# Can we really become a better writer by watching TV?



## PiP (Mar 26, 2017)

_"Reedsy editor and novelist Andrew Lowe highlights an excellent way to improve your writing craft without the need to read a word or skip a YouTube ad. You’ve probably already absorbed it without even knowing._
_I’ll bet you have stacks of writing-advice books stashed away, unopened, on your Kindle, as well as reams of writing-advice features bookmarked in your browser or read-later apps. While you should absolutely adopt a learning mindset when it comes to writing craft, don’t forget that you can immerse yourself in a fine source of writing advice that’s probably already sitting right there on your TV, laptop, tablet and phone: streaming TV shows...."

Article continues < HERE >

_Do you think this idea will catch on?


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Mar 26, 2017)

Well if you stream 'Keeping up with the Kardashians' I doubt you will glean anything useful. ride:


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## SilverMoon (Mar 26, 2017)

Did anyone one know that two of the Simpsons went onto become writers of Psychological Thrillers? They're now putting Stephen King out of business.







PiPs, thanks for posting! I loved Ben Gallery's inventive outlook, technique. I was riveted because when writing prose I always feel I'm on set wearing all these hats...

You get to be the:

Director
Acting Coach
Actor(s)
Set Designer
Special Effects Team
Wardroom Person
Editors
etc.... _and if anyone knows what "Best Boy" means please let know! I always see it in the credits.

_I'm getting ready to watch "Million Dollar Baby" with Hillary Swank. Maybe more :boxing: punch to my work! 



> Do you think this idea will catch on?


 Couch Potatoes won't get it.


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## SilverMoon (Mar 26, 2017)

> Originally Posted by *Crowley K. Jarvis*
> 
> Well if you stream 'Keeping up with the Kardashians' I doubt you will glean anything useful. ride:



Oh, the Kardashian's. Sorry but ukel:. 

That's kind of what I meant when I joked about the Couch Potatoes. It's all about the mentality.


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## EmmaSohan (Mar 26, 2017)

I don't watch very many shows a year, but the few I have seen were useful.

But I have a huge base from writing. When I look at something I don't know anything about, like how to design clothes, I learn nothing. Lowe seems to get around this problem by telling people what to look for.


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## Jay Greenstein (Mar 26, 2017)

Well, let's see... TV, like life is a parallel medium. In an eyeblink we see and hear host of information _about_ the scene and the action within it. Fiction for the printed word is a serial medium, where every thing, expression, and action musy be mentioned one at a time. Not much commonality there.

On TV there is no narrator. On the page there is. So you won't learn how to manage authorial intrusions for best effect by watching TV.

A scene on TV is related to a place or time, and to scenery. On the page, a scene is a unit of tension.

So there's little commonality between the mediums. But forget that. Can you learn to write a script by watching TV? Hell no, because you see only the polished product. To create that product takes lots of specialized knowledge, including things like how to write your story for maximum dramatic effect, while minimizing cost to produce. So to produce the product you need the process. And that's true of writing fiction for the page, the stage, and for verbal storytelling. Each has a different process, mandated by the differences in the capabilities of the medium being worked in. And the very idea, that watching TV won't teach you how to write for TV, but _will_ teach you to write for the page is, at best, not well thought out.


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## Phil Istine (Mar 27, 2017)

Although I can pick up tips about something by watching programs or reading books about it, I learn far more effectively by doing.


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## Sam (Mar 27, 2017)

What watching TV _can _do is inspire a writer by exposing them to ideas, plots, and characters in a different medium. This can beneficial insofar as creative thought processes are concerned, but as to the question of whether it can make us a better _writer? _

No, I would imagine that's demonstrably untrue. An idea is only as good as its execution, a character only as good as his/her characterisation, and that is a skill that one learns by writing. 

In the same way, reading can give us ideas, can teach us techniques, can illuminate great characters, but it can never execute for us. We have to do that ourselves. 

So, for that reason, the only way one becomes better at writing is by writing. Yes, it's a rather prescriptive way of thinking, but it has real-world application. You don't practise piano to learn how to play guitar, for instance, but knowing how to play piano will certainly not go amiss if you want to play guitar.


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## escorial (Mar 27, 2017)

You tube is massive for me...From writing,reading to using a mocha pot...Best tool on the net


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## SilverMoon (Mar 27, 2017)

> Originally Posted by* PiP (per article)*
> 
> _highlights an excellent way to improve your writing craft _


_highlights_ is the operative word here. Just an additional way of absorbing material. Not the traditional means for writers to amass. It's just an "aside".

Last night Crowley mentioned that watching the Kardashians' will likely get you no where. Yes! My first reaction was to run to the bathroom.

