For that definition of hero alone, I would take anything he said at face value. What was the Maltese Falcon's defining moment? When Sam Spade told the Mary Astor character "Brigid O'Shaughnessy" that she has to go to jail even though he was in love with her. And we have seen this again and again through the years and on soaps. Scorpio had a similar moment with Holly back in 2006 and the virus on GH, and much earlier where he had to do the right thing about Lucas even though it was costing him Bobbie's friendship.

Today there are very few heroes on soaps. They make choices and do acts, but then like cowards cover it up so they don't have to face the consequences. Tad Martin buried someone alive on AMC and I don't think he ever faced a single consequence for that.

I think heroes are very important. However, soaps, and drama, are also built on indecision. In terms of sheer story, you have Hamlet; in terms of soaps, you have romantic angst or long-running triangles. You have to have anticipation as well as defining choices. That's what drama is about.

That's different, however, from what has become of the characters on GH or AMC, where everyone is warped not into a ditherer but into an amoral antihero in order to satisfy the whims of failed, bitter writers who couldn't make it in primetime or cable. It's not that Tad (or Sonny, or Jason) made no choice; it's that they made the wrong ones, and never seem to do right again.

Correct. But I still have a dilemma: did you want to just widen, exdend the hero rule so that it includes the pre-decision period or to overthrow the thesis...? That is, I don't think what quartermainefan posted excludes the existence of a (looong) indecision period. But it does have to end with a decision.

Pardon me for bursting your bubble... but it's been that way since the dawn of the playwright. This is nothing new, and definitely nothing unique to daytime.

Just as you wouldn't tell a singer to only sing songs the audience wants... or an actor to only portray characters their fans want... it's incredibly naive, and quite honestly, uninformed about the craft of writing in general, to expect a writer to maintain their integrity by writing for the audience as much as possible and not for themselves. That's like saying "Do everything I tell you to do while ignoring your own personal feelings... but maintain as much of your self-respect as possible!"

Every writer has their own views, their own voices. They have their own strengths and weaknesses. If they don't stay true to what they believe their vision is, then they're no longer a storyteller... they're just a transcriber. Writing down what other people want to happen in a story they've created in their minds.

The problem is selecting the appropriate writers whose vision and voices are in line with what the audience wants.

Excuse me, but with all due respect, I know enough people in the entertainment industry (outside of daytime) to know that writers in the entertainment industry do not write primarily for themselves. The ACT of writing is something you do 'for yourself'. WHAT they write is for the audience. Even in Labine's interview she makes it clear that writers have to swallow a little pride and do what they're told on occasion. She's just suggesting that the only time you do so as a writer is when it comes from the top, instead of from the fans. BULL. Some novelists have the luxury of writing what they want and hoping that their intended audience loves it - and even then it takes someone who has had success and has developed a forgiving fan following. Even still, many of those writers have editors who are very careful to try to manage new products so that they keep the following the writer has cultivated.

You maintain your integrity as much as possible as a writer but you're not writing for yourself. It's why entertainment writers wave the white flag and B.S. the audience about 'getting back to basics' when they write for themselves and ratings drop.

Entertainment writers are still able to develop a 'vision' for their work, but that 'vision' has to fall within the parameters of what the audience finds tolerable. Very GOOD writers can write their 'vision' and satisfy the audiences' needs/wants/desires. Very GOOD writers can help an audience want something they never realized they wanted. NONE of them survives doing it 'their way' if it's not what the audience wants.

The same is true with singers and any person in the entertainment field. When they switch musical genres or styles, they all risk losing their audience and will do so only IF they can gain an all new following, or drag their old fans along. Otherwise? They're unemployed, too.

Installment 5 is up

http://www.welovesoaps.net/2009/11/soaps-hope-claire-labine-interview-part_07.html

I love this part:

We had a show in development and NBC was interested in it. We left in order to pursue the development with NBC. And then we discovered that it was not exactly their plan, and they were going with, what was that weird show? SUNSET BEACH.

I hope Damon L. Jacobs gets to interview Lorraine Broderick.

Thanks for the next part. I was hoping for more OLTL questions, but so be it.

That's odd they are going to ask her about Crystal, is it because she's such a buzzword these days?

I do think that the Labines did a lot to reposition Olivia into being more than Josh's latest unstable wife. I remember her becoming much more business involved and basically flirting with every man in and above her age group (and with Holly too).

We Love Soaps: But they owned GENERAL HOSPITAL too and they left you alone for that.

Claire Labine: They did! That was the difference. And the fact that Wendy so went to bat for us. She truly truly did. And she truly had the balls of a brass monkey. She would stand up to anybody if she wanted something and at that period of time she wanted it for us. She saw it was working, and she knew I had Mickey’s [Dwyer-Dobbin] backing.

Aw, I love Wendy Riche, the woman worked her ass off and fought heavily to out out a quality product at GH.

