Many times we, the SON Community have watched episodes of our favorite soaps, criticized the writing and often said to ourselves, "I (We) can write better than that."  So it led me to think, has anyone ever tried to write their own soap opera?

 

I started writing my own soap when I was 10. Admittedly, it was crap but I like to think that it got better as I got older. Though I borrowed heavily from Days of our Lives and Passions, which were my two favorite soaps at the time, what actually inspired me to write my own soap was a movie called "Delirious" Starring John Candy, Mariel Hemingway and Emma Samms, in which John Candy plays a soap writer who has a dream that he is a character in his show.

 

I called my soap "Family and Hatred" and it was centered around the wealthy Dozer family, and the middle class Lopez and Crowe families, who lived in the small upstate New York town of Lakeview. Eventually I expanded it to include the dysfunctional Miller and Andrews families. I wrote it for quite a while on a computer, but I eventually switched over to handwriting it on notebook paper. I stopped writing it years ago, but now I actually have some ideas for a reboot/continuation of it but I haven't written anything solid yet.

 

Have any of you ever tried your hand at soap writing?

I have one as well. I start writing it in October 1998 when I was 14-15 years old. And I was writing it until 2012, when I stopped. I only recently picked up where I left of and have now reached May 2013 episodes  

 

My story is quite similar to you. The episodes were such crap, my God. I re-read all of it recently from the beginning during covid confinement. It was such trash, a lot of it did not have any sense and people would fall in love without any build up or anything, like one date and then oh they are so in love. haha

 

But I too would like to think it got better as I got older.

 

And like you, I was heavily inspired and influenced by two soaps that I watched at the time, which were Sunset Beach and The City, so all of my characters lived in this apartment building (like on The City).  Initially, it had this rich family Paige family which owned the building, as well as the Brewster, Shorse (I guess this last name does not really exist, I have no idea how I got this name back in 1998, but well.. it's there lol)  and Anderson families. All of these families exist still on the soap (at least in some way). 

 

The only difference between you and me is that I started writing in the notebook and then eventually moved onto the computer and since early 2000s everything is in the computer. Back then I was saving it on floppy drives and I even lost some episodes when some floppy drives got broken. But I have rewrote those missing parts eventually. since I had yearly recaps saved up.

 

My soap is simply called "Life".

Mine is « Biloxi ». As my English is not as good to write dialogue, I only wrote summaries of the episodes ahah.

I wrote continuations of The City and Port Charles 

1 hour ago, Manny said:

I have one as well. I start writing it in October 1998 when I was 14-15 years old. And I was writing it until 2012, when I stopped. I only recently picked up where I left of and have now reached May 2013 episodes  

 

My story is quite similar to you. The episodes were such crap, my God. I re-read all of it recently from the beginning during covid confinement. It was such trash, a lot of it did not have any sense and people would fall in love without any build up or anything, like one date and then oh they are so in love. haha

 

But I too would like to think it got better as I got older.

 

And like you, I was heavily inspired and influenced by two soaps that I watched at the time, which were Sunset Beach and The City, so all of my characters lived in this apartment building (like on The City).  Initially, it had this rich family Paige family which owned the building, as well as the Brewster, Shorse (I guess this last name does not really exist, I have no idea how I got this name back in 1998, but well.. it's there lol)  and Anderson families. All of these families exist still on the soap (at least in some way). 

 

The only difference between you and me is that I started writing in the notebook and then eventually moved onto the computer and since early 2000s everything is in the computer. Back then I was saving it on floppy drives and I even lost some episodes when some floppy drives got broken. But I have rewrote those missing parts eventually. since I had yearly recaps saved up.

 

My soap is simply called "Life".

Life sounds interesting. Is there anywhere I can read it online? 😁

I've had a running soap in my head for the last 20 years. It's about the trials and tribulations of the Douglas family, an upper middle-class black family in the deep south. It touches on class, colorism, abandonment, and a bunch of other stuff. And it's all in my noggin, haven't written a word down. I just add to the story when I'm bored or stressed, I'm mentally telling stories about the grandchildren of the original family members now.

I had characters and a history figured out for a small town soap in the mid 1990’s, and it was going to be very dark (not as supernatural or esoteric as Twin Peaks, but that same vibe of hidden secrets and a shocking death to start things off).  I even turned part of it into a college writing short story, but I haven’t seen it in years.

 

When Guza left GH for Sunset Beach and GH started to kind of unravel, I started to write down some plots I would want to see, and it kind of turned into about two years of story.  I really tried to service the characters that were there already (although I did kill off Sarah Webber), and not just bring back all the vets I loved that were not on the show anymore.  Outside of giving Lesley Webber more prominence, I really stuck to the then current cast with a couple of additions.

