“Like sands through the hour glass,
so are the days of our lives.”
Have you ever watched “The Days of Our Lives”? Apparently this classic soap opera has aired on NBC practically every weekday since Nov. 8, 1965 – Whoa. That’s a long time!
Soap operas sweep me back in time to when I was a kid growing up on Long Island. My mother tuned into “General Hospital” regularly. I can remember my sister Kathleen and I coming home from school, having a snack and getting caught up in the Laura-Luke romance, wondering if this adventuresome duo would stay together and flee the authorities since they were on the run.
Truthfully, soap operas feel too heavy on the drama for my taste. I can’t imagine watching them every afternoon, since that's when I am at my desk writing my books. Still, I appreciate how they fill a need for story in people’s lives. Soap opera script writers understand the tenets of good storytelling. They know how to hook the viewer with startling beginnings. They use dialogue in clever ways to reveal character. They keep the plot spicy and pump up the suspense -- just before those revenue-generating commercials kick in -- so viewers won’t click the remote. And they know that setting matters, which is why all those good looking men and women live in such glamorous places.
I am not here today advocating we all watch soap operas. But I will say they do show we can learn about storytelling from all kinds of places, even television.
Here’s to good stories, wherever, you get them. And here’s to the “The Days Of Our Lives”!
