Write On: 'Long Bright River' Showrunner Nikki Toscano

“With an adaptation, you can never give back your first read. So,
what are you taking away? What fills your soul? Why do you want
to tell this story? And then that becomes sort of the North Star.
And I’m tethered more by that North Star than by the actual moves
that are happening in the book,” says Long Bright River
showrunner, Nikki Toscano, about adapting Liz Moore’s
best-selling novel for television. 


Long Bright River is an emotional suspense thriller that follows
Mickey (Amanda Seyfried), a police officer in a Philadelphia
neighborhood hit hard by the opioid epidemic. As a string of
murders unfolds, Mickey must find her missing sister who’s also
battling addiction before it’s too late – but long buried family
secrets stand in the way. 


On the surface, the show is a highly engaging murder-mystery, but
beneath the whodunnit is a love story between two sisters. We
chat with Toscano about delving into the sisterly dynamic that is
both compassionate and toxic at the same time. 


Toscano shares tools for building an enticing mystery that
includes giving your characters secrets to help drive the
story. 


“I think that in the beginning of anything, you have to determine
what your character wants and then put a bunch of people or
things in that character’s way. So that’s how secrets are born,
right? And that’s how you have your audience leaning in. Is the
secret going to come out? Who’s going to tell the secret? You and
I could be having a conversation and I say, ‘Don’t tell anybody!’
And then the next scene is you being in a situation where do you
tell, do you not tell? It’s about setting up those kinds of
things. I mean, whenever building any kind of show, whether it’s
an adaptation or not, determine what your character wants and
then stick a bunch of people between them and that goal that
either complement or compromise your character’s journey,” says
Toscano. 



To hear more, listen to the podcast. Long Bright River streams on
Peacock March 13.