Speech vs. writing

Posted by R. Berg on December 03, 2003

In Reply to: Would someone help me what this means? posted by ESC on December 02, 2003

: : Would someone please help me with the following statement that I have heard in a DVD commentary? I'm having some trouble with the latter part.:The script writer of a TV drama says:
: : "What's fun about this episode is that there's too much happening and too much story (twists and turns). Usually in TV, you are trying to figure out anything that's vaguely dramatic in an episode because there's so many stories in a given day that you can come up with."
: : Does this mean that "Usually in TV, there aren't so many dramatic events happening, even if the writer could come up with so many stories."Or is it the opposite meaning?

: The original sentences don't make sense.

: Should it read: ""What's fun about this episode is that there's too much happening and too much story (twists and turns). Usually in TV, you are trying to figure out anything that's vaguely dramatic in an episode because there ARE ONLY so many stories in a given day that you can come up with."

I think "there are only so many stories in a given day" is the intended meaning. Imagine the writer talking to an interviewer. The writer wants to say that his mind can generate only a small number of plots suitable for TV in a day. He says "There are [begin hand gesture or special voice inflection] so many [end gesture or inflection] stories." It's as if he'd said "I remember when that girl was so tall" and held a hand out at the level of the top of a small child's head. On paper, however, "There are so many stories" looks like a statement that the number of stories is large.