It's morning now and with my trusty cup of Joe I'm thinking about our agreed sentiment. But now how it can be turned around if you watch it with "intent" to glean information from the inanity of Reality Shows, which appeal to too many unfortunate people in Middle America. Think about it. You just might get material for a satirical piece. I stress the word "intent" in this example.

In my verse and prose I probe into the Nature of the Human Condition. What about movies that are highly character driven like, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?"- a superior example of what motivates character action and unexpected  conclusion - the "punch". I think this is something most of us go for.  Yes. It was adapted from a play but manipulated for the screen's audience. 

Let's take an example of a TV series like the "Twilight Zone". If you lean towards a genre of Sci-fi the Marathons shown around Thanksgiving innodate  you with material on a subconscious level or take "Star Trek"? When I was a kid "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" was the end all for me. It had to make a mark on my writer's nature given that I'm drawn to the morbid which is evidenced in some of my work.



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We absorb everything from life and TV is apart of it. 

e.g. I'm an illustrator. For _many_ years I hadn't produced a thing. When I returned to it I discovered that I was a much better artist, exceedingly so. Confounded, I posed this to an artist friend and she said that over the years I've stored so many images, perceived differently, in the attic of my mind. Now, they're just ready to be realized.

Ending my case, "What you see (and hear) is what you get.


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## Terry D (Mar 27, 2017)

Watching TV programs can help hone our ideas of story structure, can help develop an ear for language and dialogue, and can tickle our creative armpits. But only to a limited degree. As Jay and Sam have both mentioned, writing is a different medium, and becoming skilled at it requires a wealth of skills you can't pick up from watching old Quincy re-runs.


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## LeeC (Mar 27, 2017)

PiP said:


> _ ... _Do you think this idea will catch on?


Unfortunately I think the "idea" is the basis of too much writing. Even my tired old eyes see numerous takes of manipulative TV programming in many books I scan through looking for something reasonably insightful to read. Of course they feed on each other where it suits the programmers' purpose, and with generations reared by video nannies it's a foregone situation.

I think being a life observer is better fodder, together with practicing writing till you're blue in the face and enough take notice. What many fail to appreciate is what Arthur Miller said, "Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value." To me writing isn't about describing a movie like scene in one's head, but rather giving rise to emotions, and engaging the reader's mind's eye. And if you're really good, engaging the readers mind despite their reluctance. 

When one is not observing life, extensive reading is a prerequisite to decent writing. As to reading there are many older classics, and even a good number more recent engrossing books. One can learn a lot reading Olly's short story collection, and bask in the insight of Jen's poetry collections. If you're a thriller fan, Terry D's Chase will grab you by the unmentionables whether you like it or not. If you're into journalistic style writing check out William Stolzenburg, and when it comes to ecolit Margi Prideaux is packing a lot of emotion into her forthcoming book. The more you read, and the more varied the selections, the better the writer you'll be if you pay attention.

Whatever genre you chose to write, turn off the damn TV and get out to observe life with an objective eye, and read all the books you can get your hands on.

Though I don't watch TV, I will admit you can get some good ideas from such if you view with an objective eye. I think the news of late is fodder for some decent comedy and horror stories. You could even come up with a decent historical novel, depicting current events in the fall of past civilizations. 

In short, there is no effortless way to write better, as with all things in life.


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## JustRob (Mar 28, 2017)

I think that Sam has it spot on, that TV may be a source of inspiration _to_ write but not _how to _write. Writers take everything in their lives, grind it up, mix it around and eventually produce it as something new by some mystical process. TV is bound to be a part of that concoction, but cannot be all of it.

I evidently based my novel substantially on the TV series _Person of Interest _but added something that that series didn't have, the idea that information could be gathered from the future to enable the course of events to be altered. I was of course just writing from first hand experience as any writer does to some extent, because I didn't watch that series until years after writing the novel. Consequently I also agree with Lee, that we should also use real life experiences as inspiration. Unfortunately in my case it hasn't made my novel any more plausible, but isn't that also our aim, to broaden people's perceptions of the enormous expanse of reality? 

Jonathan Nolan, the writer of that TV series, apparently doesn't believe that it is possible to pass information backwards in time although he did unwittingly predict the existence of a widespread government intelligence gathering system that was subsequently shown to be substantially a reality. I'm relatively content that what I wrote about is also probably a reality in its way. However it happened, that TV series that I hadn't seen gave me a substantial context for my story, so I could hardly have written my novel without watching it, even though I apparently did.

What none of this did was to give me any clue whatsoever _how_ to write, but that is probably evident. In fact the chapters of my novel still exhibit the characteristics of episodes of a phantom TV series that haunted my mind for weeks back in 2011. I'm just glad that I've finally got to watch it for real. I always _knew_ that it was a TV series, but the best that I could do was write an equivalent novel. I even asked a TV screenwriter what to do with the idea ... oh, I just had a terrible thought but, no, he wasn't Jonathan Nolan. So, my novel is reminiscent of a well-known TV series because ... what?


