{"id":1978,"date":"2009-11-16T19:18:20","date_gmt":"2009-11-16T19:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/\/?p=1978"},"modified":"2009-11-16T19:18:20","modified_gmt":"2009-11-16T19:18:20","slug":"how-not-to-write-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/how-not-to-write-online\/","title":{"rendered":"How Not To Write Online"},"content":{"rendered":"
Lacking Authenticity and Urgency<\/div>\n
The web series, Quarterlife, is named for the phenomena of the “Quarterlife Crisis.” \u00a0 This is the emotional angst and anxiety that hits around age 25 – 29, when college grads wonder: \u201cWhat am I doing with my life? \u00a0Why am I broke, bored and\/or stalled in my career?\u201d<\/div>\n
There is a sense of entitlement and astonishment among the Quarterlife characters summed up by Dylan Krieger (Bitsie Tulloch), the protagonist: \u00a0\u201cA sad truth about my generation is that we were all geniuses in elementary school but apparently the people who deal with us (now) never got our transcripts because they don’t seem to be aware of this.\u201d<\/div>\n
This sense of entitlement and astonishment seemed to accompany the series\u2019 failure. \u00a0What went wrong?<\/div>\n
Quarterlife lacked the necessary authenticity and urgency to engage its core web audience. \u00a0The producers didn\u2019t fully understand their audience and the series felt too much like a cynical ploy.<\/div>\n
New Media Ploys Annoy the Audience<\/div>\n
Quarterlife was originally conceived as a broadcast series but didn\u2019t get picked up by a major network. \u00a0Herskovitz and Zwick broke the series down into 8-minute segments. \u00a0They independently financed the show and created special channels for the series on MySpace and YouTube.<\/div>\n
Rather than creating content specifically for this new medium and this particular audience, the creators recycled a conventional series and distributed it in smaller chunks. \u00a0Their goal seems to have been to get back on broadcast television as quickly as possible.<\/div>\n
Despite the social networking aspects of the Quarterlife website, it seems the creators did not fully embrace (or fully understand) their audience and this new storytelling medium. \u00a0After a much-hyped launch, viewership dropped precipitously.<\/div>\n
\u201cPodcasting News, for example, gleefully pronounced the web series a bomb in December, running a chart of each episode’s views on YouTube that looked like a graph of Ron Paul’s delegate count, noting that the show was getting fewer web views than \u2018sleeping kitties, graffiti videos or even a clip of Sims in labor\u2019,\u2019\u201d wrote Los Angeles Times media columnist Patrick Goldstein.<\/div>\n
Goldstein also suggests that Quarterlife served as a magnet for web devotees’ scorn for all the Old Media Titans who’ve been invading their turf, hoping to turn the new medium into another profit center.<\/div>\n
Herskowitz didn\u2019t help matters when he wrote in Slate: \u00a0“Most of it (web entertainment) is simply incompetence and ignorance masquerading as an ‘Internet style.\u2019 And until now no one had tried anything that would actually engage the emotions of an audience.”<\/div>\n
It\u2019s ironic that Quarterlife doesn\u2019t engage the emotions of their audience in a way that is authentic or that rings true.<\/div>\n
Emotions Not Experienced Directly Distance the Audience<\/div>\n
Protagonist Dylan Krieger narrates the series via her video blog. \u00a0She is a would-be writer stuck in an assistant\u2019s job at a woman\u2019s magazine, working for a boss who tries to steal her ideas.<\/div>\n
The creators assume that video-blogging is the same thing as writing. \u00a0The key difference, as a commentator on New TeeVee pointed out, is: \u00a0\u201cA writer wants an audience for her ideas and observations; a video blogger wants an audience for herself.\u201d<\/div>\n
This personal performance aspect is the narcissism of \u201cWatch me \u2013 Look at me \u2013 I am what\u2019s important here.\u201d<\/div>\n
In her video-blog, Dylan says that her \u201ccurse\u201d is to see what people are thinking and feeling. In the visual language of storytelling, that is the reaction shot that shows the audience a character\u2019s thoughts and feelings writ large on the actor\u2019s face.<\/div>\n
