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How to Write A Lifetime Network Murder Movie of the Week

In my work as a Script Doctor, I take dramatic stories for television, the movies, and the stage, and I make them structurally better. That sort of work isn’t formulaic, but there are common touchstones that must always be considered and then incorporated — what I remember the great Joseph Campbell loosely calling, “the natural rhythms of human storytelling shared with the reliability of a heartbeat” — and that’s what I do; I provide an unpacked redirection of the concentric condition that we are all innately accustomed to sending and receiving in a performance communication dyad, in the acknowledgement of, and in the often unwitting acceptance of, “The Holy Triad.” The Creator, The Object and The Observer.

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Seven Seconds in Jersey City is a Lifetime Too Long

My ophthalmologist is always excitable. She enjoys life. She’s an excellent MD. She knows I’m a writer, and a Script Doctor, and she makes bumping into her at her office to pick up my contact lens order, a real delight!

My doctor is also a Jersey City girl, born-and-bred, and she’s tough, and smart, and she knows the city well; and my doctor implored me to watch the new Netflix Seven Seconds cable series because it was about the city in which we spin.

She told me Seven Seconds was dark, and ugly, and that “bad people live here in Jersey City” — but my doctor loved the series, and she binge-watched all 10 one-hour episodes in a single sitting! She went on to tell me I had to watch it too, and that she would be testing me on what happened in the story the next time I sat with her for my annual eye examination. I took her up on her offer — and challenge! — because I had no other choice!

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Jersey City Salutes Police Officer Melvin Santiago

Rookie Jersey City Police Office Melvin Santiago was assassinated on Sunday responding to a call at a local Walgreens.  Yesterday, over a 1,000 people lined up outside a funeral home to salute an officer who gave his life in service to a city in the hard, urban core.  Officer Santiago was 23 and — during his wake — was promoted to the rank of Detective and given the Medal of Honor in death by the Mayor of Jersey City.

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Breaking News: Juvenile Killers Will Not Spend Life in Prison

A few minutes ago, the United States Supreme Court ruled it is unconstitutional to sentence juvenile killers to life in prison without the possibility of parole.  We support that hallmark decision because a bright line is now forever drawn between the immature lives of children and the unruly lives of adult offenders:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says it’s unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life in prison without parole for murder.

The high court on Monday threw out Americans’ ability to send children to prison for the rest of their lives with no chance of ever getting out. The 5-4 decision is in line with others the court has made, including ruling out the death penalty for juveniles and life without parole for young people whose crimes did not involve killing.

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Scobleizer Found Dead in His Grave

Don’t let anyone tell you Jesus isn’t good for business! As you can see in the screenshot below my Jesus Found Dead in His Grave post is hot with a rising bullet on the WordPress.com front page much in the same way our Lindsay Lohan series of articles made us super-popular a couple of months ago.

Scobleizer Found Dead in His Grave

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Pretend Police: NYPD Auxiliary Officers

On March 14, 2007 two, young, volunteer, NYPD Auxiliary police officers were murdered gangland style in Greenwich Village, by a crazy guy with a gun. Both volunteers were in pursuit of the killer who had just gunned down a pizzeria worker. Here’s the execution of one Auxiliary officer caught on tape. The killer crosses the street to shoot the Auxiliary officer crouching for cover behind a car:

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When the Body Bolts from the Mind

I strongly believe in the mind/body dyad. Your brain affects your body. Your body affects your brain. You cannot disconnect that dyad and you cannot prefer one against the other without creating catastrophic consequences for longevity and prescience.

The mind/body dyad requires the health of the truth to survive into longevity. When lies are purposefully perpetuated, when mistruths are cogently offered to fool and persuade the people from reality, when facts are hidden-by-design to skew the past for selfish gain, death is the wages of that sin against the core moral values of humanity.

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