How Not To Network In The Industry.

One night last year, I was watching a show - let's call it 'SuperCoolTVShow' and I spotted that there was a scene which used exactly the same dialogue and style as 'KindaLameTeenShow' from many years ago. It was a bit weird, but I also thought it was really cool, because I love both shows; and in particular that scene was incredibly moving (in 'SuperCoolTVShow' and 'KindaLameTeenShow.') A quick bit of IMDBing confirmed what I expected, the same writer had worked on both shows. I got in contact with him and wrote about the similarity.

He replied with surprise, I'm the only person who'd noticed that he stole from himself. I told him how wonderful I think his writing is, how 'SuperCoolTVShow' is the most amazing thing on the box right now, and we struck up some good conversation. In fact, he was even going to do an interview for this site. We got along well - which isn't all that surprising, we are similar writers, I think, except he's a lot more successful.

I should tell you now, I'm a bad researcher. I had, for some reason, been under the impression that he only wrote episodes for the last season of 'KindaLameTVShow' - so, completely sucking up to him, I told him how I thought the show was great, then lost it's way, and then became great again in the last season (I do actually believe this to be true, his writing is very good).

And he kind of took the compliment but didn't seem as enthused as before. Anyways, me being me, I decided to really slam into the old episodes of 'KindaLameTVShow' and I went on and on about how the writers didn't get the characters, how the storylines were pretty lame etc. I figured he would agree, especially as he had indicated that there were things in the earlier seasons that he hadn't liked.

I'm sure many of you know what's coming. I never heard from him again- and he deleted me from Facebook. It was then, on further research; that I discovered, he had written all those old episodes that I ruthlessly bashed. Oops. Oh well, it's not like he's a totally-awesome-award-winning-genius-writer who I admire, who I stupidly insulted and then got blocked by. Oh wait, it is.

The moral of this story is; a) do research. b) stick to praise.

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