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## LeeC (Mar 28, 2017)

JustRob said:


> ...  So, my novel is reminiscent of a well-known TV series because ... what?


Because there are no "new" ideas, as we go round and round with the same proclivities our experiences are rehashes, however we came by them. That's why I mentioned that one could get some good ideas from recent TV "news," for a historical novel about the fall of some past civilization.


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## JustRob (Mar 28, 2017)

LeeC said:


> Because there are no "new" ideas, as we go round and round with the same proclivities our experiences are rehashes, however we came by them. That's why I mentioned that one could get some good ideas from recent TV "news," for a historical novel about the fall of some past civilization.



I took that to the ludicrous limit on my website, suggesting that the ancient Greek story about Prometheus giving fire to mankind was directly paralleled in its details by the Orch-OR proposition put forward by Penrose and Hameroff in the 1990's as an explanation of how consciousness could be a quantum effect. I explained how the "fire" referred to in the Prometheus story was actually consciousness, literally the "fire" of our existence, rather than actual physical fire. Other details in the two subjects also corresponded, but it was of course a ludicrous coincidence. Yes, there are no new ideas but there are always new contexts for the old ideas and that is where the perpetual variety in our lives comes from, old wine in new bottles. We are just learning how to repackage those old ideas here.


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## Newman (Mar 30, 2017)

PiP said:


> _"Reedsy editor and novelist Andrew Lowe highlights an excellent way to improve your writing craft without the need to read a word or skip a YouTube ad. You’ve probably already absorbed it without even knowing._
> _I’ll bet you have stacks of writing-advice books stashed away, unopened, on your Kindle, as well as reams of writing-advice features bookmarked in your browser or read-later apps. While you should absolutely adopt a learning mindset when it comes to writing craft, don’t forget that you can immerse yourself in a fine source of writing advice that’s probably already sitting right there on your TV, laptop, tablet and phone: streaming TV shows...."
> 
> Article continues < HERE >
> ...



It helps, but not passive watching. Actively analyzing helps enormously.


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## Kyle R (Mar 30, 2017)

Watching films and shows can inspire, and teach a lot about how those particular screenwriters chose to write their stories. How _you_ choose to write _your_ stories, though, can be entirely different, if you like.

Especially if you're writing a novel. Most television shows and films are designed to be viewed in a single sitting. Novels, though, tend to be experienced through multiple sittings. For most readers, they're more of a cumulative medium. You read a bit. Stop. Go back to your daily life. Come back to the book again a few hours/days/weeks later, and pick up again where you left off.

Different pacing. Different rhythm. Different structure. (For the most part, anyway. Of course, that all depends on the writer.)

Glean what you can from shows/movies, for sure! You can pick up some great ideas. But I wouldn't try to mimic a show, or a film, in prose form. That'd be like pouring wine into a whiskey bottle and wondering why it comes out tasting different.


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## bazz cargo (Mar 31, 2017)

My 2c
The oddest thing. Since I have been trying my hand at writing I find reading can be more of looking at the work rather than the story. TV, radio, news papers, magazines, the net, conversations, dreams and memories are all parts of my data web. One thing I do find, TV is very good at showing me what not to do.


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## Arrakis (Apr 5, 2017)

Ultimately, it depends on the content.

The reason why television rots the brain is because most of the things on it _are_ rotten. For instance, if you binge-watch Family Guy 24/7, you're going to get stupid. And since so many humans are addicted to television, it's been a primary tool for marketing schemes, conspiracies, and whatnot.

I stopped watching television when I was very young, simply because I realised virtually none of it was useful or realistic. Nowadays, there are only a spoonful of shows and movies that I'm really into--and that's because they're intellectual, educational, and imaginative.

In a nutshell: Once in a blue moon, you might find a fairly intelligent show, but otherwise, books and life experiences are the way to go, if you want to improve your writing.


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## JJBuchholz (Apr 20, 2017)

I've never really directly watched TV just to help in my writing, but by watching my favourite shows, I have been able to get some ideas here and there. Personally, I can find better material from reading a novel, or just going somewhere local with my notepad and hanging out, jotting down what I see.

-JJB


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## Bard_Daniel (Apr 20, 2017)

I am with the trend that while TV might inspire, it will not teach you how to become a better writer-- unless if you're maybe a screenwriter. Even then, from the little I learned about screenwriting, it seems that looking at scripts is more important than viewing the media associated with it.

Just my two cents! Very interesting topic.


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## moderan (Apr 27, 2017)

Third time's the charm: "Experience is the best teacher."


Writing for TV might help, though.


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