I did a full editing pass on the short story I mentioned recently where an editor asked me to tackle the ending from a different perspective. Of course, I couldn’t resist the chance to groom the prose in the rest of the story a little, too. I also wanted to inject a couple of little details that helped focus the new ending even more. Another readthrough or two and then I plan to send it back to him. It was an interesting editorial challenge. Occasionally, as with “One Of Those Weeks,” I received a request that had a smidgen of direction to it. In this case I was simply asked to do something different. I get the idea that the editor had a specific direction in mind, but he didn’t want to lead me there.
Boston Legal is setting ’em up and knocking ’em down this season. Every controversial issue under the sun is coming up. Last night it was the death penalty. The week before, abortion. The character of Denny is fascinating. He’s a loose canon in so many different ways, and yet he is often the one with his finger on the pulse of the situation. Even if his opinion is belligerent and offensive, it provides the way into solving the case, as he did with Carl this week.
The payoff of the Wallowitz plot on The Big Bang Theory was pretty funny. Not only did he get the Mars rover stuck in a crater while trying to show off to a pretty woman, he found a way to cover his tracks—only to lose all credit for a landmark discovery the rover made from the place it never should have been in the first place.