When Dylan narrates, as video blog performer, she prevents the audience from experiencing these emotions, thoughts and feelings directly with the characters. \u00a0Her performance distances us from the characters and is a classic violation of the \u201cshow don\u2019t tell\u201d rule of storytelling. \u00a0Her narration tells us what we\u2019ve already seen or should have already seen ourselves.<\/div>\n
If, however, personal narration directly contradicts what we have seen (or will see) then that shows us something new and interesting about the narrator and\/or the other characters. \u00a0 This counterpoint works wonderfully in the classic Herskovitz and Zwick produced series (created by Winnie Holtzman), My So-Called Life.<\/div>\n
That show\u2019s high school protagonist, Angela Chase (Claire Danes), is hopelessly infatuated with Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto). \u00a0She remarks romantically that he is always closing his eyes as if it hurts to look at things. \u00a0Later, we see him dousing his eyes to get the stoner-dude red out with Visine.<\/div>\n
There is no such ironic or poignant counterpoint in Dylan\u2019s narration. \u00a0She tells us what we should see for ourselves or repeats what we already know.<\/div>\n
Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) muses publicly about personal concerns via her newspaper column in Sex and the City. \u00a0The opening image vividly shows the contrast between the public and the private in Carrie’s life when she is splashed with dirty water as a bus plastered with her glamorous billboard image roars past. \u00a0Sex and the City uses humor and irony to illuminate the disappointments, anxieties and dissatisfactions of a slightly older age group than Quarterlife. \u00a0Carrie, the wry witty writer, is not the self-conscious performer that Dylan is as a video-blogger.<\/div>\n
Boredom, Stasis and Frustration Aren\u2019t Urgent<\/div>\n
As a friend has pointed out, \u201cthere is a reason so many serial dramas are set in hospitals and police stations, these environments provide an automatic sense of urgency, conflict and high stakes to a story.\u201d<\/div>\n
Articulate, over-sensitive, highly educated, middle class white kids bemoaning the lack of a \u201cspecial and gifted\u201d life track (which is their due) doesn\u2019t provide much emotional urgency. \u00a0 There is little at stake if they can fall back on Mom and Dad, as one character does.<\/div>\n
Fans watch football matches or basketball games because there is a sense that if you aren\u2019t present or watching, cheering as hard as you can for your team, something terrible might happen. \u00a0The strength of your passionate concern will somehow help to put your players over the top.<\/div>\n
Serial drama fans need to feel the same passionate concern and \u00a0personal involvement with the characters whose lives they follow. \u00a0What is the worst that can happen? Why do we have to watch to prevent that terrible outcome? \u00a0Why must we yell at the screen: \u00a0\u201cNo, no, don\u2019t do that!\u201d \u00a0What do we fear for our characters? \u00a0Why is it urgently important that we watch?<\/div>\n
Interpersonal relationship can have that kind of emotional tension and urgency. \u00a0The stakes just have to be high enough. \u00a0The conflicts have to be intense and personal enough to evoke our deepest concern. \u00a0We have to be worried about the characters!<\/div>\n
Weak Conflict Undercuts Urgency<\/div>\n
The biggest potential conflict and most interesting social question in Quarterlife is weakened if not completely neutered.<\/div>\n
Dylan’s friends don\u2019t seem to care that she is violating their privacy, disclosing intimate information, betraying confidences and spewing interpersonal revelations to anyone who has access to a computer.<\/div>\n
She names names. \u00a0She distributes secretly recorded video. \u00a0She commits the emotional equivalent of a physical violation. \u00a0Outside of a minor explosion, this potential conflict quickly passes by the wayside. \u00a0Nobody really pays attention to Dylan\u2019s video blog.<\/div>\n
