I think by this stage you’ll never get a 16 hour show to be trope free, something is bound to have been used before given the amount of dramas that have gone before. There’s probably even shows that have similar synopsis and they’re not even remakes of each other! The key word here being we just need to get it to be ‘original’ enough of a story in itself (with all its tropes) for an audience to give it their time of day.
It wouldn’t surprise me if we’re so conditioned to a point if there is a scene with ML on one side of the crossing, FL on the other side, their eyes meet, romantic background music, the green man sign lights up and they cross to meet trope, we subconsciously expect the white truck trope to occur!
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WHAAAAT? Did you just squirrel the Badger Productions story? 
I don’t know if we’d get that serious version of Badger Productions, what with Badger Productions side story seemingly morphed into a free for all role playing story not dis-similar to a Monty Python-esque series of sketches! We’re now verging on having more animals in the titanium building than we have staff! 
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Though tropes can be annoying sometimes, I think the reason people love or tolerate them is because many of them offer comfort in familiarity. When FL is crying or running in the rain, it’s satisfying to know that ML will appear any moment with his big yellow umbrella. When someone trips, I can’t wait to see who saves that person. Even anticipating the white truck is fun sometimes. When FL stands on any platform higher than ten inches, the suspense is already building, and my mind starts to chant “Fall, fall, fall.” 
I love my tropey tropes as long as they’re executed well and don’t become repetitive or annoying.
I agree. I can’t wait to watch the next episode of my weekend drama. It surprises me so much. Why am I so excited to watch a drama that feels like a Sound of Music remake with a very Korean-soap-y twist when it doesn’t even have the same production quality as an average k-drama?
I think the trick is to make the main characters as lovable as possible. I can forgive all sorts of stuff if there’s good character growth and relatable characters.
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Ha! Ha! Haaa! Yup! They’re following all those shipment of Marmite Bikki Stix 
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Lovability is key. Maybe more like: I want to see you included in, not included out.
K-drama specific tropes are sometimes a crutch. “Ooh, here we are at a plot crossroads. Depending on a lot of factors, we can choose a number of possible tropes . . . which imply that an episode or episodes will develop in certain ways. And if we invoke one trope, there are clusters of related tropes that must follow.”
Yumi’s Cells is very funny with the scene about what to do when she faints at the bus stop. His algorithm tells him he has to leave the umbrella, but it’s there. It’s a tip of the hat to the umbrella trope, and the piggyback to the hospital trope is tweaked as well.
We need a trope flow chart. Here’s where we are, here’s where we want to be. How do we move ahead to the results we want?
Or . . . here’s where we want to be. How do we get there successfully from where we are?
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we already attempted that in another place
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Oh! Who else? Do share, and how far along did you all get in your collaboration? What kind of story did you all try to write?
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re write the ending of dramas we hated, I didn’t get very far
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@frustratedwriter,
Okay, whew! Maybe you can rustle up your gang to join Badgers Production? 'Cause what we are attempting is not rewriting the ending, but an actual original. 
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oh ok sounds good too
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One thing I am realizing (as I work on pre-subs for The Prince Who Turns Into A Frog) is that in the medium of film or video or whatever you want to call it, offers a distinctly different experience than reading a book.
Well, duh.
Reading, which is a learned activity, is different from seeing, which is an activity that is baked into the brain.
And putting words and pictures together in a subbed video creates a hybrid experience that can be very confusing if words and pictures both fail to give viewers clues about what is going on, and when, and where, and how, and why, and with whom.
It may just be my imagination, but in “the frog” story, episodes end with a “cliff-hanger” that is somewhere in a public environment–and it’s late afternoon, evening, or night.
And episodes begin in a private environment where the previous episode is re-capped (re-capitulated), sometimes just by characters having a conversation and sometimes with flashbacks.
(I must confess to being overwhelmed by the number of flashbacks in “the frog” story.)
With a novel, if a reader forgets what went on in previous chapters, they can just pick up the novel, flip around for a few minutes, read stuff, say, “Oh, right,” and go on.
In a K-drama, if that happens, people get cranky. If it happens too often, people stop watching.
Maybe ONE lesson to take from Thai lakorns is a variation on the novelist’s challenge: “You have fifty pages to convince a reader to read the next fifty pages.”
In screen time, fifty pages of a TV or movie script equals about fifty minutes of “stuff” (whether it is dialog, car chases, flashbacks, dream sequences, etc.). These days, there are half-hour and even fifteen-minute episodes of different dramas on Viki. So, in that situation, fifteen pages of script might be all a writer or writers have to convince viewers to watch the next fifteen minutes.