 

The only major things I remember were Celia Quartermaine visiting briefly and she had twins that ended up staying in PC, Felicia and Mac/Robin and Jason ended up in a mystery that involved a mob story with Sonny, Luke, Faison and Stefan/Helena Cassadine (well before he came back during the Lucky storyline), I added a mixed race Ward teen who was also gay (and they ended up falling in love with one of Celia’s kids), and Lesley Webber got her life back together relatively quickly and reopened the clinic, where Laura ended up working as a counselor.  I also gave Simone Hardy way more to do, and in my dream the original actress was back to play this as that was what I imagined.  I can’t remember much else, although I know people like Lucky, Emily, Bobbie, the Q’s, Brenda and Lois (who came back) had story, I am just fuzzy on the details.

When i was 15 i started writing a soap for fun. I called it Different Seasons.  After The Johnny Hates Jazz song.. It took place in the small town of Riverdale. My core families were the wealthy  Blackwell and Steiner families. With the Marx's as the lower class working class family. Later on the Altman's  would assume the mettle of poor family in town.  It started in 1961. With the suicide and murder of John Steiner and Iva Blackwell. Who were having an affair. This lead the Blackwell and Steiner families to becoming enemies. I had every decade from the beginning to present day mapped up. I would take out things i didn't like. Add other things in. I loved the creativity and escape doing this gave me. 

Edited August 23, 20205 yr by victoria foxton

2 hours ago, FrenchFan said:

Mine is « Biloxi ». As my English is not as good to write dialogue, I only wrote summaries of the episodes ahah.

Actually I only write episode summaries as well, but mostly because writing dialogue would take forever, and since I have a full time job and dont have so much free time to write, I found summaries to be a perfect solution as at least with the summaries I move the story forward

 

What does Biloxi mean, if you dont mind me asking?

 

2 hours ago, Forever8 said:

Life sounds interesting. Is there anywhere I can read it online? 😁

Oh thank you so much! Very kind of you. No, I did not publish it anywhere, as I am not very sure anyone would want to read it haha I use the writing as my therapy to take out my frustrations and also express my bursts of creativity haha

 

I did actually have a friend who helped me in the beginning with it and she eventually started posting it online, but that was like 15 years ago lol So it probably does not exist.

 

I just remembered that I used to write Sunset Beach continuation fan fic (called Sunset Beach Forever) once the real show ended. I was publishing it first via email groups and then at the fan fic website for a few months in the year 2000 and It won me an online voted award for a favorite discontinued show in 2001 (I wrote 100 episodes in 2000., and qualified only for the best discontinued show in 2001) I was very pround of that back then

 

 

Btw it is fun to see so many people writing here

These all sound so interesting and intriguing. I bet we all could do a better job then some of the current head writers.

3 hours ago, Manny said:

It was such trash, a lot of it did not have any sense and people would fall in love without any build up or anything, like one date and then oh they are so in love. haha

I get it lol. I had a lot of my characters just suddenly try to kill each other in the beginning of my soap. Like one argument would occur and then suddenly, they would end up trying to kill each other lol

 

I even did a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids-like story in which the main villain had two characters shrunk and attempted to have them killed lol

Edited August 23, 20205 yr by AbcNbc247

1 minute ago, AbcNbc247 said:

These all sound so interesting and intriguing. I bet we all could do a better job then of the current head writers.

I get it lol. I had a lot of my characters just suddenly try to kill each other in the beginning of my soap. Like one argument would occur and then suddenly, they would end up trying to kill each other lol

 

I even did a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids-like story in which the main villain had two characters shrunk and attempted to have them killed lol

Omg yes, exacly! I have had the same. Seemed like a lot of the characters were having very extreme reactions like that to some situations which were not that bad haha 

 

Ah I never did the shrinking storyline haha althought I did have some outlandish stories.. like parents of a newborn baby with a mysterious illness go search for a cure and end up in Siberia looking for some flower needed for a potion that would be the cure.

 

I have to say, I don't watch DOOL anymore, but I read comments still on the forums and I laugh about people complain about Ben being accepted by many after he was a serial killer. And I agree with this criticism.

 

But I do chuckle because I had a character Matt Bergin show up in 1999, as this con-artist who was soon discovered to be a son of a local detective. And then very quickly he was forggiven and he became a changed person and a good guy. Now, I was 16 when I wrote that and my guy was not a serial killer. What is Ron's excuse? Haha

 

I did even try to modify this by finally bringing him to court in 2001 for some jewel theft he did prior to joining my show. And then also in 2005 he got in a relationship with a girl Serena who was a daughter of one of his fraud targets some years before. He seduced the lady and tricked her to get her cash and then left which ended up with her suicide, so her daughter Serena found him, seduced him and falsy accused him of rape to get back at him. So he went through trial again.. I tried to rectify my blunders hahah

3 minutes ago, Manny said:

Ah I never did the shrinking storyline haha althought I did have some outlandish stories.. like parents of a newborn baby with a mysterious illness go search for a cure and end up in Siberia looking for some flower needed for a potion that would be the cure.

