Kind of got into the House TV series, which is an interesting thing in itself since I don't watch TV. Found a site on the net.
House is a drama about a doctor named Gregory House, some staff , and the patients they treat. I suppose I could go on and on about the stuff other people covered, or I could just put a link in HERE and let you read it when you get around to it.
One of the most interesting things about House, from the perspective of an aspiring writer , is the way the series is organized. You have to understand that the most successful shows have always been about people. Be it the latest star trek episode, or star wars , or House. The Gizmo's in start trek really should overshadow the people. In real life they would. One need only look at any modern western army and what do you see ? Tanks, stealth bombers, rifles with a ridiculously long range that should be called sniper rifles, but every rifle is that long range so they don't bother, night goggles... the toys make the war in the real world.
But in Star trek , it's all about the charactars interacting. In star wars, the force and the light sabres are really nice toys , but the one thing The Force did was balance out the toys and bring people to the front again.
House is the same way.
Lets face it. House is a total Ass. But he's a well crafted total ass. His urge to solve puzzles , manipulate people , and see how they work becomes the perfect vehical for doing , you guessed it , charactar studies. And of course it's no good to study boring people , so every one of the main charactars in that show has their own little secrets for him to slowly pick apart. Even better, the episodes are not stand alone works. They all build on each other (makeing it different from most TV series) and reference previous things the charactars have done.
And of course the major point of the medical setting is to bring in a constant string of new charactars to be picked apart and analyzed. The patients. They're all deep charactars with their own little secrets to be picked apart as well.
Other shows have tried to do this. Star Trek goes to different worlds for example, thats their endless stream of new charactars to study. But doing up a whole world every episode .. it's too broad a stroke. They're biting off more than they can chew , and it shows. Really they should have circled the same three or four planets and plumbed the depths of charactars from a very few races rather than make totally new races every single episode. That was just too much squeezed into each show, and it showed.
Babylon 5 did well, with it's station bringing in diplomants and wanderers so there was always new blood to be examined there. But again , no one was really doing the examining. You just happened to notice they were doing weird things.
Another thing that should be mentioned are the long term plots The ones that go across ten or so episodes. A new hospital owner hates house , and over ten episodes trys to fire house or get him to quit . House ticks off a cop , who makes Houses life miserable and trys to get him thrown in jail for another dozen or so episodes. The slow work up of houses insanity , trip to a mental institute, and the aftermath which is in fact still ongoing as late as the end of season 6.
Some people call it formulistic writing. But I call it a vehical. You have a relatively stable situation ( a hospital) and a steady stream of new events (in this case patients) to provide fresh blood , fresh infusions of material , so the audience doesn't grow bored.
If I was to try and write an ongoing story or novel (which by the way I am) I would make a check list of things to do in that novel.
- Steady stream of new charactars
- Someone to examine those new charactars
- Detailed charactars , with secrets , for the main cast
- Really deep main charactar , with a lot of secrets to be dribbled out a little at a time.
- Always have a love interest going somewhere
- Always have some secret activity going on
- Long term plots ! (A given if you're writing a novel..not so much on a TV series )
And of course, you would have to first think about a framework , often called a formula , to fit all this in. Either they all stay in one place and the people come to them (hospital , space station ala babylon 5 / Deep space 9) , or a group of them go wandering and are always encountering new people (Xena Warriar Princess, David Eddings Belgariad, Original Star Trek hopping on their ship and always exploring )
Just my thoughts on the matter.
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