The brilliant Scott Adams of Dilbert fame says he learned something from a TV executive. Crazy, I know! He was trying to make Dilbert a TV hit. The exec told him that in his experience with focus groups, when everybody likes your work, you’ve got a dud on your hands.
It’s counterintuitive, sure, but I think he’s right. Merely competent work can make everybody nod and say, “It’s okay. That’s nice.” What you want is for a reasonable number of people to love it. Some can hate it. That’s okay. They aren’t the ones buying your books, T-shirts, CDs, subscribing on your website to bid on your belly button lint and making you a cult leader.
There have been several metric tons of TV shows about doctors and lawyers. A bunch of them fade into a teeming mass until you actually confuse them. Think of the lawyer shows with compelling characters. Not everybody was likeable. LA Law comes to mind. Boston Legal stood out because they had the magic trifecta: they dealt with serious issues, the writing was hilarious and the characters were memorable. Law & Order is finally cancelled, but the grating DA Sam Waterston plays has typecast the actor as a moralizing Johnny One-Note with OCD.
Or look at House. The medicine is fancy, but that’s not why most people watch. When the medicine gets deep, many people who love the show pay no attention. It’s the same thing that happens to you when the nerd at Best Buy starts talking technical computer jargon and you’re nodding but you’re not paying attention. You’re really thinking, what will this cost me and am I gonna be able to hook this sucker up?
It’s the characters that make House work and allows it to stand out. Gideon’s Crossing was a good show, but the hero doctor was too much of a hero. Dr. Gregory House is a flawed, brilliant, misanthropic atheist (in today’s America in primetime! YAY!) sociopath. The scary flawed genius tortures people until he finally gets an epiphany at five minutes to the top of each hour. If I was his patient, I’d tell him I’m coming back to see what he comes up with in 55 minutes.
Or Family Guy. There’s a delight that engenders naked hatred in some. For others, it’s only reason to have a TV.
When somebody hates your words, smile. If no one does, you probably aren’t saying anything much. If everybody hates it, yes you must retool. And if everybody just likes it, maybe you need to rework it so it’s a little more challenging. There are many of manuscripts to like, but your agent and editor want something that sets people on fire. Perhaps literally.
Filed under: rules of writing, TV Shows, writing to hate, writing to love
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