. She doesn’t always like what’s going on, but she supports it. There are NOT ENOUGH functional relationships on television – and I hope this type of relationship gets more play. I’m so glad Thiessen has come back to this type of character after playing a couple of “bad girls” to shed the Kelly image – which was necessary, but this is such a good vehicle for her, I’m glad she took it.
I also LOVE the fact that Tiffani Thiessen actually looks like a normal, healthy woman. She’s a beautiful woman on the show – inside and out. She is no longer the stick thin cheerleader of high school, she’s been “allowed” to have curves and keep them. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the other, more “typical” Hollywood women on the show, but I look at Hilarie Burton (Sarah) in her size 00 and think, “that can’t be healthy, can it?” and it distracts some from the character.
So, to bring this back to writing, I do watch shows like this for fun . It’s okay to do that. It helps recharge the creative juices. But it’s also good for seeing characters that you might want to incorporate into a story or visualizing a character in one of your stories. Many writers visualize an actor in their head as “casted” as their character to help define voice and mannerisms, and if you pick good ones, then your writing will only be stronger.