The One With All the Writing Advice

by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant, Smarter Artist

Every writer wants to create timeless, memorable stories and characters who feel like real friends. The masterclass is no further away than your TV. Classic television holds up because of one great writing. Fancy sets, innovative effects, or famous actors come and go over time, but well-written characters we connect with stand the test of time. No show in recent history has done that better than the 90’s classic Friends. It's a ten-year study in complex intertwining relationships between six very different people who, no matter what, will be there for each other. Follow along with bestselling authors Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt as they examine definitive episodes of the TV classic Friends, sharing the lessons that every novelist, from aspiring to experienced, can apply to create believable characters and develop story arcs that will captivate their readers from start to finish.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

110 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2016

About the author

Sean loves writing books, even more than reading them. He is co-founder of Collective Inkwell and Realm & Sands imprints, writes for children under the name Guy Incognito, and has more than his share of nose.

Together with co-authors David Wright and Johnny B. Truant, Sean has written the series Yesterdays Gone, WhiteSpace, ForNevermore, Available Darkness, Dark Crossings, Unicorn Western, The Beam, Namaste, Robot Proletariat, Cursed, Greens, Space Shuttle, and Everyone Gets Divorced. He also co-wrote the how-to indie book, Write. Publish. Repeat.

With Collective Inkwell
Yesterday's Gone: Post Apocalyptic - LOST by way of The Stand
WhiteSpace: Paranoid thriller on fictitious Hamilton Island
ForNevermore: YA horror that reads nothing like YA Horror
Available Darkness: A new breed of vampire thriller
Dark Crossings: Short stories, killer endings

With 47North
Z 2134: The Walking Dead meets The Hunger Games
Monstrous: Beauty and the Beast meets The Punisher

With Realm & Sands
Unicorn Western: The best story to ever come from a stupid idea
The Beam: Smart sci-fi to make you wonder exactly who we are
Namaste: A revenge thriller like nothing you've ever read
Robot Proletariat: The revolution starts here
Cursed: The old werewolf legend turned upside down
Greens: Retail noir comedy
Space Shuttle: Over the top comedy with all your favorite sci-fi characters
Everyone Gets Divorced: Like "Always Sunny" and "How I Met Your Mother" had a baby on your Kindle

Sean lives in Austin, TX with his wife, daughter, and son.
Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/seanplatt
 (say hi so he can follow you back!)

Reviews

[Emma Sea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Write. Publish. Repeat. is one of my favorite writing books. So I was happy to snap up Platt and Truant's new book on writing the second it released.

I'm not sure that was my best idea ever.

It's a neat set up: let's look at writing through the medium of the 90s sitcom Friends.¹ Which is a cool idea, sure. But in practice the book is more 10% writing suggestions and 90% listening to a friend who's had waaay too much discount chardonnay lie on the sofa and talk about how awesome their favorite Friends episodes were.

Here's a typical chapter from the book.

**

THANKSGIVING
REGULAR, REPEATING ELEMENTS WORK EXTREMELY well in most forms of fiction. The idea is to create a moment that circles back approximately (or exactly) once each year and carries certain internal tropes that, after a few years, give the whole series more cohesion. In The Simpsons, that element is the Halloween “Treehouse of Horror” episodes. In the Harry Potter series, it’s Christmas. And in fact, in later books, Rowling uses the increasingly grim and unnoticed nature of Christmas to make her point that “the world is growing dark” just that much more meaningful. And in Friends, it’s Thanksgiving. Each year, we looked forward to the Thanksgiving episode the way I know I’ve always looked forward to Thanksgiving itself. Humans are creatures of habit. It almost doesn’t matter what our routines might offer us; our comfort comes from doing them. So it was for Friends viewers, and so it’ll be for your readers if you add a repeating element to your work. Our guess is that the writers didn’t initially intend for “Thanksgiving” to be Friends’s thing (not to be confused with “Ross’s thing” from Season Three). In Season One, it’s an amusing footnote that centers on Chandler. We learned that he hates the holiday because it was over Thanksgiving dinner that his parents announced their divorce. In Season Two, “The One With the List” needed a backdrop and the episode was airing around Thanksgiving, so Monica made Thanksgiving Mockolate desserts and that was about it on the holiday mentions. But by Season Three, the writers seemed to have realized they had lore to build within the Friends world and jumped on it. That’s when we got “The One With the Football,” where everyone plays a pick-up game (for The Gellar Cup) in the park while the turkey is cooking. In Season Four, we got one of our favorite episodes, where Chandler spends Thanksgiving in the box while his friends celebrate without him. And by Season Five, the writers had fully embraced it with “The One With All the Thanksgivings” — the one where Monica dances with the turkey on her head and Chandler says, “I love you.” Once a series has a hook like this, it inevitably becomes a reader favorite and a strong force compelling them to read on. In Friends, once Thanksgiving Critical Mass had been reached, the door was open for all sorts of shenanigans. We got Brad Pitt guest starring as the old high school acquaintance who hates Rachel. We got Christina Applegate as Rachel’s second sister, complete with slap fight and hair-pulling. We got the botched trifle that’s half shepherd’s pie and, according to Ross, “tastes like feet.” Bond your audience to your world by giving them something to anticipate, and come home to. The longer your repeated element continues, the more it will gather momentum, and the more chances you’ll have as the writer to try all sorts of fun stuff.

