Reality Writing

You know what the world needs? A reality TV show of writers.

I believe I’ve spoken on this blog before about how much I love competitive cooking shows. (My parents will tell you’ve I’ve liked cooking shows since I was a small child, but that’s a misdirection. You’d have thought our TV only had the capability to receive one channel for all it ever moved from PBS, and when we turned off the VCR after watching the Little Mermaid for the seventy-sixth time, cooking would be on PBS. If we watched cooking, the TV stayed on longer! Simple.)

At the moment, I’m watching Masterchef, which is oversensationalized in the manner of Hell’s Kitchen, but with the plus that it’s more about the cooking than the competing so it doesn’t cause repetitive stress injuries in some poor editor’s expletive-buzzer finger. I was pondering the fact that even if they didn’t win, I wondered if the exposure would help, hinder, or not affect these people’s later careers. It’s the same for any reality show, and I suddenly asked myself if I was invited to a reality show, whether I would accept so I could talk about my writing in front of a larger audience.

The trouble is, I’m a very pragmatic and not very creative cook. I can sing, but only in a choir, or else nervousness dries up my voice. Perhaps I could dance. But wouldn’t it be awesome if there could be a writing competition show? You could argue that writing is meant to be read, not seen, but food is meant to be smelled and tasted, not just looked at!

I actually think it wouldn’t work at all, but I would dearly love to try. There could be timed prompts, and then the writer would have to hand it over to a voice actor to read in front of the judges. Or if the TV audience was getting bored, they could read excerpts, and the judges could judge on the whole thing. And they could use any excuse to take the group anywhere! Take them to a coal mine, and make them write a story about a miner! Take them to the Bahamas, and makes them write a story set there! And they could make the drafting more difficult by forcing them to use quill pens or fingerpaints or something. Bring in JK Rowling for a single challenge, and see if the competitors could write a children’s story that beat hers in a blind judging round.

Start bidding, networks! I’ll sell you the idea for a song if you’ll let me be in the first season!