Post by Dallas on May 11, 2018 6:43:56 GMT -5
The Ice Storm is officially over, so I thought I would do a blog post discussing the creating of the biggest arch in One Day at a Time’s history.
I am really far ahead in my writing of ODaaT; at the end of writing my 2017 season, I took my usual break. I take a break every year, usually it lasts the spring and the summer. Living where I do, half my year is winter, which is when I write. In the summer, I prefer to be outdoors, hence why I take the summer off from writing. This also keeps me fresh; it’s good to take mental and creative breaks sometimes. When I return to writing, I seem to have a renewed interest in the series, characters have come up with good ideas for storylines.
At the end of writing my 2017 season, I was feeling a bit lost, to be honest. The 2017 year, which was the 15th anniversary year, was pretty epic in the sense that almost every single classic soap opera tale was told; from stunning confessions on a court room witness stand, to coming back from the dead, to a son sleeping with his father’s wife, to a coming out storyline, to a murder mystery; I really felt like I covered a lot of ground that year. I was really struggling to come up with more story to tell; the way 2017 ended, was mostly revolving around Frederick’s murder, so I was thinking I would wrap that up and, possibly, end the series.
Around May, Colton and I were out in the garden. It was a really hot day and we were sipping some rose. I happened to come into the house to get dinner ready, but I was looking on my IPad first. I happened to check out the website WeLoveSoaps.net; this website does a “This Day in Soap History” almost every day. On the day I looked at it, there was almost a week’s worth of the General Hospital storyline from the 1990’s when BJ gave Maxie her heart in a transplant story. This was really the first transplant story on soaps, since then, many shows have tried to do a storyline like this; because this was the first, it seemed to pack the biggest emotional punch.
Watching these scenes, I realized that I had more story to tell the characters in Twin Peaks. I had never told a transplant storyline before, and I was inspired to do so. There were many different routes to go on, because I could have easily had this with two adults. But, the last time I had an idea to kill a leading character, I ended up regretting it (this would be another blog post altogether!), and that’s when I realized that both Natasha and Kim had small children. That was the start of the idea process.
Creating a plausible transplant storyline came relatively easily as well because Jacob was born premature, it made sense that his lungs would have been weak or under developed. I also knew that I wanted a pretty epic climax to the Kim/Tyler/Bob/Facial Cream storyline. That’s when I realized if Kim told the truth and then was in an accident, it would change everything. Things were slowly taking shape and that’s when I realized I needed to create some kind of event that would create the disaster. I’ve done huge rain storms, but considering Twin Peaks is a mountain city, I thought that an ice storm would be cool; it’s pretty rare and it would be more unique than a huge snow storm. So, the birth of the ice storm was created.
I started to add a lot more elements into it while planning; like the fact that Dominick’s truck was one that hit Kim’s car. This aspect will push the storyline further once the transplant is completed. I also added a lot of other plot points to push almost every other storyline forward, like Lukas’ trial, Leah’s memory coming back, Jemma’s tragic role in the accident, Paige & Andrew’s relationship and Dominick/Felicia/Eva.
The major planning for the arch happened in May. The fall before, Lana Del Rey released her Honeymoon album, which has some amazing songs on it. So many of the songs spoke to me while I was planning it, most importantly the song “The Blackest Day”; I thought this song would speak volumes to what Kim and Tyler were going through if/when they lost Blake. Soon, however, I realized that the entire album was very moody, dark and melancholy. That’s when I realized that I could use the entire album as the theme music, which would bring the entire arch together nicely. It’s the first time I’ve ever used an entire album in order, so it was a bold choice but I’m thrilled with the turn out.
Overall, I’m super proud of this arch. I’ve never done a 14 episode arch before, or use an entire album as theme music, or done anything this emotional before. As a writer, it was a good challenge and it has set up future storylines, which is exactly what you want. I’m not sure I will ever top an arch like this, but that’s part of the fun in writing, always looking to find new ways to entertain and push yourself, right?
And, of course, because this is a soap opera, there’s more story to tell! If you go here: www.absoluteproductions.we.bs/onedayatatime_news.htm you can have a sneak preview of some new promo’s I’ve created for ODaaT’s summer storylines, which are leading up to the fall where we will celebrate 500(!) episodes!
