How Not To Wreck A Show

[BadBoy93]

We all know that our soaps suck right now,so from beyond the grave himself,here is Douglas Marland to give us some tips of how a soap opera should be treated.

How Not To Wreck A Show

By Douglas Marland

.Watch the show.

.Learn the history of the show. You would be surprised at the ideas that you can get from the back story of your characters.

.Read the fan mail. The very characters that are not thrilling to you may be the audience's favorites.

.Be objective. When I came in to ATWT, the first thing I said was, what is pleasing the audience? You have to put your own personal likes and dislikes aside and develop the characters that the audience wants to see.

.Talk to everyone; writers and actors especially. There may be something in a character's history that will work beautifully for you, and who would know better than the actor who has been playing the role?

.Don't change a core character. You can certainly give them edges they didn't have before, or give them a logical reason to change their behavior. But when the audience says, "He would never do that," then you have failed.

.Build new characters slowly. Everyone knows that it takes six months to a year for an audience to care about a new character. Tie them in to existing characters. Don't shove them down the viewers' throats.

.If you feel staff changes are in order, look within the organization first. P&G [Procter & Gamble] does a lot of promoting from within. Almost all of our producers worked their way up from staff positions, and that means they know the show.

.Don't fire anyone for six months. I feel very deeply that you should look at the show's canvas before you do anything.

.Good soap opera is good storytelling. It's very simple.

Douglas Marland is considered by many as one of the greatest head writers ever. Marland was a former head writer of As The World Turns, Guiding Light, and General Hospital. He worked as a writer on Another World and co-created Loving. He won multiple Emmy awards and Soap Opera Digest awards. Marland, a former actor, loved daytime. He passed away on March 6, 1993. This article was published in the April 27, 1993 issue of Soap Opera Digest. Thanks to SEW for providing a copy of the article.

Seriously all Soap Writers need to take notes from this man...Guza.

[alexisfan07]

Amen

[YRBB]

Ditto.

This needs to be said over, and over, and over and over again.

[ian]

let's mail it to all the HW/EP's?

[BadBoy93]

Can we think of any examples that these rules have been broken.

The GH List will be so long it will take till the end of the year to finish.

[ian]

.Talk to everyone; writers and actors especially. There may be something in a character's history that will work beautifully for you, and who would know better than the actor who has been playing the role?

I heard JER didn't even meet the cast of Passions so that he didn't write them differently or something?

[Sylph]

This is oooold.

It has been repeated ad nauseam and is getting annoying.

The problem is even if fully implemented, they wouldn't help.

[ian]

No, because it's inspired words that were written by an inspired man. You can follow Marland's rules but these are general guidelines. The writing has to be there. All points are very true in regards to logistics and dealing with your audience but if a person is a hack, this isn't the cure for hackatitis A, a disease which is spreading in epidemic proportions in the soap world!

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Harding Lemay even rolled his eyes at them in his recent interview with We Love Soaps. LOL!

[ian]

Mostly because of how they're held up like a cross or garlic to a vampire, to vanquish evildoers... OMG This person and this person and that are wrecking their show. Let me dig up what Marland said and hope they read it and care and do something about it. No. Everyone in the business knows Marland and anyone worth the gunpowder to blow them to hell should know what he said, and maybe in their mind they think they're following it or they just don't care. Either way, it doesn't work!

and how they've become cliché, and how there's a hell of line between theory and practice.

[Sylph]

[lovely_m]

There was a post on the p&g blog that said not even Marland followed his rules all of the time.

http://pgpclassicsoaps.blogspot.com/2007/09/rules-of-engagement-they-are-known-as.html

[Sylph]

How exactly is this rule breaking? People didn't like these new characters?

[DRW50]

GH is an odd example for them to use because, well...the show had bled millions of viewers and was about to be canceled. It was fairly evident that whatever was on display was obviously not well-liked by the fans. Even then, Marland wrote heavy story for already existing characters like Monica, Rick, and Lesley. I don't think it was until after his departure that Jessie, Steve, and Audrey were banished to the cupboard.

[Sylph]

So... He actually created characters the audience wanted to see? I mean if the show bled millions while Jessie, Steve and Audrey were on and improved in ratings when he introduced his stories?

I still don't get who he broke his own rule here.

Take a look at their explanation of Rule no. 7 breaking, too.