The final episode of "As the World Turns," a soap opera your granny used to watch, airs Friday.
The show, based on the fictional lives of the fictional inhabitants of fictional Oakdale, Ill., has been on the air most weekdays since its debut in 1956. That's more than 13,000 episodes for those without calculators (or Wikipedia access).
ATWT was the top-rated daytime soap opera for 20 years running (1958-78), but daytime viewer ratings have declined slowly since a peak in 1981.
Writer Susan Dansby crafted some of the tales from her Atlanta home for the last 13 years. The Northside High grad ('72) won four Emmys and two Writers Guild Awards for her work.
The once-upon-a-time Six Flags cotton candy dealer said she got into writing soaps after many years of trying to balance her love of free theater and paying her bills on time.
She got her break when she landed a job as a production worker on "Guiding Light." She's using that experience to write a blog and book that helps others score their dream job, she said.
"That's my real passion now, helping people get work," said Dansby, 56.
But what about the final show? Will she miss the characters whose lives she helped shape? Of course. And she knows fans will too.
"The opportunity to tell a story every day is wonderful," said Dansby. She is most pleased with her work with the characters Carly and Jack, a married couple. Their storyline ended Thursday.
"[Jack] thought he was the father of a child with his ex-wife, found out he wasn't, and found out his wife Carly is pregnant -- all in an hour," said Dansby. "Jack had a a lot of emotional stuff to deal with and I am glad I was able to take him through that."
She wishes the writers had had more time to resolve a crisis in the lives of Luke and Noah, a gay couple. Luke had fallen for a new man, Reid, but he was killed by a train "and it seemed wrong to rush him back into a relationship with Noah," she said. She said she will soon be helping fans write Luke and Noah's epilogue online.
Dansby said writers were told the show was being cancelled last November, and they generally wrote scripts 4 to 6 weeks before the shows were aired.
She said ratings are down for all soaps. "Our demise pretty much started with the O.J. trial," she said. "The world has changed and people are just not home anymore watching TV. Or watching on their phones. The audience needs to be reached in other ways."
What has she learned from writing more than a decade of devious plots?
Tell the truth, said Dansby.
"I am one of the most honest people I know and that is because I watch these soap operas being made year after year, day after day. Every lie creates trouble," she said.
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