MANY ME'S
In addition to ghost-writing "Oakdale Confidential" as a tie-in to "As The World Turns," I am also blogging as Katie, the on-the-show writer, on Amazon.
As far as I know, while there are character blogs on other shows ("How I Met Your Mother," "General Hospital" and, of course, the wonderful Lee Goldberg as Natalie on "Monk"), ATWT is the only show to try this particular marketing strategy on Amazon. The idea is to put Oakdale's story in front of a potentially new audience, as well as to give regular viewers a little extra ATWT in their day (you can read the blog whether you've bought the book or not, and even sign up to receive it in "plog" form).
And when I'm not being Katie, I am blogging as Luke, a sixteen year old boy agonizing over how to come out to his parents, the show's supercouple, Holden and Lily Snyder.
The two voices are distinct, very different from each other, and neither one is at all like my "natural" one. However, unlike writing a non-tie-in novel where every voice needs to be conjured up from scratch, this task is made easier (and harder) by the fact that I can literally "hear" the actors who play these characters in my head as I write their innermost thoughts.
And I must be doing okay, because Terri Colombino, who plays Katie, told me recently, "My mother read the book, and she said: It sounds so much like you. Did you write it?"
No better compliment for a ghost-writer, I suppose... ;)
As far as I know, while there are character blogs on other shows ("How I Met Your Mother," "General Hospital" and, of course, the wonderful Lee Goldberg as Natalie on "Monk"), ATWT is the only show to try this particular marketing strategy on Amazon. The idea is to put Oakdale's story in front of a potentially new audience, as well as to give regular viewers a little extra ATWT in their day (you can read the blog whether you've bought the book or not, and even sign up to receive it in "plog" form).
And when I'm not being Katie, I am blogging as Luke, a sixteen year old boy agonizing over how to come out to his parents, the show's supercouple, Holden and Lily Snyder.
The two voices are distinct, very different from each other, and neither one is at all like my "natural" one. However, unlike writing a non-tie-in novel where every voice needs to be conjured up from scratch, this task is made easier (and harder) by the fact that I can literally "hear" the actors who play these characters in my head as I write their innermost thoughts.
And I must be doing okay, because Terri Colombino, who plays Katie, told me recently, "My mother read the book, and she said: It sounds so much like you. Did you write it?"
No better compliment for a ghost-writer, I suppose... ;)
3 Comments:
What made it easier for you to write made it wonderful to read. The reader can easily picture the character and hear his/her voice while reading. Tone is something hard to convey in writing, but as a viewer one can easily hear Maddie's sarcasm or Carly's angst through the written word.
My question: Did you watch the show prior to writing? Or, perhaps you were one of the shows writers?
I am just curious if you did a ton of research or had prior knowledge of the characters. Either way, it rang true!
Thank you for your kind words; as you read in the blog, getting the voices right was so important to me.
I've been watching ATWT since the early 1980s -- I remember Paul as little Danny Pintauro and Tom and Margo as Justin Deas and Margaret Colin -- and I've been working at ATWT for several years, so I've been hearing those voices in my head for quite a long while now!
One more questions. When looking at the Luke Snyder blog (that you linked to in your post) I saw where an Alison character posted a comment. Then, from an Alison blog I saw a Lucy blog. Are you writing all of these?
If so, can we take this as backstory for things like Lucy's return this summer?
I don't know why I am asking--I really HATE spoilers. :)
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