{"id":834244,"date":"2025-10-03T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/?p=834244"},"modified":"2025-10-02T15:21:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T14:21:20","slug":"the-doomed-second-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/the-doomed-second-series\/","title":{"rendered":"The doomed second series"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In those far off and stony days, in that friendless and furless Time Before Rafael, my wife and I watched Bad Sisters<\/em>, an Apple TV show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Now that we have Rafael the Squirrel in our home, we still watch TV, but he\u2019s a menace. Until he decides it\u2019s his bedtime, he jumps around the room, annoying the dog and throwing food everywhere. His favourite snack is crisps, the only thing he doesn\u2019t eat messily. When he does decide it\u2019s bedtime, he goes down either my jumper or my wife\u2019s jumper, rolls onto his back and snuffles and snorts with happiness. We reckon we have about 2-3 weeks more of R the S before he\u2019s ready for the Great Outdoors. He still can\u2019t quite crack a nut without help. But watching dramas broken into 50-minute episodes becomes quite an undertaking if you keep having to break to remove a squirrel from the missus\u2019s hair or trying to get him out of a crisp packet.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway: Bad Sisters<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show involves five sisters, one of whom is married to an unpleasant and controlling man, JP. We start the season knowing that JP has recently died and knowing that he was unbeloved of those he left behind. But was he murdered or not? A life insurance investigator wants to prove that he was murdered, and by the team of sisters, and thereby save his ailing insurance business. The cast is very strong. The sense of family and layered histories and relationships and Irish coastal settings are all strong. The comedy? Well, it\u2019s funny but not uproarious. The drama? Well, it\u2019s involving but not edge of the seat. But the whole concoction just works. It\u2019s warm and funny and dark and just about credible enough and dramatic and new and unexpected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of all, though, the basic concept is armour-plated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did the sisters kill JP? Well, I won\u2019t tell you that, but I will say that they give it a go \u2026 and you won\u2019t know what actually happened till right at the end. The show has a kind of And<\/em> Then There Were None<\/em> beauty and necessity to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If no one had ever written And Then There Were None<\/em> (or, for that matter, Murder on the Orient Express<\/em>), it would be essential for someone to do so. Those concepts have an urgency \u2013 a kind of necessity \u2013 like an uncompleted mathematical proof that nags at you until it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure enough, the show got a 100% positive review rating on Rotten Tomatoes and went on to secure multiple wins and nominations at various TV awards ceremonies. A great concept, well-executed: that\u2019s the result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But TV is TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you get a series that everyone loves, you have to have another. In the land of the novel, it\u2019s a bit like that, but not really. In novel-land, the author is the brand, so if you churn out a masterpiece (Pride & Prejudice<\/em>, say), it\u2019s fine for you to follow up with Emma<\/em>. You don\u2019t have to write Lizzie and Darcy Have Kids<\/em>, Lizzie and Darcy Go Travelling<\/em>, Lizzie and Darcy Sort Out Their Pensions and Go for an Amusing Escapade in France<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But \u2013 in TV-land, the brand isn\u2019t the author, or the actor, it\u2019s the show itself. So, yes, you have to force these things into a second series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what? Bad Sisters<\/em> was about killing (or not killing?) JP. Once he\u2019s dead, he\u2019s dead. You can\u2019t really have the sisters try to bump off anyone else: that\u2019s just ludicrous. The story arc has been beautifully completed. Anything else is just artificial and not needed. So yes, another season was commissioned and filmed. But, as Rotten Tomatoes said in its summary of reviews, \u201cThe return of Bad Sisters<\/em> can’t help but feel like too much of a good thing, but the lived-in dynamic between these outstanding performers continues to pay highly watchable dividends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basically: the show is pointless, but the actors and characters are great, so \u2026 yeah. It\u2019s OK. My wife watched some of it, but lost interest. I\u2019ve not watched a minute of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, I\u2019m going to guess that many of you will not have a TV show in production with Apple. But all these thoughts still apply to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This month is Build Your Book Month<\/a><\/strong>. The aim, as you jolly well ought to know, is to give you the tools to plot your book out over the course of a month \u2013 in a way that\u2019s structured enough to be disciplined and loose enough to give you creative freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And today is 3 October: the very start of that month. And the purpose of this email is to say: Be More Bad Sisters<\/em>, Season 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You need that level of necessity. You want a reader to think, \u2018Wow, why has no one written a book about X, Y, Z before? Good job that someone has finally done so, because that<\/em> I have to read.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that level of necessity has to extend to plot, not just idea. So, for example, \u201cI\u2019d love to write a time-slip novel about three generations of women who have lived in the same house in X.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, OK, yeah, fine. But what about those women? What\u2019s the story? What have they been up to? Why do we have to read that<\/em> tale?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your job is not to satisfy your own wants as a writer. Your job is to deliver a concept so sharp, it could cut through floating silk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t try to take a mediocre concept and plot your way to excellence. That\u2019s desperately hard and you can never get to more than 75% success anyway. Start with a terrific concept and then let your plotting become the natural, inevitable playing out of your idea. That works. It always will. And \u2013 it\u2019s harder to start, but it\u2019s much easier in the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you want help with getting your concept straight, then:<\/p>\n\n\n\n