What did you think of the Ice Storm? Sound off below!
I am really far ahead in my writing of ODaaT; at the end of writing my 2017 season, I took my usual break. I take a break every year, usually it lasts the spring and the summer. Living where I do, half my year is winter, which is when I write. In the summer, I prefer to be outdoors, hence why I take the summer off from writing. This also keeps me fresh; it’s good to take mental and creative breaks sometimes. When I return to writing, I seem to have a renewed interest in the series, characters have come up with good ideas for storylines.
At the end of writing my 2017 season, I was feeling a bit lost, to be honest. The 2017 year, which was the 15th anniversary year, was pretty epic in the sense that almost every single classic soap opera tale was told; from stunning confessions on a court room witness stand, to coming back from the dead, to a son sleeping with his father’s wife, to a coming out storyline, to a murder mystery; I really felt like I covered a lot of ground that year. I was really struggling to come up with more story to tell; the way 2017 ended, was mostly revolving around Frederick’s murder, so I was thinking I would wrap that up and, possibly, end the series.
Around May, Colton and I were out in the garden. It was a really hot day and we were sipping some rose. I happened to come into the house to get dinner ready, but I was looking on my IPad first. I happened to check out the website WeLoveSoaps.net; this website does a “This Day in Soap History” almost every day. On the day I looked at it, there was almost a week’s worth of the General Hospital storyline from the 1990’s when BJ gave Maxie her heart in a transplant story. This was really the first transplant story on soaps, since then, many shows have tried to do a storyline like this; because this was the first, it seemed to pack the biggest emotional punch.
Watching these scenes, I realized that I had more story to tell the characters in Twin Peaks. I had never told a transplant storyline before, and I was inspired to do so. There were many different routes to go on, because I could have easily had this with two adults. But, the last time I had an idea to kill a leading character, I ended up regretting it (this would be another blog post altogether!), and that’s when I realized that both Natasha and Kim had small children. That was the start of the idea process.
Creating a plausible transplant storyline came relatively easily as well because Jacob was born premature, it made sense that his lungs would have been weak or under developed. I also knew that I wanted a pretty epic climax to the Kim/Tyler/Bob/Facial Cream storyline. That’s when I realized if Kim told the truth and then was in an accident, it would change everything. Things were slowly taking shape and that’s when I realized I needed to create some kind of event that would create the disaster. I’ve done huge rain storms, but considering Twin Peaks is a mountain city, I thought that an ice storm would be cool; it’s pretty rare and it would be more unique than a huge snow storm. So, the birth of the ice storm was created.
I started to add a lot more elements into it while planning; like the fact that Dominick’s truck was one that hit Kim’s car. This aspect will push the storyline further once the transplant is completed. I also added a lot of other plot points to push almost every other storyline forward, like Lukas’ trial, Leah’s memory coming back, Jemma’s tragic role in the accident, Paige & Andrew’s relationship and Dominick/Felicia/Eva.
The major planning for the arch happened in May. The fall before, Lana Del Rey released her Honeymoon album, which has some amazing songs on it. So many of the songs spoke to me while I was planning it, most importantly the song “The Blackest Day”; I thought this song would speak volumes to what Kim and Tyler were going through if/when they lost Blake. Soon, however, I realized that the entire album was very moody, dark and melancholy. That’s when I realized that I could use the entire album as the theme music, which would bring the entire arch together nicely. It’s the first time I’ve ever used an entire album in order, so it was a bold choice but I’m thrilled with the turn out.
Overall, I’m super proud of this arch. I’ve never done a 14 episode arch before, or use an entire album as theme music, or done anything this emotional before. As a writer, it was a good challenge and it has set up future storylines, which is exactly what you want. I’m not sure I will ever top an arch like this, but that’s part of the fun in writing, always looking to find new ways to entertain and push yourself, right?
And, of course, because this is a soap opera, there’s more story to tell! If you go here: www.absoluteproductions.we.bs/onedayatatime_news.htm you can have a sneak preview of some new promo’s I’ve created for ODaaT’s summer storylines, which are leading up to the fall where we will celebrate 500(!) episodes!
What did you think of the Ice Storm? Sound off below!
