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This article is so true!! Douglas Marland is the one who created the Qs and was a good friend of JE's and created the role of Carrie on guiding light for her...

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 story

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.

Remos, the search function has been removed temporarily but dishdiva told me it will be back in a few days.

They had to delete some of the old threads as the search function was crashing the board having to serach through like a million and half posts, etc...

It is SO annoying to not have it.

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Truke, Thanks for posting the list :D

No bad. At least Luke and Tracy made the top 10 of the 30 GH couples listed. They should have at least made the top 5 though. ;)

1. Luke Spencer & Laura Webber Baldwin (General Hospital)

2. Rick Webber & Lesley Faulkner (General Hospital)

3. Sonny Corinthos & Brenda Barrett (General Hospital)

4. Steve Hardy & Audrey March (General Hospital)

5. Jason Morgan & Elizabeth Webber (General Hospital)

6. Alan Quartermaine & Monica Bard Webber (General Hospital)

7. Lucky Spencer & Elizabeth Webber (General Hospital)

8. Frisco Jones & Felicia Cummings (General Hospital)

9. Luke Spencer & Tracy Quartermaine (General Hospital)

10. Robert Scorpio & Anna Devane (General Hospital)

11. Scotty Baldwin & Laura Webber (General Hospital)

12. Jasper "Jax" Jacks & Brenda Barrett (General Hospital)

13. Lucky Spencer & Samantha McCall (General Hospital)

14. Sonny Corinthos & Carly Benson (General Hospital)

15. Peter Taylor & Diana Maynard (General Hospital)

16. Robert Scorpio & Holly Sutton (General Hospital)

17. Duke Lavery & Anna Devane (General Hospital)

18. Stone Cates & Robin Scorpio (General Hospital)

19. Scott Baldwin & Lucy Coe (General Hospital / Port Charles)

20. Ned Ashton & Lois Cerullo (General Hospital)

21. Sean Donely & Tiffany Hill (General Hospital)

22. Jason Morgan & Robin Scorpio (General Hospital)

23. Dillon Quartermaine & Georgie Jones (General Hospital)

24. Phil & Jessie Brewer (General Hospital)

25. Tony Jones & Bobbi Spencer (General Hospital)

26. Scott Baldwin & Dominique Stanton (General Hospital)

27. Stefan Cassadine & Katherine Bell (General Hospital)

28. Justus Ward & Faith Rosco (General Hospital)

29. Rick Webber & Monica Webber Quartermaine (General Hospital)

30. Scott Baldwin & Heather Webber (General Hospital)

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Posted

I love that they are matching, but I have one question, Tracy is wearing the same thing that she was wearing on Friday. Her hair is different, so this has to be a different day, but to put her in the same clothes so close together is kind of ridiculous.

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Posted

OMG I just spit out my coffee reading that post! You crack me up!!!

I think maybe TG's next exit, he and Tracy take a Princess cruise to Panama Canal, eat at the early seating and do the excursions that don't require a lot of walking! :lol:

Not sure I believe this drop...but

General Hospital has contacted 2 former actors/actresses recently to potentially entice them back to the show to improve ratings. This has been a very lackluster sweeps for General Hospital while daytime has been pleased with the The View, All My Children, and One Life to Life.

Who are the actors?

Scott Clifton and Natalia Livingston. In addition, there have been rumors Billy Warlock has been contacted also.

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Posted

nex, I think it's the same day on GH, but that it was filmed a different day. The people in hair must have forgotten what it was supposed to look like, but I actually like it in the picture better, so I'm fine with the mess-up. :) Edward has the same clothes on too as last week...

halee, thanks! Will watch in a few.

hooked, thanks for the scoop!

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Posted

Thanks, but I have one more question, is Tracy going to be on this week because according to SoapZone the spoilers for the week of the 24th read as follows........

and for next week.....

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