The soap opera writers' discussion

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

It's been a lot of fun reading the replies. This is my new favorite thread. Since 2015 I have been working on my own soap, based on a community where I grew up in the midwest. I always felt like the education I received in writing and the experiences I have had require me to write in this format.

 

I had started by doing a semi-autobiographical story about my father and myself, then realized how complex our relationship is; and how even more complex my relationship is with my mother. I found myself having to explore their backgrounds and the people we knew in my hometown to "explain" my complex relationships with my parents. Plus my father ended up having two other families, one that was a secret to me and my sisters which meant we were living a soap opera in real life. Therefore my story about life in the midwest which originally had a beginning, middle and end turned out to be something I had to adapt into a serial form to explore deeper ongoing issues in my family/families. I suspect that Agnes Nixon and some of the best soap writers did this because all the characters in the ongoing drama we write become pieces of psycho-therapy in our own feeling and healing. Sometimes I look at the storylines I've created for my characters and wonder if these are all personalities of mine or just fragments of my one family-based persona. Does that make sense?

 

I believe a good soap writer keeps track of all the characters despite occasional overlaps and similarities because each one is created to tell the story of one thing we have felt in life. There is one male character in my show that went through several foster homes and adoptive families and carries the pain of that with him in everything he does as an adult; he represents the part of me (Jarrod the adult writer) that carries a huge chip about things, things I can't let go and use to justify my anger in certain situations. So when I write him he's a fictional construct but he's very real; and I feel like I am clinging to the hurt little boy in me when I create scenarios and dialogue for him. I bet that's what Agnes did when she wrote Erica Kane. What makes it interesting is that as the character ages along the timeline the hurt boy part of him never goes away and remains with him as an older middle aged man. Interesting, isn't it? And I do think the best soap writers keep characters consistent like this, because again they represent the one thing we have felt and continue to feel.

 

I am posting my comment here as a free thinking exercise. I am guessing some of you who contribute on this thread had or still have aspirations to write for a soap. In my case it's really grown into a huge project. I have a guy who helps read through all my material, questioning me on all my story decisions. He uses a large document we call The Guide which is my expanding list of characters with biographical notes on each one I create. Then we have what are the bibles. Unlike Nixon, Bell or Marland who only wrote one ongoing bible, I wrote four separate ones for the characters. This is because while adhering to the timelines in my own family, I wanted to create a show that was set in the past when the characters were younger, a show set in today with modern issues with the characters as they are right now; and a show set in the future where I think the characters would logically all progress to; and then there's a separate bible for my mother's family; because it occurred to me that all of what happens to me in my father's family has a mirror relationship to what happens in my mother's family since she was from a different place than my father and her people and social class was extremely different from his.

 

Basically I have what's becoming a literary saga on my hands. And I think the bibles can be published later as books in a series...and they can also function as blueprints for the scripts in a long-running soap that occurs in separate time periods.

 

Is anyone else attempting to do something like this? The guy who checks my stuff helps me get a bit more self reflexive. He'll say why does Character X do this? Why are you having Character Y do this? And I have to explain it because this is what my father did or what my mother did or what I did. Sometimes I've really screwed up a plot and his comments help me fix it. When you have a fresh pair of objective eyes going over your material it helps you eliminate the plot holes, the character inconsistencies and it helps you with pacing.

 

I love doing mystery storylines, not all are murder mysteries, I do mysteries about paternity, mysteries about dual identities, one story was a mystery about an out of body experience a character has, told as comic relief. I love it when he is reading my notes and he has no idea where I'm going with a character and how the mystery will play out. If he's hooked then I know my audience will be hooked too. I always see the big outcomes first. Like I knew I was going to have a grandmother character ruin her granddaughter's life by accidentally running over and killing the girl's best friend. So it was a matter of how we were going to build and get to the car crash and back fill all the early scenes so the grandmother and granddaughter had this very strong relationship that suddenly gets thrown into turmoil. And in my mystery stories I always know where it's headed, who the culprit is, what secret they're really hiding and it makes the payoff so much fun to write.

