Writing the TV Drama Series 3rd Edition: How to Succeed as a Professional Writer in TV (30 page)

“I knew I wanted to maintain the premise: the show was about the survivors who were on this last battleship. Then I decided the old show was about a family. I looked at the family tree and decided to make some changes. The daughter in the old show didn’t serve any purpose so I just lost her. Then I made Starbuck a woman immediately, and decided she’s the surrogate daughter to the father figure. The father figure of Adama had no counterpart, neither a mother nor any counterpart in the civilian world. I didn’t want it to be just a military show. Okay, the premise was that the remnants of human civilization were in these fleets. So how do they govern themselves? Are they going to try to maintain their democracy as they move forward? Is the president to be a real player in this show, unlike the old one? And I decided that should be a woman, and that sort of completes the family, and that’s who the show is really about.

“The other character that interested me was Baltar. The human race in the original was not only attacked and destroyed; they were also betrayed. Baltar betrayed them to their enemies. But then I tried to figure out, why would he do that? There’s no reason I could fathom that anybody would do that, so I came to the conclusion that he does it inadvertently as part of his weaknesses. He is, in many ways, the most human character of them all in his capacity to rationalize and always look for a way that it’s not his fault. He doesn’t mean to do anything evil but somehow always ends up doing amoral or even evil things.

“Those are the general parameters I thought that show was about and how I was going to translate it to this show.”

M
AKE A
P
LAN

Let’s say you have your world, your springboards, and your main cast. Yes, you’re creeping up on writing the thing. Remember that you must grab readers even before this pilot ever gets to viewers, so your first ten pages (or less) are critical. Don’t lay back and wait for episode 88, or even 22, to reel in your audience with a revelation. Get a sense of anticipation started now.

What do you need to generate anticipation? Answer the basic dramatic questions: Do we care about (or are we intrigued by) your main character? What does the character want urgently? Why does she need it so desperately? Who and what opposes her? Are the chances of succeeding and failing nearly equal? Then you rev-up the action until we expect her to reach the goal… at which point you twist it, pulling out the rug, so we discover this quest will have way more ramifications, to be continued in later episodes.

Of course, that’s oversimplifying. The point is that in the early pages you need to set your series in motion by rooting us in at least one of your main cast and establishing the series franchise. As for writing the world, I recommend that you don’t write text to describe it. As vital as is creating the world for your series — so important that we began with it — it has to “breathe” through your script, not ever feel “made.” That is, the world of your show
is
the show; it’s where your people live. If you have to explain it, something’s not alive here.

After all that, you’re ready to plan your pilot as you would any ongoing episode of your show. Does it have four acts? Five? A teaser? Think about the grid and the discussion of structure in
Chapters Three
and
Four
. Since you’re the creator of this show you get to make those choices (at least until some network tells you otherwise — but you should be so lucky as to have a network!). Then move right along to outline, first draft, and all the revising and polishing that follows.

Once upon a time, spec pilots were indulgences in a fantasy of running a series of your own. Now, agents and producers will read them as writing samples. And, yes, sometimes they even get made. Because of this opportunity, I asked my colleague, Georgia Jeffries, to speak to you about her experiences with pilot writing.

G
UEST
S
PEHKER:
G
EDRGIR
J
EFFRIES

Georgia Jeffries wrote and produced for
Cagney & Lacey
and was Supervising Producer of
China Beach
. She is on the faculty of the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

Georgia Jeffries:
I’ve written eight drama pilots — the most enjoyable television writing I’ve ever done because of the opportunity each provided to define and explore a whole new world.

When I teach my pilot class, I tell the students that creating a series is a hybrid of short story writing, and screenwriting. It is, ultimately, the creation of a novel on film. Just as Dickens wrote “episodes” of his novels in penny magazines week by week and month by month, so must the pilot writer conceive complex characters whose stories will have the potential to evolve over the long haul.

Right now (with due respect to Dickens once again) is “the best of times and the worst of times” to be a pilot writer. There are exceptionally imaginative pilot storylines that foster a higher bar for creative product. Yet it’s also an extraordinarily competitive job market. There are indeed more buyers — pay and basic cable as well as the broadcast networks. But because of vertical integration, a number of those buyers are often owned by the same conglomerate. Seventy to eighty percent of all pilots ordered by the networks are being developed by their own auxiliary companies. If it’s on ABC, it’s fairly certain that it’s going to be produced by Touchstone. So if the pilot writer doesn’t have a deal at Touchstone, chances are s/he will not get a pick-up from ABC.

Stakes are higher than ever because of multimillion-dollar production costs coupled with continuing losses at the broadcast networks. They’re competing with each other to reclaim the audience they’re losing to the Internet and video games. I believe that means we need to target the audience in a new way with more “limited series.” That is essentially what HBO and Showtime are doing with a number of their series today, ordering only 10 or 16 episodes at a time (with a long hiatus in between) instead of 22 or 24, the usual broadcast order. That translates into more time and freedom for the creative artist behind the show — and conversely more time for the audience to discover the show amidst such a plethora of choices. The more the marketplace expands and redefines what a series can be, the more opportunity for more pilots to be written by new talent.

Pamela Douglas:
When your students try to do pilots, what do you warn them about? What traps do you advise them to look out for?

GJ:
My largest concern is that they come into the classroom trying to emulate only what they’ve already seen on TV. I encourage them to take creative risks. After they watch what’s on the air and read a number of pilot scripts, they have to distance themselves, take a long leap off the cliff of their own psyche and think about what they would like to see. The only way to write effectively is to stop censoring themselves as to what is or is not possible.

PD:
When you create your own pilot, where do you start? Do you start with the world or the characters? What is the creative evolution for you?

GJ:
I generally have started with the world.

PD:
That’s interesting for you because you’re such a “character” person.

GJ:
Yes, but for me place
is
character. The first broadcast pilot I wrote was about young female surgeons at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. So it was a very specific location — a military hospital full of returning vets. A later script, this one for pay cable, was also set in Washington, D.C. — but in a far more rarefied world of power and intrigue on the Beltway.

In this most recent pilot I’ve written, the characters were alive in my mind for a while before I could put them on the page. That didn’t happen until I decided to take them home to Illinois. I’m from the Midwest originally, but I’ve never written a pilot set in the Midwest. At last I had a place I wanted to take them.

PD:
When you go into a pilot you have certain themes, certain subjects you want to explore, then how do you proceed? Did you do an outline? Did you think through a whole year of arcs? Or did you really just start with the premise?

GJ:
I always did story treatments, of course, but was never required by any of the networks to do a bible of future episodes. I did that on my own, assembling a tremendous amount of research for myself. With each of my pilots I put together — and I’m not exaggerating — files that were three to four inches thick, all full of character and story ideas. I was constantly pulling out articles from magazines, recording something I heard on NPR. I never felt I could relax and assume I had enough story fodder to get to the magic 100th episode.

I remember some of the earliest direction I got on my first draft pilots was, “take us further in the opening story … bring us into the heightened drama earlier.” My initial instinct was to hold back some of the mystery to surprise the audience later, but I learned that was a luxury I couldn’t afford. I had to hook the executives first, while still keeping a number of tricks up my sleeve. That meant sometimes painting in more obvious colors than I would have liked (because I think the best storytelling is subtle and “between the lines”). I kept getting notes on my pilots to go bigger and broader earlier on so viewers would know exactly what was at stake. So I learned to push the characters to the emotional brink in that first episode.

When I guide my class through the pilot process, I tell them to create at least ten questions the viewer could agonize about at the end of the first episode — what’s going to happen to this or that character or story point. If viewers think they know the answers, they’re not going to bother to come back for the second episode. That also helps to determine the ten short synopses students have to come up with for future episodes.

PD:
Do you prefer writing a pilot to either a movie or an episode of a series?

GJ:
Yes, no question, because I’m thinking long-term. I’m thinking twenty-two hours, not two hours.

PD:
Even though a movie is just as original, this is much bigger.

GJ:
And even more demanding. We know what it’s like to live fourteen hours a day with these characters, day after day, during seasons when you have a six-week hiatus if you’re lucky. I could never approach a pilot half-heartedly. Creating any successful series demands a commitment of body and soul.

I
T’S
W
HO
Y
OU
K
NOW
: W
ORKING ON
S
TAFF

Recently, a student on the verge of graduating asked me what was the single most important lesson I’d learned in writing for television. Her question started me thinking. Of course, I’d acquired writing skills, some insights into what works on screen, and a few experiences negotiating the system. But that’s not what she meant. She was looking for career advice gleaned from what I might have done better.

I fast-forwarded through mistakes I’d made, like the time I turned down a staff position on a series because three better opportunities were around the corner. Well, one show wasn’t picked up; on a second, the producer decided to write the pilot himself; and for job three, another writer was chosen. I found myself out of work as a writer for more than six months. Fortunately, I’ve had a “day job” teaching screenwriting at USC throughout my writing career, but it’s not unusual for writers to be “between assignments” for months at a time. I’m telling you this at the start of the chapter on staff work where the pay is consistent and you may feel lulled into a sense of security. Here’s my advice: Get yourself some other survival resource, whether that’s an alternate writing venue (like journalism or Web content), or a non-writing job, or a partner who helps carry expenses. But was that the most important lesson I wanted to pass on to the student?

I also thought about scripts I might have written better. When you see your work on screen, sometimes you’re grateful — really — to the actors and directors who bring a moment to life. But once in a while you cringe, “I did not write that clunky line… did I?” Or, “Does this seem as slow to you as it does to me? Why didn’t I tighten that beat? No, it was the director’s fault… or was it my fault?” But all that’s really fleeting.