What Are You Watching?

In his book On Writing, Stephen King said the two most important things an aspiring writer can do are: 1)Read a Lot, and 2)Write a Lot. If you're an aspiring television or content producer, the same advice applies: 1)watch a lot of content; 2)Create a lot.

What shows are you watching? If you want to create a content for a specific medium, whether it's movies, television, or a web site, you need to be familiar with the other content that's already successful. You don't need to imitate that contentbut you do need to understand what elements make a piece of content successful. If you can incorporate the successful elements into your own story, you will go a long way toward making your story succeed.

That's also important if you want to sell your content. When I was in network programming, nothing made me more upset than a producer who proposed a program idea we already had on air. Clearly, they weren't watching.

So watch your favortie shows. And watch the shows you don't like, but are popular. Don't watch just to enjoy them -- watch critically. Analyze why a show is successful. Learn from its successes and its mistakes. Remember almost nothing that you create will be perfect the first time. Apply the lessons you learned from other content in the revisions. Your work is important to you; it's worth putting in the time necessary to make it as good as possible.