Ask the Author: Mitchell Hadley
Answered Questions (6)
Mitchell Hadley
Yes. Oh, you mean you want me to share it? OK, here goes:
He froze in his tracks, and his blood ran cold as he realized he was being followed. He never knew what hit him.
He froze in his tracks, and his blood ran cold as he realized he was being followed. He never knew what hit him.
Mitchell Hadley
Seeing a parked car that had been abandoned for no reason, which in fact is part of the plot of my book "The Car."
Mitchell Hadley
Keep writing. It doesn't matter what you're writing about. If you're working on a novel, write about something else - pretend you're doing a journal, make notes about the news, write about your writer's block. If you're writing non-fiction, try your hand at a short story. Just keep the words flowing, and eventually your creativity will turn you back toward what you were working on, and you'll be able to get past that block.
Mitchell Hadley
Write as much as you can. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad, or if you're writing for others or just for yourself. Write, and keep writing. Write about what you know, and immerse yourself in things that interest you until you know more about them, and then write about them, too.
Most important, "listen" to the books you read. Don't just read them, listen to how the words are formed on the page, how they sound to your inner ear, how the paragraphs are structured. Don't copy how other authors sound, but learn about what sounds good to you and why, and fine-tune that ability until you can do it with your own writing. A writer is similar to an architect in that they're both involved in constructing things, so think of yourself as not just writing, but constructing, a story.
Most important, "listen" to the books you read. Don't just read them, listen to how the words are formed on the page, how they sound to your inner ear, how the paragraphs are structured. Don't copy how other authors sound, but learn about what sounds good to you and why, and fine-tune that ability until you can do it with your own writing. A writer is similar to an architect in that they're both involved in constructing things, so think of yourself as not just writing, but constructing, a story.
Mitchell Hadley
I've got several projects in the bin - in addition to writing several articles each week for my website "It's About TV!", which deals with classic television and American culture, I'm working on a book with the tentative title "Channeling America: A History of the United States in 16 Television Shows," which looks not only at specific programs, but what their popularity and subject matter tells us about various periods in American history. I also have a couple of novels that I'm outlining, but you'll have to wait for more information on them!
Mitchell Hadley
I wrote "The Electronic Mirror" because I think classic television - that is, television from the 1950s through, say, the 1980s - ought to be taken seriously as a cultural time capsule. An issue of TV Guide, whether you look at it for the articles or for the programs listed, tells you as much about what life was like back then as an issue of Life Magazine, or a copy of The New York Times.
Classic television is often what I think of as an "inadvertent documentary" - in other words, it gives you a glimpse of a world that no longer exists. From the New York streetscapes in "Naked City" to the movies that characters saw, to the issues they dealt with (and often worried about), you get a look at the past, and how things have changed since then, in a way that is very entertaining.
People may laugh at a show like "Leave it to Beaver" because they think it personifies a perfect family, the kind of family that never existed. But for people of the era, it came a lot closer to reality than many of the families we see on TV today. These shows were accessible and familiar, and even if you weren't like those families, you could identify with them and recognize parts of your own life in theirs. The dramas of the era dealt with issues that were often more complex than we realize, and proved that good storytelling doesn't have to last an entire season, but can be done in an hour (or, sometimes, in a half-hour). You can also trace the evolution of things like televised sports and all-news channels by looking at how they've changed through the years.
"The Electronic Mirror" is an appreciation of classic television, yes, but it's also a suggestion that television be seen as a legitimate source of first-hand information about our cultural life and times. As the book's subtitle says, it helps us to understand who we were and who we are, and oftentimes how and why we got there. It's a story that's almost as entertaining as the shows themselves, and a lot of fun!
Classic television is often what I think of as an "inadvertent documentary" - in other words, it gives you a glimpse of a world that no longer exists. From the New York streetscapes in "Naked City" to the movies that characters saw, to the issues they dealt with (and often worried about), you get a look at the past, and how things have changed since then, in a way that is very entertaining.
People may laugh at a show like "Leave it to Beaver" because they think it personifies a perfect family, the kind of family that never existed. But for people of the era, it came a lot closer to reality than many of the families we see on TV today. These shows were accessible and familiar, and even if you weren't like those families, you could identify with them and recognize parts of your own life in theirs. The dramas of the era dealt with issues that were often more complex than we realize, and proved that good storytelling doesn't have to last an entire season, but can be done in an hour (or, sometimes, in a half-hour). You can also trace the evolution of things like televised sports and all-news channels by looking at how they've changed through the years.
"The Electronic Mirror" is an appreciation of classic television, yes, but it's also a suggestion that television be seen as a legitimate source of first-hand information about our cultural life and times. As the book's subtitle says, it helps us to understand who we were and who we are, and oftentimes how and why we got there. It's a story that's almost as entertaining as the shows themselves, and a lot of fun!
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