 

During this process I see what writers in the genre have influenced me most. My greatest influences seem to be Stuart Blackburn, Kim Revill (love her), Bill Bell, Robert Shaw, Jean Rouverol, Claire Labine, Camille Marchetta, James Lipton, Henry Slesar, Barbara Esenstein & James Harmon Brown; Bridget Dobson; James Reilly; Pam Long; Doug Marland; Eileen & Robert Mason Pollock; and of course Agnes Nixon.

 

Another reason I am doing this four soaps in one project is because I think the golden age of serial storytelling doesn't have to end. Soaps do not have to be a thing of the past. Telling our stories now can help people tell their stories in the future. When I read about past writers on this thread or read comments about things occurred on cancelled soaps I find information that I can use as a guide post in how I construct my own ongoing dramas. - Jarrod

[danfling]

Ms. Labine and son certainly did tug at the viewers' heartstrings when she created Eli, the young man with AIDS on One Life to Live.  However, that character later simply disappeared from the story, and that was unfortunate.

 Who are these:  Stuart Blackburn, Kim Revill and Camille Marchetta?

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

Soap writers who credits can be found on the IMDb.

[MichaelGL]

I've always been curious about Douglas Anderson's tenure at Guiding Light. I wonder if he would have succeeded on a different show at the time, that wasn't ahem, dying a slow and painful death, with a better EP at the helm. I remember stumbling across a article about him via Google about him taking over GL and they made it sound the start of a new golden era almost. 

[Sapounopera]

 

Could you please share this article with us? 

I love articles/interviews about writers or executive producers and this thread would be the perfect place for them.

[Paul Raven]

July 1963

 

Irving Vendig is one of the most successful men in TV, but he lives in Sarasota, Florida, and rarely bothers to come to New York. Vendig and his associate, James Gentile. write the popular, long-running CBS soap opera "Edge of Night. Mr Vendig has been turning out well polished daytime misery for the past 25 years, and he is considered the best in his field. Playwright Marc Connelly calls "Edge of Night" one of the best written shows on TV. and fan mail has come in from the likes of Tallulah Bankhead and Shirley Booth. Many a top exec, bedded down with some minor ailment, has become so enthralled with the ti-nibles of "Edge of Night" that he has procrastinated and lengthened his illness hoping to see the end of a plot. But Mr. Vendig's show is one that never ends.

 

I asked Irving whether he responds to audience criticism of the show. "I get quite a bit of mail," he replied, "and Jim and I go through all of it. We do not change the situation to please the fans, but years of experience have taught me how to interpret the letters. If we get a batch of threatening mail telling us that if we don't do some-thing the listeners are going to turn us off and never watch again . . . then we know we re right on the ball. In fact, such letters are a tipoff for us to slow the pace of the series. Conversely, complimentary letters mean we have to speed it up."

 

Vendig. who used to write "Judy Jane," and "Perry Mason" on radio, always used an apprentice to assist him in the grind Thirteen years ago. he was shopping around for an assistant , when James Gentile was suggested to him by a mutual friend, a University of Florida professor. Jim was working in a Florida radio station and Irving refused to see him, but requested a copy of anything he had written. Gentile sent him an article on aitificial insemination and Vendig saw something in the style and quality, and offered the young man an apprenticeship at $50 a week. "During the first year I had him writing dialogue, but I don't think I used a sentence a week," continued Vendig. "Then, as he progressed, I gave him more and more responsibility--and money--and now he is a full partner. At the time. I was doing 'Search for Tomorrow.' a 15-minute show, and that's where Jim really started " Vendig and Gentile are now interchangeable writers. The training was so complete that they do not have to collaborate on individual scripts. ' We each write three-day sequences." explained Vendig "Then we edit each other. We work anywhere from 45 to 60 hours a week, so please don't picture us loafing on our lawns in Florida." They do not come to New York for conferences. Their sponsors go to them.

