{"id":8976,"date":"2021-04-26T08:59:26","date_gmt":"2021-04-26T12:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8976"},"modified":"2021-06-23T08:14:54","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T12:14:54","slug":"tips-for-screenwriters-police-procedurals-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8976","title":{"rendered":"Tips for Screenwriters: Police Procedurals 101"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/woman-in-bar.jpg?resize=300%2C226&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8977\" width=\"300\" height=\"226\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/woman-in-bar.jpg?resize=150%2C112&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/woman-in-bar.jpg?zoom=2&amp;resize=300%2C226&amp;ssl=1 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>ICYMI this \u201cShouts and Murmurs\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2021\/03\/22\/how-to-write-a-tv-police-procedural-in-thirteen-easy-steps\">satire by Paul Rudnick<\/a> in the March 22 (I\u2019m catching up) issue of <em>The New Yorker<\/em> had me laughing out loud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are a couple of Rudnick\u2019s surefire script ideas.\u201d The main character should be a \u201ctroubled male detective whose marriage has crumbled because he works too hard and cares too much\u201d; his ex-wife should be \u201cglimpsed only through a screen door\u201d; if the detective is female, she should have a ponytail (that way she can have long, sexy hair at dinner but keep it from blowing over her partner\u2019s eyes and blinding him as they case the bad guys).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh, and be sure to write in a fresh-faced (and fresh-mouthed) tech person who can instantly find any details whatsoever on anyone. For example, Rudnick says, he can instantly tell the detective: \u201cYour suspect dropped out of business school three weeks ago, he\u2019s had contact with three known militia members, and he\u2019s headed east on 168<sup>th<\/sup> Street in a stolen van.\u201d Plate number?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read the whole piece, you\u2019ll get a good laugh. Here on Facebook, the author community airs frequent laments.\u201cEnough with the \u2018Girls\u2019 book titles.\u201d Or \u201cNot another flawed police detective hunched over her whiskey!\u201d Or \u201cHow many serial killers are there, really. Outside of books and movies, I mean..\u201d We all have our favorite pet peeves in television scripts and topics, the too-tired tropes and cliched plot devices. What sets your teeth on edge?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ICYMI this \u201cShouts and Murmurs\u201d satire by Paul Rudnick in the March 22 (I\u2019m catching up) issue of The New Yorker had me laughing out loud. Here are a couple of Rudnick\u2019s surefire script ideas.\u201d The main character should be &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8976\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Tips for Screenwriters: Police Procedurals 101 - this had me laughing for an hour!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61,174,1821,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character","category-first-draft-blog","category-humor","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2kM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8978,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8976\/revisions\/8978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}