Welcome back to our television serial making guidelines. If you will need a recap we had already seen the fixed types of necessities like storyline, characters or sets. Now let's proceed to moving ones.
The Story and Dialogue Writers: Having just one single writer is just a risky proposition. You need to ideally have a board of writers, if one fails to blow out of his/her mind the others deliver. Teri Meri Dooriyan The never ending storyline needs a similarly endless way to obtain dialogues to keep on the show episode by episode. In a certain scene you will have to create the utmost possible dialogues and with this the board of writers would come as a bonus. When they quarrel over it, that is only natural, maybe you obtain a new twist-wish idea to include new angles-triangles or why don't you a good hyperbola in the story that'll again generate new streams of dialogues. You will have to keep a watch on viewers too; boring them now and then is okay, but you must never drive them mad. The channel producers, remember?
The Director: When you would be the director you should be the toughest nut to break. Okay it's your infant and naturally you like to be the best choice and friend-philosopher-guide. In actual practice you must be described as a ruthless dictator taking decisions unilaterally and respecting no-one nevertheless the channel producers. In case a particular character actor is creating problems s/he must get killed in the serial; on the demand of the producers a dead character may need to be brought alive; many others may need to be replaced; ushering in a period transition or injecting one and more absurd characters into the serial; and, so on. Katha Ankahee Every one of these situations demand your decisions only. We advise you to keep a couple of episode directors too as is the case in many soaps. We have good reasons. First, one director is directly identifiable and is just a sitting duck for irate viewers, if any. Second, the endless monotony might be an excessive amount of for you personally and you might lose your sanity. Third, when it comes to channel producers the buck will always stop exclusively at your end only.
The Time Pass: This time pass is from the viewpoint of serial makers, not viewers. Making an endless serial is not at all easy. So you must carry on creating rooms for frequent time pass tactics. You get it done with merry go rounds of dramatic reaction shots parading your entire characters in the hall that'll get you over more than one episodes; with dialogues that never cease; by providing extreme shock treatment to more than one characters who lose their power to speak and communicate only through loud music that'll last around more than one episodes; by bringing in absurd characters and making their stories count; and, by the like.
Conclusion (?): Since every one of these guidelines are enforced relentlessly some normal doctrines like good wins over evil get neutralized. Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai serial Evildoers in serials carry on doing evil that'll include even murder as law enforcement authorities are never called in, because entry of police may veer the serial to a logical end. You just compensate by creating temporary relief measures now and then. Thus, the antagonist becomes the main element to the success of never ending serials. At the receiving end we could only try get accustomed to it.
So, make your serial in India and have never ending fun!
Chinmay Chakravarty is just a professional specialized in the creative field with over 2 full decades of experience in journalistic writing, media co-ordination, film script writing, film dubbing, film & video making, management of international film festivals and editing of books & journals. Experienced in providing professional services in these related fields. Presently working in Mumbai Doordarshan as a News Editor.