Her revelations cause little conflict within the group. \u00a0They cause no conflict outside the group (no outsider causes a problem for the characters because of information learned through Dylan\u2019s blog).<\/div>\n
It is very startling and disconcerting when strangers know the intimate details of your life and remark on them to you. \u00a0What happens when everyone knows your whereabouts and\/or your personal business? \u00a0How does that cause problems and create conflict for the characters?<\/div>\n
What are the limits of personal privacy and the ethics of personal disclosures about others? \u00a0All those questions are interesting opportunities for conflict that could come from who the characters are as individuals and how they might view the world differently.<\/div>\n
If Dylan\u2019s blog has no effect on the other characters, what is the dramatic point other than to show her on a web cam? \u00a0 This feels like the creators trying to be hip but it comes off as empty, false and inauthentic.<\/div>\n
When It Isn\u2019t Urgent It Has to Be Funny<\/div>\n
The characters in Quarterlife are remarkable for their lack of humor or any wicked sense of fun. \u00a0They take themselves and their lives way too seriously. \u00a0The series doesn’t have a vivid appreciation of the absurd.<\/div>\n
The classic series, Friends, mined this age group\u2019s anxiety, boredom and frustration brilliantly. \u00a0The theme song by The Rembrandts sums up the same storytelling territory:<\/div>\n
\u201cSo no one told you life was going to be this way.<\/div>\n
Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s DOA.<\/div>\n
It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear,<\/div>\n
Well, it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year.<\/div>\n
I\u2019ll be there for you\u2026 \u00a0And you\u2019ll be there for me too.\u201d<\/div>\n
Friends had wit, warmth and sense of the absurdity of life (and lasted many years past the characters\u2019 “Quarterlife Crisis” because the fans weren\u2019t willing to let the characters go). \u00a0Contrast this with the previous quote:<\/div>\n
\u201cA sad truth about my generation is that we were all geniuses in elementary school but apparently the people who deal with us (now) never got our transcripts because they don’t seem to be aware of this.\u201d \u00a0 (Poor me!)<\/div>\n
Which show would you rather watch?<\/div>\n
Seinfeld, originally featuring the same or slightly older age group, totally lacked urgency and was proud of it. \u00a0That show was about nothing more critical than finding a parking place, making a reservation at a restaurant or buying soup at a lunch counter. \u00a0The series had a wicked sense of humor; made us laugh and we were satisfied and came back for more.<\/div>\n
What Was NBC Thinking?<\/div>\n
Quarterlife was picked up by NBC at a time when broadcast dramas were running out of stockpiled scripts and scripted shows were shutting down all over Hollywood. \u00a0 It seemed like a slam-dunk opportunity. \u00a0Then, just like the story concept for the series characters, reality hit and it was nothing like anyone imagined.<\/div>\n
The show only had 3.1 million viewers in its NBC broadcast debut, the worst in-season performance in the 10 p.m. hour slot by an NBC show in at least 17 years. The series also got hammered in the adult 18 – 49 demographic, where it managed only a 1.3 rating. \u00a0The show was pulled from NBC\u2019s schedule after only one episode.<\/div>\n
Why would NBC think that a series allegedly conceived for and widely available on the web would attract the same audience age group in a repeat on broadcast television? Everyone who was interested had seen the show already.<\/div>\n
If viewers can watch on their own time on the web why should anyone watch the show on NBC\u2019s time? What was new, different or added to the viewing experience during the rebroadcast? \u00a0The network didn\u2019t seem to understand the core audience either.<\/div>\n
There is an element of condescension (or maybe contempt) in all of this exemplified by the words the creators put in Dylan\u2019s mouth: \u00a0“We blog to exist, therefore we… we are idiots.”<\/div>\n