**

See, yes, using a regularly repeating event is a great device, which doubles to show the passing of time plus get readers into the heads of our characters, but this chapter is more like . . . well, sitting around reminiscing about Friends.

In the chapter on The One With the Holiday Armadillo, Truant and Platt take 800 words to describe all the events of the episode in order to say, "keep advancing situations the characters [can] deal with in mutually supporting ways."

There's useful stuff in here, it's just kinda buried. And it's USD$4.37. That's quite a lot for what would be a fucking slim book without the show recaps.

I don't recommend this one.

&&&

¹ Friends was a 90s Western cultural touchstone. But wow, was it ever white. And homophobic. And transphobic. And fatphobic. And also Ross was a huge jerk who taped himself having sex with Rachael without her knowledge and was entirely unsupportive of Rachael's self-actualization. Just wanted to get that out.

[Jeff Willis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, the advice and insights in this book weren't bad. There were some good observations about character development, plotting, etc. And as someone who's seen the entire run of NBC's "Friends," the takeaways made sense to me. And even then, the advice felt a bit scattered, with examples pulled from episodes all over the spectrum, and the authors feeling the need to provide examples of all six core characters for each point, even though it wasn't always warranted or a bit of overkill. This was a quick read and, for any writer who is familiar with the show "Friends," it will be a fun and clear way to highlight certain writing techniques. But if you're not familiar with the show, and given how many different episodes are referenced, it might be more efficient to get the same writing advice in a more concise, focused format. Still, since I am familiar with the show, I enjoyed this read personally.

[Cal Bowen · Rating 3 out of 5]

No good if you've never watched friends

The premise of this is a how-to guide based on the 10 seasons of the show friends. The issue is that if you've never watched the show then the book makes little to no sense. The other issue is if you have seen friends you spend more time thinking about the show and not the advice been given. Well the writers do indeed know their craft, this still does not come out as good as some of their other how to books. The only thing that was accomplished by reading this was making me want to rewatch hundreds of hours of a TV show instead of investing hundreds of hours of writing my novel.

[Brian Switzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A smart, fast-paced book that gives a quick synopsis of a few dozen episodes of the TV show Friends, and then explains what lessons authors can pull from those episodes. The strength of the book is this- I didn't watch Friends, although I'm aware of the show's premise and its characters. With just that information combined with the lessons Platt and Truant cull from it, I could easily see the scene they described taking place. The scene in my mind may be 180 degrees different from what happened in the episode but the authors' lessons are so clear and compelling one was created there nonetheless.

'The one With...' is a quick read at 110 pages. The advice is presented in bite-sized chunks, each a couple of pages long. It's perfect for reading two or three chapters a day, so the reader can take each chunk and mull it over awhile- each lesson stood out on its own, rather than get lost in the ones before and after it.

