(originally posted 3/30/08, on Writingscape V.1)
Sorry for not posting for a few days, but I’ve been on a writing jag (i.e. fugue state). Now, on with the show…
Say what you want about soap operas, but they can be good for study purposes. Watch enough of them, and you can soak up the writers’ thought processes and timing when it comes to using their elements. I can end a novel scene or a chapter with the best of them (if I do say so myself), to where you’ve got to read at least one more page, and a lot of that comes from watching the ways soap writers in particular use suspense. That said, daytime dramas also do infuriating things that make me want to hang them from a good, sturdy rope until they are dead.
Like making life for a fiction writer harder than it should be.
Back in December 2007, on my mother’s favorite soap, a character’s husband went missing. While the search for him went on, the character–we’ll call her K–poured her heart and soul into writing a novel to keep from going insane with worry. (K is not and never has been a writer, nor shown any writing tendancies. She’s a snarky seducer of men who runs a perfume business. I’ve never seen her even pick up a book, much less read one.) Missing hubby was found by the end of that month. Best friend finds K’s sizzling full-length chick-lit manuscript (written and polished in less than a month), proclaims it awesome, and secretly sends it off to a Big Publisher. BOOM. By January 2008, Big Publisher has K’s book in stores, beautiful cover art and all. By February 2008, she’s on the best seller list. By March 2008, K is on her book tour, swamped by adoring fans. All in three months.
How does this affect my life? Heh-heh. Well. After having finally gotten protective members of my family (who understand nothing of the publishing business) to halfway see the whats and whys of a REAL publishing timetable, and getting them to understand that watching grass grow waiting for months or a year for just a response is oftentimes OKAY and nothing is wrong, K is going to have them up in arms about my submitted novel manuscript again. I might as well get ready for the phone calls. (A family friend who has sent copies of her children’s book–self-published–certainly hasn’t helped either.)
*turns away so you don’t have to see a grown woman cry*
Thanks a bunch, daytime drama writers. Did you even think for a minute about all the book writers who watch your show and would be dumbfounded? Suspending a viewer’s belief is one thing. Utter bull&#@! is quite another. Wow.
