In the Shadow of the Bridge by Joseph Caldwell

Author:Joseph Caldwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Delphinium Books
Published: 2019-08-21T15:37:07+00:00

7.

During part of this middle period, I experienced a somewhat radical change in my writing career. I began working on the television soap operas Love of Life, Secret Storm, and Dark Shadows. In no way was I dismissive of the genre, nor did I arrogantly feel I was debasing myself by lending my name to its obvious appropriation of melodrama and sentimentality. Quite to the contrary. My involvement gave me a certain respect for its achievements.

True, the characters were unfailingly inflicted with challenges that would threaten their survival or their happiness. At one point it even occurred to me that some enterprising student might, for a thesis, examine the eager sadism at the core of the soaps. (Example: When I was writing Love of Life, Bruce, a sympathetic character, had become a paraplegic because of a blow to his head when confronting a serial killer. One day, when I arrived at the apartment of the show’s head writer, who did the plotting, he gleefully welcomed me with the words “They drop Bruce.”)

What a putative doctoral thesis could not ignore, however, was the inspiration at the source of this devastation. Bruce and his loved ones, his wife, his son, his friends, would gallantly rise to the occasion and eventually triumph. This, I never doubted, explained the lure of the soaps, the affirmation of human tenacity, the power of love and caring. The soaps, to my thinking, responded to a basic need, the assurance that, eventually, all would, in the words of Oscar Wilde in his definition of fiction, end happily for the good people and unhappily for the bad people. And while doing all this—possibly most important of all—they would tell a good story.

When writing my first show, Love of Life, however, I realized once again that I was full of rage, rage that my freedom had been taken from me, my freedom to write what I wanted to write the way I wanted to write it. Except that this freedom had not been taken from me. I had voluntarily handed it over; my anger should have been directed toward myself. But such are the convenient complexities of human conduct. I was able, with no pause for such a consideration, to blame the head writer, Don. He would give me a one- or two-paragraph outline of a scene, setting out what the action would be and how the plot would be advanced. It was then my job to invent the activities and write the dialogue for the characters—all of which must please Don. There were times when he would rewrite what I’d written. No one rewrites what I write unless I agree. Without exaggerating, I can honestly say that there were times when I’d have to decide whether to murder Don or to write the script. Fortunately for both of us, I chose to write the script.

And yet I could not be unaware of the devoted allegiance of the viewers, their intimate involvement with the characters. It was not unknown for a viewer to write a letter not to the actor but to the character, warning: “Watch out for Kaye.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.