Remember last week when I said I thought writing for TV might have a lot in common with writing genre fiction?
Boy, was I wrong! Well, in a sense I wasn’t. As with pretty much any genre (romance, mystery, westerns, sci fi, etc), and especially category romance like I’ve been writing, there are guidelines that must be followed. Same for writing for TV. LOTS of guidelines. Yikes a’mighty, so many rules! And these are set in stone, too. Sheesh. Think brides/babies/cowboys is limiting? Try putting together a spec script for a network TV show. You will truly learn the meaning of bondage. Whoops. Did my Nikita just pop out? Sorry.
Anyway. I am learning tons. Mostly about myself and why I belong in fiction and not the world of TV writing. And it also answers one of the most persistent questions I’ve had (for years and years) when some idiot 20 year old male TV writer gets it wrong AGAIN (meaning women, love, sex, fill-in-the-blank, that we romance writers do so well), which is: why the heck don’t they ask a romance writer to at least consult on the script? Or maybe (gasp!) actually write it? Yeah. Now I know. We would never put up with their dang rules!!!
