Blue Metropolis - Reality TV

Reality TV made me a Better Writer – Jeffrey Oliver

Jeffrey Oliver wrote his novel – Failure to thrive with these steps he learned from working in Reality TV
The rule: “It is what it is” You’ve got to get it done on time. Sort of like doing Nanowrimo, you've got to just sit down and write and not worry about anything else until it's time to worry.
Aspire for genius but go for a damn good read. "I’m just a guy who likes to tell funny stories, and that’s okay."
Care deeply about your characters – Create a story of their life. The edit is a major part of the creative process

Adopting Habits of Reality TV: Here are the Steps
1- The Pitch
Quick, snappy
A good pitch keeps you honest. You have to stick to that pitch. Stick to what you’re book is about.
Have the answer to, “what’s your book about?”

2- Schedule & Budget
Apparently it took Jane Austen 16 years to write Pride & Prejudice

Write fast! What will happen in each episode? Make a very tight schedule
Every day of writing or planning: If you go over schedule in Reality TV it’s money!
Create a penalty – write a cheque to some charity every time you don’t write.
Story beats are scheduled
Story beats = scenes
You’ve got to let your characters do what they want
Be disciplined about your time.

3- Casting
You have to know what you want
People who are extreme in their passion or at an extreme moment in their life.
Story core – asking people the story of their life
Know your characters
Difference to the classic coming of age story – find something new, what is unique, what no one has written of before

4- Scripting the Beats (Google beat sheets for more info)
You set out the beats and whatever happens happens
In a half hour reality show there is a 4 act structure
In an hour long show there is a 6 act structure
Set up what’s going to happen immediately,
3 acts – beat every scene
The story is most important, the act structure you hammer out.
Beats first – structure next
Just pound it out then it’s in the edit that you do it all.
1st draft – just let you characters speak and at the end then you get into the structural beats in the edit.
Characters are most important, let them do what they want to do.

A woman asked a question whether Jeffrey was saying beats or beads?
Beads on a necklace
Beats – drum beats, the music, the rhythm.
It's beats but Jeffrey did like the idea of beads on a necklace.

5- Location Scouting and Location Research
Here’s our story and here’s the location we want to shoot
In TV locations fall out all the time
Choose the location and invent the truth of it

6- The Shoot
The actual writing
Run & gun shooting – the camera people never put down their camera, you better keep shooting everything happens.
On the fly interviews – something weird happened that we didn’t expect to happen so we interview the characters about it.
We’ll fix it in the edit
Chisel, find the story
Pick ups in reality TV – when they make the characters reenact what they did when the camera didn’t pick up originally.
We write a lot more than we end up using

7- The Edit
The thing you love the most often is what you have to delete.
Who are you writing for?
Chisel, cut right to the action
Most important part of the story
Writing is rewriting
Justify your words, your paragraph, your story
Cut more

8- Delivery
Deliver on time, promotional material
Book promotion – twitter, Facebook, blog etc
Time, courage, energy
Be resourceful – social media, entrepreneurial
MFA program – create your own MFA program

Motivation – here’s what I have to accomplish in 2 months
I can’t be a proper happy person unless I accomplish this dream of writing
I need to have an emotional plan and a practical plan

The character will take over and you’ll have new beats. Editing takes as much time as writing
Put your novel away for a bit before you edit.

It was an interesting idea and Jeffrey was a pretty funny, entertaining guy. I bought his book Failure to Thrive. Haven't started to read it yet. I'm currently reading Ray Robertson's, Why Not?

EY