Staff writers who should be Head Writers

[soapfan770]

So many breakdown and staff writers often provide great day-to-day material even when the overall vision the terrible. Some staff writers past and present who should be head writers that come to mind are:

--Janice Ferri Esser on Y&R

--Kimberly Hamilton on GL

--David Cherrill

[GregNYC]

Courtney Simon, Marie Masters.

[DRW50]

DAYS Richard or Carolyn Culliton

GH Michele Val Jean

[Sylph]

Very few of them. Some shouldn't even be writers.

Frederick Johnson needs to be head writer. Instead of picking Kreizman & Swajeski, and had Lorraine chosen not to continue, he should have been AMC's next HW.

Michele Val Jean. Obvious choice.

And that's it.

[DRW50]

You mean you're not rooting for Janice Ferri Esser

[Sylph]

Definitely not!

I would also like to see Meg Bennet (Terror Island on Sunset Beach) do something, probably in primetime, but not HW a daily serial.

And the same goes for Karen Harris and Michelle Patrick.

[DRW50]

I did enjoy Terror Island. I didn't know she wrote that. I'd also like to see her acting again, although I don't imagine what the Y&R of today would do with Julia.

[EricMontreal22]

I'm with Sylph--I think just cuz someone likes their work on scripts, or whatever, doesn't mean they're gonna be any good as a HW. Remember that Jean Passanante got tons of love and praise for her work with Malone and Griffith at OLTL as their associate or whatever--and we all know how crap she is at HW.

[Sylph]

Exactly.

And besides, very few of them want to be. Sure, you get payed a whole lot more, but it is a whole different animal. Once because you actually had to know how to write and how to write good stuff, now because you basically have to be a yes person. Network telling you what to do, executive producer haunting you even in your dreams, suddenly the actress you wrote an A story for decides to leave and you need to come up with something alse and quickly...

[MoTheGreat]

Wasn't RC was a staff writer noe he's HW. & he's not good at all over at OLTL.

[EricMontreal22]

Yeah RC was promoted from within (of course many do really like his work--I'm mixed but I will say anything is an improvement over Dena Higley on that show).

That's a good point Sylph--people seem to think that all writers want to be HWs, but that's not true (I can't remember who it was but I read one interview with, I think, a past AMC writer who got to briefly HW, and she seemed to think it was way more trouble than it was worth...)

[R Sinclair]

I agree with the notion that, with some, even though their script writing is quite good, it doesn't mean they should be head writing.

Richard Culliton comes to mind. I dug some of his script writing during the ATWT Nuke heyday of 2007 -- but I think he was dreadful as a head writing on AMC in 2001-2002. Storylines were dropped or seemed to lack direction after the initial kick off. I also don't remember there being anything really emotionally compelling to any of his work.

[Leia]

Plus 3 especially Michele Val Jean.

[DRW50]

I agree with what people are saying about scriptwriters. I just picked the Cullitons because Richard has a good grip at DAYS and I think Carolyn is a good writer, and I generally like their headwriting runs more than a lot of people do (at AMC or AW or ATWT or elsewhere).

I picked Michele Val Jean because I thought her GH run in 2000 had some potential that was dumped and because I would like to see some sort of making up for the really unpleasant rape revisit of the past few months.

[YRBB]

I wonder how Frederick Johnson would work as Y&R Headwriter....