\"dylan\"

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without Authenticity and Urgency the Audience Disengages<\/h2>\n

The series, Quarterlif<\/strong>e<\/strong>, is named for the phenomena of the “Quarterlife Crisis.” \u00a0 This is the emotional angst and anxiety that hits around age 25 – 29, when college grads wonder: \u201cWhat am I doing with my life? \u00a0Why am I broke, bored and\/or stalled in my career?\u201d \u00a0The iconic television series, Friends<\/strong>, explored the same territory in a comedy.<\/p>\n

There is a sense of entitlement and astonishment among the Quarterlife<\/strong> characters summed up by Dylan Krieger (Bitsie Tulloch), the protagonist: \u00a0\u201cA sad truth about my generation is that we were all geniuses in elementary school but apparently the people who deal with us (now) never got our transcripts because they don’t seem to be aware of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

This sense of entitlement and astonishment seemed to also accompany the series\u2019 failure. \u00a0What went wrong? \u00a0Don’t you all know we’re television geniuses?<\/p>\n

Quarterlife<\/strong> lacked the necessary authenticity and urgency to engage its core web audience. \u00a0The producers didn\u2019t fully understand their audience and the series felt too much like a cynical ploy. \u00a0The\u00a0Friends<\/strong> characters took themselves much less seriously. \u00a0Quarterlife<\/strong> simply can’t sustain all the self-important angst.<\/p>\n

New Media Ploys Annoy the Audience<\/h2>\n

Quarterlife<\/strong> was originally conceived as a broadcast series but didn\u2019t get picked up by a major network. \u00a0Herskovitz and Zwick broke the series down into 8-minute segments. \u00a0They independently financed the show and created special channels for the series on MySpace and YouTube.<\/p>\n

Rather than creating content specifically for this new medium and this particular audience, the creators recycled a conventional series and distributed it in smaller chunks. \u00a0Their goal seems to have been to get back on broadcast television as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

Despite the social networking aspects of the Quarterlife<\/strong> website, it seems the creators did not fully embrace (or fully understand) their audience and this new storytelling medium. \u00a0After a much-hyped launch, viewership dropped precipitously.<\/p>\n

\u201cPodcasting News<\/strong>, for example, gleefully pronounced the web series a bomb in December, running a chart of each episode’s views on YouTube that looked like a graph of Ron Paul’s 2009 delegate count, noting that the show was getting fewer web views than \u2018sleeping kitties, graffiti videos or even a clip of Sims in labor\u2019,\u2019\u201d wrote Los Angeles Times<\/strong> media columnist Patrick Goldstein.<\/p>\n

Goldstein also suggests that Quarterlife <\/strong>served as a magnet for web devotees’ scorn for all the Old Media Titans who’ve been invading their turf, hoping to turn the new medium into another profit center.<\/p>\n

Herskowitz didn\u2019t help matters when he wrote in Slate<\/strong>: \u00a0“Most of it (web entertainment) is simply incompetence and ignorance masquerading as an ‘Internet style.\u2019 And until now no one had tried anything that would actually engage the emotions of an audience.”<\/p>\n

It\u2019s ironic that Quarterlife<\/strong> doesn\u2019t engage the emotions of their audience in a way that is authentic or that rings true.<\/p>\n

Emotions Not Experienced Directly Distance the Audience<\/h2>\n

Protagonist Dylan Krieger narrates the series via her video blog. \u00a0She is a would-be writer stuck in an assistant\u2019s job at a woman\u2019s magazine, working for a boss who tries to steal her ideas.<\/p>\n

The creators assume that video-blogging is the same thing as writing. \u00a0The key difference, as a commentator on New TeeVee pointed out, is: \u00a0\u201cA writer wants an audience for her ideas and observations; a video blogger wants an audience for herself.\u201d<\/p>\n

This personal performance aspect is the narcissism of \u201cWatch me \u2013 Look at me \u2013 I am what\u2019s important here.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her video-blog, Dylan says that her \u201ccurse\u201d is to see what people are thinking and feeling. In the visual language of storytelling, that is the reaction shot that shows the audience a character\u2019s thoughts and feelings writ large on the actor\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

When Dylan narrates, as video blog performer, she prevents the audience from experiencing these emotions, thoughts and feelings directly with the characters. \u00a0Her performance distances us from the characters and is a classic violation of the \u201cshow don\u2019t tell\u201d rule of storytelling. \u00a0Her narration tells us what we\u2019ve already seen or should have already seen ourselves.<\/p>\n

If, however, personal narration directly contradicts what we have seen (or will see) then that shows us something new and interesting about the narrator and\/or the other characters. \u00a0 This counterpoint works wonderfully in the classic Herskovitz and Zwick produced series (created by Winnie Holtzman), My So-Called Life<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

That show\u2019s high school protagonist, Angela Chase (Claire Danes), is hopelessly infatuated with Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto). \u00a0She remarks romantically that he is always closing his eyes as if it hurts to look at things. \u00a0Later, we see him dousing his eyes to get the stoner-dude red out with Visine.<\/p>\n

There is no such ironic or poignant counterpoint in Dylan\u2019s narration. \u00a0She tells us what we should see for ourselves or repeats what we already know.<\/p>\n

Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) muses publicly about personal concerns via her newspaper column in Sex and the City<\/strong>. \u00a0The opening image vividly shows the contrast between the public and the private in Carrie’s life when she is splashed with dirty water as a bus plastered with her glamorous billboard image roars past. Sex and the City<\/strong> uses humor and irony to illuminate the disappointments, anxieties and dissatisfactions of a slightly older age group than Quarterlife<\/strong>. \u00a0Carrie, the wry witty writer, is not the self-conscious performer that Dylan is as a video-blogger. \u00a0The\u00a0Friends<\/strong> characters also took themselves much less seriously. \u00a0Quarterlife<\/strong> simply can’t sustain the self-important angst.<\/p>\n

Boredom, Stasis and Frustration Aren\u2019t Urgent<\/h2>\n

As a friend has pointed out, \u201cthere is a reason so many serial dramas are set in hospitals and police stations, these environments provide an automatic sense of urgency, conflict and high stakes to a story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Articulate, over-sensitive, highly-educated, middle class white kids bemoaning the lack of a \u201cspecial and gifted\u201d life track (which is their due) doesn\u2019t provide much emotional urgency. \u00a0 There is little at stake if they can fall back on Mom and Dad, as one character does.<\/p>\n

Fans watch football matches or basketball games because there is a sense that if you aren\u2019t present or watching, cheering as hard as you can for your team, something terrible might happen. \u00a0The strength of your passionate concern will somehow help to put your players over the top.<\/p>\n

Serial drama fans need to feel the same passionate concern and \u00a0personal involvement with the characters whose lives they follow. \u00a0What is the worst that can happen? Why do we have to watch to prevent that terrible outcome? \u00a0Why must we yell at the screen: \u00a0\u201cNo, no, don\u2019t do that!\u201d \u00a0What do we fear for our characters? \u00a0Why is it urgently important that we watch?<\/p>\n

Interpersonal relationship can have that kind of emotional tension and urgency. \u00a0The stakes just have to be high enough. \u00a0The conflicts have to be intense and personal enough to evoke our deepest concern. \u00a0We have to be worried about the characters!<\/p>\n

Weak Conflict Undercuts Urgency<\/h2>\n

The biggest potential conflict and most interesting social question in Quarterlife<\/strong> is weakened if not completely neutered.<\/p>\n

Dylan’s friends don\u2019t seem to care that she is violating their privacy, disclosing intimate information, betraying confidences and spewing interpersonal revelations to anyone who has access to a computer.<\/p>\n

She names names. \u00a0She distributes secretly recorded videos. \u00a0She commits the emotional equivalent of a physical violation. \u00a0Outside of a minor emotional hissy-fit, this potential conflict quickly passes by the wayside. \u00a0Nobody really pays attention to Dylan\u2019s video blog.<\/p>\n

Her revelations cause little conflict within the group. \u00a0They cause no conflict outside the group (no outsider causes a problem for the characters because of information learned through Dylan\u2019s blog).<\/p>\n

It is very startling and disconcerting when strangers know the intimate details of your life and remark on them to you. \u00a0What happens when everyone knows your whereabouts and\/or your personal business? \u00a0How does that cause problems and create conflict for the characters?<\/p>\n

What are the limits of personal privacy and the ethics of personal disclosures about others? \u00a0All those questions are interesting opportunities for conflict that could come from who the characters are as individuals and how they might view the world (or privacy) differently.<\/p>\n

If Dylan\u2019s blog has no effect on the other characters, what is the dramatic point other than to show her on a web cam? \u00a0 This feels like the creators trying to be hip but it comes off as empty, false and inauthentic.<\/p>\n

When It Isn\u2019t Urgent It Has to Be Funny<\/h2>\n

The characters in Quarterlife<\/strong> are remarkable for their lack of humor or any wicked sense of fun. \u00a0They take themselves and their lives way too seriously. \u00a0The series doesn’t have a vivid appreciation of the absurd.<\/p>\n

The classic series, Friends<\/strong>, mined this age group\u2019s anxiety, boredom and frustration brilliantly. \u00a0The theme song by The Rembrandts sums up the same storytelling territory:<\/p>\n

