Customer Reviews

Television Writing from the Inside Out: Your Channel to Success

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

TV writer-producer Larry Brody uses Television Writing From The Inside Out : Your Channel To Success to explore a medium he helped shape, discussing writing jobs available in TV work, considering teleplay development and writing for different genres, and including sample teleplays by Brody and others complete with analysis. This "nuts and bolts" reference is a recommended pick because it's packed from cover to cover with Brody's insider experience and knowledge of how the industry works.

The brief armchair advice on writing in this book is too vague and general to be of use.

But the account of how a network television organization works is useful if you plan to try to market your material to such organizations.

The book is also useful for laying out the three stages that an idea must go through to end up on TV. These he calls "the logline", the "outline" and the teleplay. His examples of each of these (for sitcoms, series and TV movies) are also useful.

The book also (unintentionally) helps you to understand why television shows and network-produced TV movies are so bad.

Larry Brody knows TV, and he's distilled a lifetime of experience into this book.

If you're serious, and ready to work hard at your writing, read Brody--and then start writing.

Larry Brody has an amazing breadth of knowledge about what makes the Television industry work. This book is a fantastic look into the workings of the industry. He is cleary an authority on the subject, having penned over 500 hours of television.

My only reservation in recommending this book to everyone is that it's been a long time since Larry stood outside the industry looking in. The landscape has changed and Larry is already a barnacle on the television whale, far out to sea. For those stuck on the rocky shore, this book might be more useful if you already have screen credits and want to leverage your position with knowledge about how the industry works.

If you're an experienced television writer read it.

If you're an aspiring television read it twice.

It's jammed with all the knowledge and you need and, possibly more importantly, how to impliment it.

Television Writing from the Inside is a very good guide. Larry Brody writes from experience and it shows.

If you found this book helpful, you will also likely enjoy Starting Your Television Writing Career by Abby Finer. Another very good book.