I love watching terrible 80s TV, so recently I sat down to watch Dynasty for the first time. It’s a show about rich oil barons and their families. Like Succession, if Succession was set in Denver (DENVER) and everyone was played by a damp paper towel.
One of the story lines was about a woman who’d had a nervous breakdown and was now working as a waitress. Her husband and blonde teenage daughter came to the restaurant and begged her to come back to live with them. She was reluctant and they were like, but who will make us pancakes? And eventually she agreed to come back and make them pancakes.
And even this story line, which on paper is kind of interesting, on Dynasty was exactly the way you think a scene played by a bunch of damp paper towels would play out.
So I switched to Dallas. Dallas is a show about rich oil barons and their families. Like Succession, if Succession was set in Dallas (which, okay, at least it’s not Denver) and everyone was played by a big slice of pink ham. Dallas was wildly successful on CBS and on ABC they were like QUICK, someone write Dallas except set it in Denver (So many Ds!) and that’s where Dynasty came from. At no point did anyone stop to wonder what this show would be like if it was set in New York City. Or had actors in it.
In the first episode of Dallas I watched — and I swear I’m not exaggerating — a man and his blonde teenage daughter go to a restaurant and beg the waitress to come live with them, and she was reluctant but they were convincing enough that she changed her mind.
RIGHT?! This is real! This is the same scene with the same characters on two different shows on two different networks!
And even though it was exactly the same story, the Dallas version was better. (Relatively better. I mean. It was still a night-time soap opera from the 80s.) So how come Dallas worked, and Dynasty didn’t?
Well, it wasn’t the acting, that’s for sure. (Who shot J.R.? It might have been Strasberg.) The writing on both shows was equal to the directing (You know how they fake a moving car in TV shows? On Dallas they faked an actor on a moving HORSE) and despite being incredibly rich no one could bribe one competent hairdresser to come to Denver OR Dallas.
Anyway. Because I learn a lot from figuring out why creative things work, or don’t work, I sat down and gave it some thought. Here’s what I learned: it’s about relationships.
Let’s call the characters on both shows Husband, Waitress, and Daughter.
In Dynasty, Husband was also Krystal Carrington’s ex-boyfriend.
Waitress and Daughter were only connected to Husband, and all three of them lived in a town far away from the main characters. So if we imagine Dynasty as a tree, each relationship a branch, Waitress and Daughter are waaay out there on the tippy-tip of a flimsy twig.
But on Dallas, Husband was:
- Miss Ellie and Jock’s son
- J.R. and Bobby’s brother
- Pamela and Sue Ellen’s brother-in-law
We can’t even map it with a tree. This isn’t a tree, this is a thicket of brambles.
And that’s just the way we like it. Because then whatever Husband did, it effected six of the main characters. Put it another way: if we were talking about Succession, it would be the difference between a character Shiv dated once ten years ago, or, you know, SHIV.
So. What does this have to do with what you’re writing now?
When you’re introducing a new character, pay attention to how that character fits into the characters we already know about. Are you creating a thicket, or a spindly tree? It can make all the difference to the reader’s investment in the story you’re telling.
(Also, if some jerk comes and says you have to come make him pancakes tell him he can go home and make his own damned pancakes.)
Why read alone when you can read with friends?
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