\u201cSo no one told you life was going to be this way.<\/p>\n

Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s DOA.<\/p>\n

It’s like you’re always stuck in second gear,<\/p>\n

Well, it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month, or even your year.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be there for you\u2026 \u00a0And you\u2019ll be there for me too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friends<\/strong> had wit, warmth and sense of the absurdity of life (and lasted many years past the characters\u2019 “Quarterlife Crisis” because the fans weren\u2019t willing to let the characters go). \u00a0Contrast this with the previous quote:<\/p>\n

\u201cA sad truth about my generation is that we were all geniuses in elementary school but apparently the people who deal with us (now) never got our transcripts because they don’t seem to be aware of this.\u201d \u00a0 (Poor me!)<\/p>\n

Which show would you rather watch?<\/p>\n

Seinfeld<\/strong>, originally featuring the same or slightly older age group, totally lacked urgency and was proud of it. \u00a0That show was about nothing more critical than finding a parking place, making a reservation at a restaurant or buying soup at a lunch counter. \u00a0The series had a wicked sense of humor; made us laugh and we were satisfied and came back for more. \u00a0If it’s not emotionally dramatic then it must be laugh-out-loud funny.<\/p>\n

What Was NBC Thinking?<\/h2>\n

Quarterlife<\/strong> was picked up by NBC at a time when broadcast dramas were running out of stockpiled scripts and scripted shows were shutting down all over Hollywood during the strike. \u00a0 It seemed like a slam-dunk opportunity. \u00a0Then, just like the story concept for the series characters, reality hit and it was nothing like anyone imagined.<\/p>\n

The show only had 3.1 million viewers in its NBC broadcast debut, the worst in-season performance in the 10 p.m. hour slot by an NBC show in at least 17 years. The series also got hammered in the adult 18 – 49 demographic, where it managed only a 1.3 rating. \u00a0The show was pulled from NBC\u2019s schedule after only one episode.<\/p>\n

Why would NBC think that a series allegedly conceived for and widely available on the web would attract the same audience age group in a repeat on broadcast television? Everyone who was interested had seen the show already.<\/p>\n

If viewers can watch on their own time on the web why should anyone watch the show on NBC\u2019s time? What was new, different or added to the viewing experience during the rebroadcast? \u00a0The network didn\u2019t seem to understand the core audience either.<\/p>\n

There is an element of condescension (or maybe contempt) in all of this exemplified by the words the creators put in Dylan\u2019s mouth: \u00a0“We blog to exist, therefore we… we are idiots.” \u00a0A show on any media platform is really in trouble when the creators have contempt for or belittle their own characters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are my observations about a very spectacular public online series failure: Quarterlife. These are the take-aways from my analysis of the series created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,123,49],"tags":[901,352,353,25,26,27,28,30,31,648,122,32,791,33,289,34,453,902,35,36,37,38,39,40,454,41,455,42],"class_list":["post-1978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nine-character-types-development-script-screenwriting-movie-film-tv-video-online-scripted-drama","category-internet","category-television-character-development-script-scriptwriting-tv-blog","tag-30-something","tag-audience","tag-audiences","tag-character","tag-characters","tag-emotional-toolbox","tag-etb","tag-film","tag-films","tag-friends","tag-internet","tag-laurie-hutzler","tag-media","tag-movies","tag-nbc","tag-nine-character-types","tag-online","tag-quarterlife","tag-screenplay","tag-screenplays","tag-screenwriting","tag-script","tag-scripts","tag-scriptwriting","tag-technology","tag-tv","tag-webseries","tag-writing"],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",960,720,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-300x225.jpg",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-768x576.jpg",768,576,true],"large":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",960,720,false],"ttshowcase_normal":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",125,94,false],"ttshowcase_small":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",75,56,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",960,720,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",960,720,false],"Image Size 500x500":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",500,375,false],"woocommerce_thumbnail":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-300x400.jpg",300,400,true],"woocommerce_single":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-600x450.jpg",600,450,true],"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-100x100.jpg",100,100,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Laurie Hutzler","author_link":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/author\/admin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Here are my observations about a very spectacular public online series failure: Quarterlife. These are the take-aways from my analysis of the series created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}