Rod Serling On Writing

I saw this 30-min video on YouTube and thought I would share it with you–especially those of you who are writers. For those who don’t know, Rod Serling (1925-1975) was the creator and writer of many episodes of “The Twilight Zone.” The original (and best) series ran from 1959 to 1964. If you’ve never seen “The Twilight Zone,” I highly recommend it to you. Episodes are available to watch on Netflix and Hulu and probably elsewhere.

Whenever I’ve been forced to label my storytelling style or my go-to genre, after much fumbling and umming and erring I usually end up saying “Twilight Zone.” It’s a sort-of sci-fi style, but it usually has some kind of twist at the end that you weren’t expecting or makes you think. Perhaps the best example of this in my own work is a short story I wrote a few years ago called “Time in a Bottle.”

I like much of what Serling has to say in this discussion. I hope you find it useful: