Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Television Musings - Rants and Raves from a Romance Writer


The Voice
By Kathy Carpenter

Well it happened. I had not quite started the book I selected to use in last week’s blog. I did start the book but I have not finished it. Being on the same book posed a problem what do I use to creatively tie in my blog with. In this case I used a chapter title. The Voice chapter title in The Night Rising by Chris Marie Green. However in most cases this will not work most books I read do not have chapter titles.On with The Voice, in writing a book one of the big advantages, at least in fiction, is to be able to get inside the characters head. To know what the character is thinking. In television and I noticed this trend back in early 2007. Shows are using a narrative voice. From a person who is never shown.

Sometimes to tell what is going on in the story at the beginning and end. like in Desperate Housewives Sometimes to point out something that’s happened in the story they didn’t want you to miss like in Gossip Girl. And sometimes to let you know a characters thought. I believe they use this technique in Malcolm in the Middle.

Desperate Housewives had their season premier this past Sunday. They did something rather creative, at least something I had not seen done before. The projected their character five years into the future. In most case I really don’t think actors would like to be five years older. These characters weren’t exactly spring chickens to start with. But they did it. Will be interesting to see where it goes from here. They can always claim it was all a dream, but then that’s been done hasn’t it?
Until next time.

1 comment:

Welcome said...

Hi Kathy
I'm just writing a post to put up on my blog here about use of voiceover in films and have just seen your post. Yes, it's easy to get inside a character's head when you're writing a novel, but
it's interesting that more and more movies are using voiceover now when it's still frowned upon by the screenwriting gurus.

I've been thinking and writing about voiceover this week because I'm talking about it in my class and my students are very wary of using it!

Thanks again Kathy.
From Pauline