Serial Drama

So You Want To...

More from the best selling book So You Want To Ruin Your Soap: A Guide To Alienating Viewers and Courting Cancellation! Here's chapter seven, "So You Want To Make The Whole Show About One Character: Part I", by Megan McTavish.

1. NO ONE CAN RESIST A CHARACTER WITH AN ADORABLE NAME, NO MATTER HOW HORRID THEY ARE
The easiest way to whitewash the bad actions of a character, from murder to espionage to wearing white after Labor Day is to make sure they have the world's sweetest name. This means that anytime someone mentions them, they are using a term of endearment! It's also a signal to the audience (who, let's face it, is quite often a little slow) that they should like this character and get used to seeing him/her/Zarf onscreen all the time!

My most beloved and successful example of this is the character of Arabella Carey. With a name like that, you'd probably think she was a bitch. But if you call her Babe, you know for sure that she is a good and pure young girl who only does things for love and she's just so sweet and adorable and southern fried that you can't help but love her for the complex girl she is and the wise and strong woman she wants to be.

So You Want To...

I was recently on a thrift store kick, and found myself distracted by something shiny in the book section. I was shocked to find a completely intriguing and educational* book titled So You Want To Ruin Your Soap: A Guide to Alienating Viewers and Courting Cancellation, written by the good folks at ABC, CBS and NBC Daytime. Once I read it, all of the soap decisions of the past few years have started to become crystal clear, from "So You Want To Make Your Leading Lady Feel Insecure And Horrible" where readers are taught to verbally abuse actresses like Genie Francis about their weight and dress her in hideous muumuus to "So You Want To Make Your Audience Want To Cause Harm to Themselves And Others", which urges soap writers to create aliens who turn out to be the biological children of two core characters.

I will be posting occasional excerpts so that we can all be on the same page! Let's start with "So You Want to Shit All Over History: Part I" by Bob Guza

1. GET RID OF ALL OF THE VETERANS

They served their purpose. They had stories back in the day. But all they do now is remind audiences of the days that the show was actually good. So people like Stuart Damon? Cut 'em loose. What's he going to do, infuse even minor scenes with subtle, talented acting? Make people remember that the Quartermaines were a core family who drove the stories on GH for decades? Please. Who needs that? We have some true acting powerhouses on this show. Uh, does the name Maurice Benard ring any bells? Stuart Damon might have played Prince Charming, but Mo is Prince Charming. KING Charming.