More than any book on writing I've read, this one seemed less like a book and more like a long conversation with the authors, listening in while they traded stories about their favorite episodes and how those episodes relate to success in the writing game. I can't wait for 'It's Just Business: A Critical Analysis of The Sopranos' Can Make You a Better Writer'. That'll be more in my wheelhouse.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timeless and Relatable Information

It might be one of the most instructive books on writing that I've ever read. It doesn't merely talk about writing concepts but rather it drives deep into tactical examples. I adored all the analogies from the Friends TV show. It helped me alot, was fun to listen to, and gave me a new appreciation for the show.

[A.M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s kind of clever to use the program that everyone on earth must have watched at least one episode of… Friends. This is writing craft by example.

…we wrote you a fun, light-hearted guide about the writing lessons we’ve learned (and that we think you can learn) from Friends — one of the most popular television shows of all time.

I guess…
They trash How I met your Mother, and no-one is going to argue against that one.
My issue is I never shipped Ross and Rachel and I know they are the backbone of the show, so I have seen a few episodes or bits of episodes, but as a writing example, it works.
Stuck? Try unagi, or a red jumper, or a turkey, or a box, or… you get the idea.
3 stars

[R.K. King · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good writing resource when you want to focus on character relationships. I feel like the authors had to stretch their concept a little bit to get a 'long enough' book out of it, but yes Friends the show was centered on its character dynamics. Taking that model and applying it to your own writing, regardless of genre, can only help.
Join the RK King readers' list for an exclusive FREE short story, plus inside info, musings, promos and more: RK King Writes

[Thiago d'Evecque · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tem alguns conselhos bem legais, mas acho que não vale a pena ler o livro inteiro para pescar uma ou outra coisa boa. A maioria é puro senso comum.

O livro me pareceu mais uma desculpa para os autores falarem sobre Friends do que de escrita, mesmo. Muitos capítulos são apenas páginas e páginas contando como determinado episódio se desenrola para, no final, passar uma lição de escrita – às vezes útil – em uma frase. Sou fã de Friends, mas estava mais interessado em escrita.

[Amanda Clay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this. I would say that if you weren't a fan of the show Friends, many of the examples might not resonate with you. But if you're familiar with the show, then OMG, you will laugh at the references and love the way the authors turn timeless Friends moments into solid advice for crafting fiction in any genre.

[L.B. Holding · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one does a good job of bringing the television hit Friends out to play while you try to get better at writing. Plot yes, structure yes, but most importantly, and most uniquely among books with writing advice, Relationships among characters are explored and mapped out. I appreciated these tips and was grateful to learn while being entertained.

[Breanne Kretzschmar · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars - This one was gifted to me by someone who knows I enjoyed the show, which certainly helped while reading. The book essentially regurgitated plot points of the show while including little blips of the point they were trying to drive home. The points made were valid, but could have held more weight without as much contextual information regarding FRIENDS.

[Sue Lilley · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a lot of useful tips packed into this book. I didn’t remember all the Friends references but they were useful context to illustrate a point. Quite a quirky idea which makes it different from other “how-to” books. Hopefully I’ll remember the advice next time I hit a "block.”

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Happily revisited Friends after this

Shows you how to fill your Writer's Toolbox with tropes from Friends. A book written with humor and heart! Recommended

[Rebekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was exactly what it promised to be. An entertaining, short read, with tons of great writing advice drawn from and illustrated by the tv show Friends. I can see how this might particularly appeal to fans of the tv show, but it really isn't necessary to have watched the show to understand and get a lot out of the book. I was a faithful fan for the first few seasons of the show and dropped off after that, and I still understood the points the authors were making from episodes later in the series that I missed. The only thing I might have liked to see is a short, quick reference guide at the end of the book succinctly summarizing the main points of each chapter.

[Tracy Krauss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even if you aren’t a fan of the TV series FRIENDS, this little manual is full of really practical advice. For those who have watched the show, you’ll get a kick out of the references and maybe even find yourself laughing out loud. (Or at least smiling a lot.) There is so much wisdom about writing fiction packed into each short chapter, which is a credit to the writers of the show for understanding how a good story arch works. Well done to the Sterling and Stone team for putting this together. Brilliant idea.

[Ellen Bard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun and lighthearted but very useful look at the world of story through the lens of the show 'Friends'.