Thanks for the next part. I was hoping for more OLTL questions, but so be it.

That's odd they are going to ask her about Crystal, is it because she's such a buzzword these days?

I do think that the Labines did a lot to reposition Olivia into being more than Josh's latest unstable wife. I remember her becoming much more business involved and basically flirting with every man in and above her age group (and with Holly too).

I don't suppose the Labines were writing for Crystal at OLTL, were they?

What I am not liking about this interview...and I think that is from Labine...is that there is no EMOTION. In other words, this woman got continually shafted. Fired. Even her ally, Wendy Riche, mounted a competing proposal for a show (the one that became Port Charles). Labine doesn't talk about how she FELT during all of this. Whether she regretted leaving these shows...or whether they were just "gigs".

I don't suppose the Labines were writing for Crystal at OLTL, were they?

What I am not liking about this interview...and I think that is from Labine...is that there is no EMOTION. In other words, this woman got continually shafted. Fired. Even her ally, Wendy Riche, mounted a competing proposal for a show (the one that became Port Charles). Labine doesn't talk about how she FELT during all of this. Whether she regretted leaving these shows...or whether they were just "gigs".

I think Claire has been around long enough to cut her emotion off in how she's been treated. If she didn't she wouldn't be able to carry on.

Yes, you're right, she did write for Crystal at OLTL. That was the infamous clown school storyline. I wonder if they will ask about that...

Thanks for the next part. I was hoping for more OLTL questions, but so be it.

Go figure! I was hoping for more GH.

What I am not liking about this interview...and I think that is from Labine...is that there is no EMOTION. In other words, this woman got continually shafted. Fired. Even her ally, Wendy Riche, mounted a competing proposal for a show (the one that became Port Charles). Labine doesn't talk about how she FELT during all of this. Whether she regretted leaving these shows...or whether they were just "gigs".

Excellent observation. It's almost... Bitter. In a peculiar kind of way.

I like Labine a whole lot less after this interview.

Excuse me, but with all due respect, I know enough people in the entertainment industry (outside of daytime) to know that writers in the entertainment industry do not write primarily for themselves. The ACT of writing is something you do 'for yourself'. WHAT they write is for the audience. Even in Labine's interview she makes it clear that writers have to swallow a little pride and do what they're told on occasion. She's just suggesting that the only time you do so as a writer is when it comes from the top, instead of from the fans. BULL. Some novelists have the luxury of writing what they want and hoping that their intended audience loves it - and even then it takes someone who has had success and has developed a forgiving fan following. Even still, many of those writers have editors who are very careful to try to manage new products so that they keep the following the writer has cultivated.

You maintain your integrity as much as possible as a writer but you're not writing for yourself. It's why entertainment writers wave the white flag and B.S. the audience about 'getting back to basics' when they write for themselves and ratings drop.

Entertainment writers are still able to develop a 'vision' for their work, but that 'vision' has to fall within the parameters of what the audience finds tolerable. Very GOOD writers can write their 'vision' and satisfy the audiences' needs/wants/desires. Very GOOD writers can help an audience want something they never realized they wanted. NONE of them survives doing it 'their way' if it's not what the audience wants.

The same is true with singers and any person in the entertainment field. When they switch musical genres or styles, they all risk losing their audience and will do so only IF they can gain an all new following, or drag their old fans along. Otherwise? They're unemployed, too.

Excellent post. It ties into my post on the Ratings thread about the difference between prime time and daytime writers. My favorite daytime writer, the late Doug Marland always considered the audience in his writing. He thought it was important to not be driven solely by his own opinions so he read fan mail so he could understand what the audience was thinking. I do think that headwriters should ignore fan bases, but that does not mean that they should ignore of the audience completely. Stop writing women as if it is the 1950s, embrace diversity, stop killing off characters and bringing back their portrayers in different roles, and insulting our intelligence in general.

And the audience sometimes (read: always) does not know what it wants.

Also, if a writer says he/she is writing for the audience, you know they're not really telling the truth, to use a circumlocution.

Not only that, but an audience, sometimes, is NEVER FRIGGIN' SATISFIED!!

And if a writer does write something the audience enjoys, it's just has to be that either Phillips, Marland or Bell sent out scripts from beyond the grave... or ABC has Agnes Nixon sequestered in a windowless room in the basement of ABC, chained to a desk, ghostwriting.

There's a difference between playing up to your audience, and catering to it.

Excuse me, but

You're excused.

Edited November 7, 200916 yr by R Sinclair

This has been a great interview so far. Really looking forward to hearing more about her time on GL. God the show was awful then!

Here is another Labine interview that I found, not sure if it has been posted before.

http://www.totallykate.com/ryanhope/labine.html

I never like Roger Howarth or Todd and that parrot. I did like Mel and Dorian, fantastic couple.

I wonder why, when Labine returned to ABC, they offered her OLTL as opposed to AMC.