Alternately titled, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a KALEIDOSCOPE” (thanks, Wallace).
I recently met with a potential management rep and post-meeting he wanted to read some additional sample of mine. One of which is my old psychedelic noir pilot KALEIDOSCOPE. The real issue is that there was so many damn versions of the thing I can’t figure which one to send him. So, I narrowed it down to two options: the most cable-leaning, surreal, original version vs. the slightly more concrete, network-facing procedural.
Having just re-read (most of) both of them, I was sort of jarred. The original version, the one that I went fully on instinct was, well, rough. It had some of the best visual imaginations I’ve ever come up with, and the plot at its bones was interesting, but it really got clouded by something. Just that visceral experience of starting to get slowed down by the narrative writing style, I don’t know whether it’s because I just knew less about writing or because I was so caught up in my own show’s fantasy. But what’s even stranger is the second version that reads like a Eli Edelson attempt at a 2000s procedural. It doesn’t really sound like me, but it does read better, somehow. It’s a bit of a dilemma, but always use the stronger sample - even if its less representative of me as a whole, it’s still a display of ability. It’s heartening to me, on some level, that no matter the self-branding issues or the output of new ideas, as long as you keep writing you do inherently get better - even if it’s a winding path that produces stories you’re not necessarily in love with. To trudge is to succeed, apparently!