In the video interview embedded above, we caught up with novelist and television producer Howard Gordon to talk about his new novel, Hard Target.
Gordon was the executive producer of 24 and is a co-creator of the Emmy Award-winning drama, Homeland. In our interview, he talked about how cable television has given writers more power and shared the history behind Homeland.
Here’s an excerpt: “The writer does have the power in television, unlike a movie, where the director has an outsized measure of power–because it is an auteur’s medium and they can have 10 writers on the project. But some of the stories we are seeing on cable–whether it’s Mad Men or Boardwalk Empire or Breaking Bad, which are all just brilliant–it is creating a novelistic experience for a lot of writers.”
Gordon also explained how television writing helped him work on his novels: “TV writing teaches you to be very economical and find the story. And hopefully, one thing I think they both share, is that you want to be compelling. You want the viewer to stay tuned and you want the readers to keep turning the pages.”