I bounced into a meeting with the local commissioning editor of a colossal pay TV company with footprints across Africa. I was full of vim as I tapped my iPad, opening a document full of some of my coolest TV show ideas. I saw her eyes light up with expectation as she sat up straight, hoping to hear what would follow the record-breaking drama series I had created the previous year—out of sheer luck if you ask me. The story of a young girl who marries an aging billionaire to turn her fortunes around, only to find out that being a billionaire’s wife is the toughest thing she’s ever done. By the way, I never intended to get this on screen; it just happened to be a story I had written years ago to keep my mind active.

When I got the call to meet the commissioning editor, I decided to seize the opportunity to pitch stories I felt were more befitting of my pedigree as a screenwriter.

I went straight to work like a snake charmer playing my flute, hoping to serenade her imagination with my captivating ideas, which I was sure would strike gold again. For a split moment, I glanced up and saw the light in her eyes dim gradually. Then she stopped me mid-sentence and heaved a sigh—that awful sigh when someone finally gives up on you.

She peered right into my eyes and said it as bluntly as her job required, “Your ideas are great, but they won’t work for us.” “What!!” I heard my inner voice exclaim. “No detective stories, drop the high concept, anything too complicated to follow. Drama, simple drama with lots of love, just like the first one. Follow the exact template.”

I didn’t want to follow that template; I wanted to try something different, to show my versatility, what I’m truly made of. That day in the office, I learned that, for some inexplicable reason, the same African audiences that stayed up all night into the morning to catch episodes of “Game of Thrones” and kept tabs on all the Marvel and DC cinematic universes out there somehow did not like watching those types of ‘complicated’ films from African filmmakers.

Somehow, when it came to African films and series, they wanted it to be ‘simple’. Of course, I didn’t take it lightly, and I fought back using all the advice of screenwriting gurus and successful showrunners.

Finally, she was forced to show me the figures. Every detective show had failed miserably. Anything that tried to be too complicated, that didn’t have a love triangle of some sort, flopped. The shows with the highest viewership had some of the most predictable storylines, which made nonsense of every screenwriting book I had read. Suddenly, I felt diminished by the success of my previous work on the channel. To add salt to injury, as I left the meeting, she saw me off at the door and muttered with an assuring smile, “Keep it simple like the first one.”

For the next couple of weeks, I was consumed with this revelation. I discussed it with colleagues who offered many varied views on the topic. Some believed that numerous failed attempts by African filmmakers to produce sophisticated narratives like their Western counterparts were largely to blame for this.  African audiences have tailored their expectations to suit what we’ve proven to be bad at.

But then, that left a lot unanswered because even when we’ve copied and pasted Hollywood stories—sometimes scene for scene—the results were still the same. Then there were those who thought Africans were simply content with seeing our stories told ‘our way,’ no matter how simple or rudimentary they were. They don’t want us trying to be like Hollywood. Anything too complicated was taking away from this experience. Again, this was insufficient, given the level of criticism African filmmakers receive for the quality of writing in our films and TV series.

I’ve just created a new list of stories for my next meeting with this commissioning editor, trying to replicate the template of my first hit. But to tell you the truth, this ‘simple’ business is really not simple.

You can watch some of my work here or here