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Originally Posted by JAYJAY1979
Well you are correct that the 80's and early 90's are thought of as the "heyday of soaps", what I was referring to was the loss of soaps individual identities and the need to jump onto the collective bandwagon. Before Luke/Laura became so popular, each soap had their own identity (I.E. Guiding Light/ATWT/SFT were old fashion family dramas, Love of Life was about the fight between good and evil in the form of two sisters, EON was a mystery drama, Doctors/GH were medical dramas, and AW was more a character-driven broadway play shown on screen). However, once GH became popular all other soaps rushed to jump on the bandwagon with their own supercouple and action adventure story. For example, Ryan's Hope was known as a soap about a large Irish family in New York City involved in realistic character driven situations. Once GH exploded and ABC took ownership of RH, you had out there stories like a hunt for treasure, Gorillas, over the top situation not associated with the show. Yes, while the 80's are thought of as the heyday of soaps, it hurt each show's individual identity and forever prevented the genre from ever being taken seriously (come on, Ice Princess, Dreaming Death, Satan, Passions?!?!?!).
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In fairness, it ain't like the genre was taken very seriously before, either. The awesome
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and Carol Burnett's
As the Stomach Turns satires didn't exist in a vacuum!
But you won't get any argument from me on the ridiculousness of some of those plots. (God, I forgot about Delia marrying a gorilla or something like that.)
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Originally Posted by Jayson
I knew I was walking into a critique of my little show the moment I posted but it's all good I'm known as all talk and no action, I admit it. While that might work in my real life, in the world of soap operas that can lead to a quick demise LOL I am making efforts to move the plot along. In some cases, I've succeeded quite well and in other cases I haven't. If you don't notice that then I guess I have my work cut out for me LOL |
Well, just remember, Jayson, that in the end, you should feel absolutely free to write the sort of story that
you enjoy. If you love kitchen-sink soaps and conversations that, like real life, sometimes aren't about much except two people sharing thoughts/feelings, there's nothing whatsoever wrong with your writing that type of scene. Ira does make excellent points about dialogue in dramas usually advancing a plot of some kind, and if a prime goal of your writing is to engage an audience, this is certainly advice to take heed of. But in the end, you want to write a series that
you yourself love, first and foremost. The good thing is that you can probably do both.
Er, to pull this back on topic. Two of the best-crafted mysteries that I remember working on soaps were on
Days of Our Lives, which is interesting because of the soaps, DOOL was rarely known for focusing on mystery-type plots.
General Hospital and particularly
Edge of Night were supposed to be big in that area, although GH's mysteries were kinda lousy and the only good one I remember from EON involved poisoned makeup contact. Heh.
But on DOOL, there was the .... oh, gosh, I don't remember whether it was the late '80s Salem Knifer or the Salem Slasher or the Salem Slutkiller or whatever they were calling it: the serial killings of a bunch of prostitutes on the waterfront, which as I recall, turned out to be Harper Deveraux. And then there was the Nick Corelli murder mystery, which was just heartbreaking because it involved a highly sympathetic motive and murderer (and yet another parent going to prison for my poor Jack).
The reason those storylines worked -- especially the second one -- was because they involved characters we cared about, and the revelations didn't appear to be pulled out of the writers' collective asses at the last minute.
The Corelli murder was particularly effective because it was firing on all cylindars. First, the emotional element was there: Nick was a longtime character, a former pimp who was hated by a lot of people, but also loved by a few, too. Corelli was a former pimp who'd been paid by Lawrence Alamain to sabotage a boat and kill Bo Brady; instead of Bo, it was Steve Johnson who was caught in the explosion, and indirectly caused his apparent death.) Possible suspects included many likeable characters and all had good motives. The investigators were also manifold, and for once all the folks hunting the killer were actually justified and equipped to do a good job: in addition to the cops, there were reporters Jack and Jennifer, who were not only smart and talented, but they also had a personal investment in solving the crime (Jack was Steve's brother, and many of the accused were people who mattered to him). But most of all, their investigating the crime made logical sense, rather than the audience watching some restaurant owner or other amateur going off solving crimes. Not that it's awful for 'regular' folks to be involved in investigating a mystery; there's a long tradition of 'amateur' detectives (like Agatha Christie's Miss Marple and Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey). But it adds a nice layer of believability to give your characters a real reason for hunting a killer, not to mention an explanation for why they're so good at research/asking questions/deciphering clues. "Luck" is never a good reason, not in a mystery. You can play the luck card once in a mystery, but you'd better not have your detective "happen" to hear conversations or stumble across clues ... not if you want your audience to buy the plot.
Anyway, other aspects in which the Corelli murder story worked included that the clues were all laid out pretty fairly; by the end of the storyline, I'd suspected the killer, and it wasn't because the writers had the killer talking to herself or acting suspicious or anything cheesy like that. And the resolution was rather heartbreaking and involved a genuinely sympathetic motive/murderer -- not some evil smirking killer, but a distraught mother seeking some kind of justice for her son's death. Finally, perhaps most importantly for me, the solution didn't wrap everything up in a neat bow: it actually caused more problems for the characters we cared about. Crimes are ugly and messy, and sometimes the criminals have family and friends whose lives are shattered by the revelations.
That sort of solution is so important to me, in a serialized story. I find too often that so-called major mysteries are solved and that's pretty much the end of the story: the criminal is caught and killed or imprisoned, or perhaps let go altogether for some strange reason, and then it's onward ho to the next plot. For me, a good mystery in a serial blends into the next story and serves as a jump-off point to new twists and unanswered questions. I don't usually like neat solutions. Of course, they work in novels, films and episodic TV shows or webseries, but in a highly serialized story, I like keeping things messy.
Since this is an ASF forum I'll use ASF examples, appropriately enough.
The Camilla O'Brien murder umbrella arc in the first season didn't end with the revelation of her murderer; there were ancillary unsolved questions (who killed Officer Branscomb? Will anyone figure out that Nora actually poisoned Olivia?) and the lives of the characters involved (primarily Tristan, Olivia, Frank and Jonnie) were permanently affected and, in some cases, made worse by the mystery's solution.
Same goes for the ongoing investigation into Nora's crimes. Daphne inadvertently caused the destruction of her family by snooping into (what she thought was) her father's crime. When the truth came out, the family was broken apart and set the stage for Daphne's subsequent obsession to save her baby sister from her foster home, and Doug's eventual acknowledgment of his addiction and slow climb out of the abyss.
Funnily enough, right now I have several mysteries running concurrently and each of them is, in a way, an example of one or more of the three main types of mystery plots. The David Reilly case is solidly using mystery type #3, with the murderer unknown as we watch the cops narrow in on a few suspects. Then there are a few not-quite-mysteries using the Hitchcockian #2 plot, where we know whodunnit but are wondering if/how the criminal will be caught (e.g. Chelsea's kidnapping, the
Record fire -- both with Jem as either partly or wholly responsible -- and the Kessleman murder).
And finally, there's the mystery surrounding the Fiore family necklace is a combo of all three, since while the ultimate reason behind the hunt for the necklace is gonna be hidden until it's nearly resolved (mystery type #1), and while the audience already knows
who wants the necklace (mystery type #2), they don't yet know who else is after it, though there have been several clues to reveal who (mystery type #3).
But it's useful to know the different mystery methods in order to play around with 'em. I don't think I'd have felt as confident in creating such mishmashes if I hadn't adhered closely to more traditional mystery types in my earlier seasons.
Anyway, this has been a very interesting discussion so far!
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