 

The series is generally plotted as much as four years in advance, but there's always room for changes This time, they came to New York because they were requesting more money from the sponsor. They were very impressed by a young actress who portrayed a minor running role for about 15 shows "We liked her so much we want to write her in. Now this entails a budget increase because we will need more sets and production money to tell her story, so we thought we'd have a better chance appealing for it in person. Naturally, this means writing ahead, but all our vacations and side trips require that New York always has three to four weeks of completed scripts." continued the 59-year-old native of Holly Springs, Mississippi

 

Vendig is a bug on plot structure and that accounts for his reputation as the best in the field He runs one main plot and one sub plot and develops them in such a way that when a main crisis is resolved the minor one is in a position to bloom "Characterization is also vital," he said, "because our audiences must believe that these people exist. We do not want stereotypes, but living, breathing people with real problems." Irving's daughter, a former actress who appeared on one of his shows, is married to a doctor and Irving quite frankly admits that her childhood problems often cropped up in the show Gentile has a wife and three youngsters who are also used as models In addition to "Edge of Night." Vendig is currently working on a play He is writing it alone, but he said that when it's finished partner Jim will come in for the rewrites.

 

I noted that Irving winced when I advertently used the cliche ' soap opera," and he obviously prefers the more acceptable term "daytime drama." ' Performers on my show are more famous than the biggest night-time stars " he concluded "Wherever they go they are greeted not by stage name but by character name One of my actresses summed it up beautifully when she said that she's a celebrity in every restaurant but Sardi's."

[danfling]

Who are these:  Stuart Blackburn, Kim Revill and Camille Marchetta?  

 

Well, you are these?

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

Not sure what you are asking. Stuart Blackburn is a writer producer who has worked on several top rated British soaps, mostly recently he's been working on Emmerdale. He has a great way of writing melodrama but adding humorous touches. The comic relief he does is never forced or over the top, and it always gives us insights into the characters. He never neglects any of his characters. When he was executive producer on Coronation Street for three years he used the entire cast and none of them languished in the background. I think he believes each character has a significant life and each life needs to be seen and known by the viewers.

 

Kim Revill is a feminist writer producer who writes strong women's stories on Irish and British soaps. She specializes in crime stories built around female cops. Her work on the Irish soap Red Rock is unsurpassed. She always surprises me with the way she takes the stories into new unexpected areas. I can never predict the outcomes of her plots which is a rarity since as you know we have a lot of writers in the soap world who rely on old tropes and cliches. I also like following Kim's Twitter page which I don't do for other writers. But I think she lives a very interesting life.

 

Camille Marchetta wrote Dynasty during the Who Shot J.R. arc, and she was the head writer on Dynasty during its fifth year which was the highest rated. She led Dynasty up to the Moldavian massacre and it's not surprising that when she left, the show had all kinds of problems the following year and started to take a dive in the ratings.

[danfling]

Thank you.

 

[danfling]

One of the very best writers (Strange Paradise, Another World, For Richer, For Poorer/Lovers and Friends, Guiding Light), Harding Lemay, has passed away.

 

What are your opinions of him?

 

His son, Steven, also was a writer of Another World.

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

He never wrote any show I watched. I didn't watch Another World or The Doctors back in the day when he was headwriting them. Maybe he worked on Guiding Light for awhile, but Doug Marland was the headwriter and I think he just did breakdowns/outlines. I did read his book 'Eight Years in Another World' just to get an idea of how NBC soaps were produced in the 70s. It was a very entertaining and insightful book.

[danfling]

When did he write The Doctors?

[MichaelGL]

Lemay briefly wrote for The Doctors for a few months from 1981-1982. He was one of its last few Head Writers. 

[robbwolff]

What's odd is that someone recently ran what he purported to be an interview with Lemay that many, myself included, found suspect. Perhaps it was legit and Lemay simply forgot facts, but I'm not so sure. In the interview, Lemay claimed he had been head writer of Guiding Light in the early 80s and then went on to say he was The Doctors' final head writer. He was head writer for about six months -- till mid-1982.

[JarrodMFiresofLove]

 

I don't think he headwrote GL. He did go back to AW for a while in the mid-80s. I think he helped reboot the show so Donna Swajeski could take over. And from what I've heard she did a fine job from 87 to 91. But I never watched AW, so again I don't have a deep appreciation of Lemay for any of his on-air material. I wish I did.