 

I have to say, I don't watch DOOL anymore, but I read comments still on the forums and I laugh about people complain about Ben being accepted by many after he was a serial killer. And I agree with this criticism.

 

But I do chuckle because I had a character Matt Bergin show up in 1999, as this con-artist who was soon discovered to be a son of a local detective. And then very quickly he was forggiven and he became a changed person and a good guy. Now, I was 16 when I wrote that and my guy was not a serial killer. What is Ron's excuse? Haha

 

I did even try to modify this by finally bringing him to court in 2001 for some jewel theft he did prior to joining my show. And then also in 2005 he got in a relationship with a girl Serena who was a daughter of one of his fraud targets some years before. He seduced the lady and tricked her to get her cash and then left which ended up with her suicide, so her daughter Serena found him, seduced him and falsy accused him of rape to get back at him. So he went through trial again.. I tried to rectify my blunders hahah

Honestly, those storylines sound awesome. I would have been a reader of "Life".

Wrote and formulated a series back in 1994. It actually started as a teenage serial, focussing on 2 teenage private detectives, Troy and Tracy, who were twins, brother and sister. I was really really young so logic wasn’t really there. Their recurring mother was the voice of reason. 
 

It focussed on the siblings and the crimes they would solve, and their band of friends. If I had anything of it left, it would probably be appalling. But I used to tell my siblings these stories and it kept them entertained.
 

Within 3 months, I’d fallen in love with all of the characters and fictional seaside town they lived in, and expanded it into a full-on soap. I SORAS’d Troy and Tracy (and all their friends) into adults, moved them into the town’s CID and told what I perceived to be more mature stories, which included the mother of one of the friends being caught in an explosion after a siege. 
 

My first big ‘controversial’ story was having Troy and Tracy’s sweet, wise mother ripped off by an ageing con artist she had fallen for and subsequently dying in her sleep of a broken heart.

 

At that point, my siblings lost interest, even when I introduced characters based on them 🤣

 

I carried it on until 1998, then did other teenage things. 
 

I then found myself drawn back to it in 2000, and revamped it, and carried it on, inventing producers and head writer (equivalents) to explain away any changes in storytelling style. Then, in 2007, I just stopped. 
 

13 years later and my mind occasionally wonders what the characters are up to.

 

I hadn’t really thought about it until this thread came up 🤔

 

Now, I mainly work on other writing projects and (short) film scripts.

Edited August 23, 20205 yr by LondonScribe

Oh thank you very much! I find it that I can think of a story, but then I am not so good with building it up and hitting the beats, so not sure if you would have enjoyed the daily episodes. Haha

But thank you nevertheless. As you said, many good ideas mentioned in this thread. Thank you for starting this!

 

Edit: I see I forgot to quote AbcNbc last post. Now I dont know how to do it lol

3 minutes ago, LondonScribe said:

Wrote and formulated a series back in 1994. It actually started as a teenage serial, focussing on 2 teenage private detectives, Troy and Tracy, who were twins, brother and sister. I was really really young so logic wasn’t really there. Their recurring mother was the voice of reason. 
 

It focussed on the siblings and the crimes they would solve, and their band of friends. If I had anything of it left, it would probably be appalling. But I used to tell my siblings these stories and it kept them entertained.
 

Within 3 months, I’d fallen in love with all of the characters and fictional seaside town they lived in, and expanded it into a full-on soap. I SORAS’d Troy and Tracy (and all their friends) into adults and told what I perceived to be more mature stories, which included the mother of one of the friends being caught in an explosion after a siege. 
 

My first big ‘controversial’ story was having Troy and Tracy’s sweet, wise mother ripped off by an ageing con artist she had fallen for and subsequently dying in her sleep of a broken heart.

 

At that point, my siblings lost interest 🤣

 

I carried it on until 1998, then did other teenage things. 
 

I then found myself drawn back to it in 2000, and revamped it, and carried it on, inventing producers and head writer (equivalents) to explain away any changes in storytelling style. Then, in 2007, I just stopped. 
 

13 years later and my mind occasionally wonders what the characters are up to.

 

I hadn’t really thought about it until this thread came up 🤔

 

Now, I mainly work on other writing projects and (short) film scripts.

Well that sounds fun!

I want to start writing new things all the time, because new stories always pop in my mind, but I keep going back to "Life" since I invested many many years into it, so I keep pushing for it to continue

 

But how awesome that you actually became a writer! So awesome!! 

Edited August 23, 20205 yr by Manny

4 minutes ago, Manny said:

But thank you nevertheless. As you said, many good ideas mentioned in this thread. Thank you for starting this!

You're welcome 🙂