J.R. McGinnity's Official Site
Epic Fantasy. Secret Missions. High Stakes.
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Writing Blog
  • Book List
    • The Talented
    • The Kingdom of the Light
    • The Bodyguard >
      • The Bodyguard: Part One
      • The Bodyguard: Part Seventeen
      • The Bodyguard Comment Section
  • VLOG
  • Editing Services
    • Beta Reading
    • Content Editing
    • Copy Editing
    • Testimonials
  • NaNoWriMo 2018

Welcome to my blog

As a writer, my first area of interest is obviously my books, but for my blog I will try to address different writing issues or provide my own tips when it comes to writing or self-publishing.

My blog also includes shout-outs to and recommendations for other blogs or websites, book reviews or recommendation, and a few posts sparked by nothing but an area of interest at the moment or occasionally a complaint or five. 

-J.R. McGinnity
P.s. This blog contains affiliate links, usually to Amazon.

Home

Old TV shows and why I love them

1/21/2014

0 Comments

 
I love old TV shows. I just finished watching all of the episodes of Third Watch and am moving on to Smallville (which only ended in 2011 but started in 2001, so it more-or-less qualifies as an old show). The reason that I love them is two-fold: 1, I can binge watch them because there are already a hundred (or 2) episodes out there for consumption; and 2, I can watch a plot grow and change over the course of years.

As a series writer, I like to watch how the same characters grow and face new obstacles over an extended period of time, and TV shows are great for that because there is often a new challenge or "bad guy" every season.

I realize as I am writing this that Third Watch has no sweeping bad guy for most of the seasons, and so far in the first season of Smallville the bad guys seem to mostly be a series of incidents with people changed by exposure to the meteor rocks (they haven't yet been labeled kryptonite) and Clark's non-relationship with Lana.

But I expect that Smallville will probably grow into something more Buffy-esque over the next 9 seasons, where rather than isolated incidents there will be isolated incidents and one major bad guy per season (the master in season 1, Glory in season 5, etc.) That happened in Supernatural as well, and if it worked there...

But back to the purpose of this post, watching these shows gives me ideas on how to keep my characters, and my story lines, from becoming stagnant, boring affairs where the same problems keep cropping up, just with different names (any hint that Buffy and the Winchester boys are always facing the same problems will be considered blasphemy).

So to all of you writers out there that write (or plan to write) series, go to Netflix, Hulu+, Vudu, or the video store (if you can find one that is still open) and spend some time watching successful shows that went on for a long time (Smallville and Supernatural had 10 year runs (Supernatural is still going) and Buffy had 7. Not only will it be fun, but you can comfort yourself with the idea that you're not slacking off--you're researching!

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Author

    My name is J.R. McGinnity, I am a former English teacher with a passion for writing fantasy novels with strong female leads.

    My time is spent immersed in books (reading or writing), hiking when the Midwest weather allows, and watching seasons of old TV shows.

    Follow her on Twitter @JRMcGinnity

    Archives

    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

    Categories

    All
    Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award
    Blogs On Writing
    Book Recommendations
    Characters
    Editing
    Genre
    Kickstarter
    Miscellaneous
    NaNoWriMo
    Self Publishing
    Sensory Saturdays
    Services
    The Talented
    Top Ten Tuesday
    Tuesday Tips

    RSS Feed

Follow me on Twitter @JRMcGinnity
Proudly powered by Weebly