Always good to find another article about Henry Slesar. Little did he know he was soon to be replaced.
ROCKLAND COUNTY, N.Y. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1982
Soap writer plots murder ...writes 'The Edge of Night' By MICHAEL KUCHWARA
NEW YORK (AP) — Henry Slesar is happy. The quiet, unassuming former ad agency copywriter is plotting another murder — not a straightforward shoot-’em-up that leaves no doubt about the killer, but an old-fashioned whodunit with the wrong person accused of committing the crime.
For nearly 15 years, Slesar has created the murders and mayhem that have made the long-running ABC soap opera “The Edge of Night” unique among daytime dramas. It’s been a long time between really good murders on the show — not since demented housekeeper Molly Sherwood dispatched several people 18 months ago. But now, typing on a word processor in the den of his East Side apartment, Slesar has written what he thinks is his most baffling whodunit yet, a variation on the classic locked-room murder. “It’s the traditional stor, in _which someone is killed in a room which is locked,” Slesar said. “In this case, it’s going to be a locked television studio with only one entrance. It’s going to be more of a question of not how the murderer got in, but how he or she could have possibly gotten out.”
The 55-year-old Slesar has had practice in the fine art of dastardly demises. He’s the author of more than 450 short stories, many of which have appeared in Ellery Queen’s and Alfred Hitchcock’s mystery magazines, as well as over 100 scripts for such television series as “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “The Man from UNCLE,” and “The Name of the Game.” “A murder is human passion at its absolute peak. Your emotions have really gone haywire, out of control, when you have to resort to murder,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for strong drama.” Slesar plots his stories for “Edge” carefully. He now prepares what he calls a “step document,” a type of story projection, usually for three to six months, in which the steps or major events of the plot are outlined. “I number them, so you can refer to them,” as the plot unfolds, Slesar said, although the events may not occur as originally planned. “You can’t always predict. In fact, as you get to the end of a document, it becomes attenuated because after three months, you may discover there is a more interesting way to do something,” he said. “You are more specific at the beginning than you are at the end.
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Paul Raven ·
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