You can run out of Clever, but you can never run out of the Truth

I was asked about the rewriting process on the television project. Let’s call the project TOWN for convenience sake. Eventually, when the episode airs, we’ll have a webinar dissecting it. But remember “don’t create…document.” Let me just try to put down what I remember about the process right now. Tananarive will have her own thoughts.

1. CONFRONTED WITH CHALLENGE. All right…we were asked to generate ideas to pitch to the show, and did.
2. REJECT THE CHALLENGE. Our initial round of pitches went nowhere. Let’s say that our aesthetic didn’t match what they were looking for, but it was very frustrating, to say the least.
3. ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE. The carousel came back around a year later, and we had another chance. Again, our initial pitches didn’t quite match, but we could tell we were closer. Then we were asked if we’d look at a series of ideas generated by the producer, already approved in-house. If any of them struck sparks, we’d be on track. The one they thought we might groove to the most really did strike sparks.
4. THE ROAD OF TRIALS. So…we had to look at that idea, TOWN. We’d been handed a wonderful opportunity, but could NOT just “execute” the story handed to us. THAT’S NOT WHAT THEY WANT. What they want is to get what they wanted, but in a way they never expected. Hollywood executives tend to be very smart people, but they have to balance dozens of production concerns. What they want, what probably everyone wants from an…