ANOTHER lesson to learn from Thai lakorns might be:
Once you have a crowd following your story, make sure on a regular basis to stop and make sure everyone is keeping pace.
I don’t know to what extent lakorns are similar to American soap operas, but some American soaps have been running for twenty years or more, and the dialog is not always deep. And the story for a given day has to take care of business in between commercials.
So relying on some formulas–regarding reminders about plot development and character development–helps tell a story well but quickly.
For “our” Viki Original, we have established, I believe, what types of plot and character development we don’t want.
But it seems we are still somewhat debating how long each episode should be, how many episodes there should be, what kind of a hook we need to draw people in, and what road signs or rest areas we should provide to keep people aware and interested.
My view of things is that we do not need to compete and try to whack out sixteen hour-long episodes. If we take a webtoon approach, we could do five beautifully turned out half hour episodes to tell a simple tale. And if that turns out well, then do a second five-part series.
It’s under-promising and over-delivering rather than over-promising and under-delivering.
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We definitely need to take a leap of faith, and spin out the tale we have to tell, 
the synergy we have for this tale is high, and very, very good. I like the idea you mapped.
I have faith there’ll be a show of hands 
once we get started. We have an open invitation to all, to all 
eyes reading this thread 
you are invited !
KSKA has been outlined, and scripted from post number one, all the way to post 462.
We ask that you do the below, once you are fully aware of your role. Let’s let the below post exist on it’s own in full character. In other words, it’s that 
light on 
once filming has commenced. So!
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tenor
Have I missed casting while I was out eating Tteokbokki??? And churros!
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Nawww, it’s possible everyone is occupied with one thing, or another, or just don’t know where to take a bite out of 462 posts todate, if you add these last three, it’s 465 
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And here’s 466.
An Incurable Case of Love is set in Tokyo. It shows one particular Shinto shrine that all the characters seem to turn to for divine guidance, for fortunes, for lucky charms.
It has scenes set in the Tokyo airport that handles mostly in-country flights and the airport that handles mostly international flights. It has scenes in upscale restaurants and casual bars. It contrasts self-made business people with old money millionaires.
It shows various attitudes toward dating and mating ranging from the omiai through love at first sight to living together (and obviously relying on but not mentioning birth control).
The look of characters, the styles of clothing, the layout of apartments, and the Japanese way of channeling the urge to merge . . . all very good fuel for the creative fire.
I find it funny that the FL and the ML represent the benign and malign forces that Shintoism seeks to cooperate with.
Sakura Nanase is “Miss Hero” who fights against the “Devil Doctor” for the right to become a nurse who wants to heal body and soul, and Tendo Kairi (called “Maoh” or “devil”) )is a cardiac surgeon who daily confronts the dark and bloody world of the damaged heart.
She dresses in pink, white, and grey; he dresses (minus his lab coat) in mostly black.
She is simple and harmless, Amaterasu, goddess of light and air, he is complicated and dangerous, the Demon Lord who controls the earth and the forces of death and darkness.
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And HOT 
Oops! Wrong Thread -
As she runs AWAY!
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I discovered today that, back in 2010, a man created a script template for use with what was then called Open Office, a free word processing suite designed to emulate, without risking copyright infringement, the best of Word and WordPerfect.
It has been largely superseded by Libre Office (which I use and like very much).
It is NEVER easy to simply locate and download templates and extensions and whatnot for Libre Office, but I found the script templates and dowloaded them.
There is one for writing a screenplay, one for writing a sitcom, one for writing a stage play, and (I think) one for writing a commercial.
Below are screen caps for the sitcom template:
I don’t know how many Badgers are familiar with Libre Office or any other free version, but it seems to me that using this free template created by a professional scriptwriter would be extremely beneficial.
I believe there is a version that can be used with Windows as well. Information about where to download the template is on the cover page, I think.
This template provides a structure we don’t have to worry about developing, and it would be excellent training to review any K-drama to see how the elements of a script translate into a visual experience.
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There is a learning curve to the scriptwriting template I found online. However, I managed this evening to write an example of a “cold opening” for KSKA. Can someone refresh my memory about how to make documents available for review in a discussion thread?
I fell asleep on the sofa about nine, woke up at eleven, cleaned up the kitchen from supper, took some laundry down to the basement, and started writing about 2:30 AM my time. It’s now about 4:30 AM my time. I wrote just over four pages. Maybe four and a third pages.
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