Writing the TV Drama Series 3rd Edition: How to Succeed as a Professional Writer in TV (6 page)

That said, series budgets are ample for what you want dramatically within the world of the show. As a writer, your investment needs to be in the quality of the story and depth of feelings you can elicit rather than production dazzle, so avoid: distant or difficult locations, special effects, extreme stunts, large guest casts, crowd scenes, and CGI (computer-generated images) unless those are part of your series. If you write them, they’ll probably be cut, and by tightening you gain focus on the main characters, which are the strength of television drama.

MYTH 3: YOU CAN’T DO THAT ON TV.

Come on, you can do anything on cable television — language, nudity, controversial subjects or lifestyles, experiments in ways of telling stories. However, broadcast stations are licensed by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), which obligates them to operate in the public interest. So local stations are susceptible to pressure from groups which might threaten their licenses when they’re up for renewal; and the networks, which also own stations, are sensitive to public mores — though those cultural standards change with time. Certainly, public norms have come a long way since the 1950s when married couples had to be shown fully dressed and sleeping in separate beds. Now even the least adventurous television is closer to real life. And none of this applies to HBO, Showtime, or other cable outlets.

The old days of censorship are past — but not entirely. In 2004, network censors stunned the creators of
ER
. It involved one episode where an 81-year-old woman is having a medical exam — an emotional moment in which the elderly woman learns about cancer, and some of her aged breast is visible. Essential for the dramatic impact of the scene, the show’s producers argued, but the network pressured them to re-edit the scene so the breast could not be glimpsed.

A new level of accommodation was reached when HBO’s bold drama
The Sopranos
was sold into syndication on A&E. Having planned ahead, HBO filmed alternate scenes and lines during the original production. While most of the “sanitized” episodes retain their power, some bizarre moments result, like Paulie (a tough gangster) cursing about the “freakin” snow while they go off to kill someone. That sort of thing drives some serious writers to cable where they can practice their art without interference… although, even there, Syfy Channel’s
Battlestar Galactica
made do with “frack.”

So, yes, on broadcast television some limits still exist. But here’s my advice: Don’t censor yourself as you write your first draft. Have your characters talk and behave the way people actually do today. Stay real. If a word or image has to be edited, fix it later, but keep the pipeline open to how people truly are, because that’s the source of powerful writing.

MYTH 4: ALL TV SERIES ARE THE SAME.

I once heard that statement from a producer who’d been successful in the era before audiences had unlimited channels and websites to surf. Now, with competition for fresh programming, a show that rests on formulas and conventional prototypes risks going unnoticed, cancelled after four episodes.

But television series do follow rules, and you’ll find a list of them at the end of this chapter.

MYTH 5: TELEVISION IS A WASTELAND.

In 1961, Newton Minnow, an FCC Commissioner, declared television a “vast wasteland,” and the epithet stuck. Minnow was referring to shows such as
Bonanza, The Flintstones
, and
Mr. Ed
in an era when three networks, each smaller than now, shared airwaves that were considered a scarce commodity, dedicated to informing or elevating the public. The talking horse just didn’t do it for him.

Well, half a century later, part of the wasteland has become a garbage dump strewn with fake jilted lovers beating up on each other on so-called “Unscripted” shows. The rest ranges from televangelists to pornography, political pundits to purveyors of snake oil, sports to scientific discoveries, wannabe singers to singing animals, and includes fiction of all kinds that may be funny, freaky, fascinating, or familiar. And some is brilliant literature, on a par with the greatest writing and filmmaking created anywhere. Those are the shows I focus on when teaching hour drama, because I believe that you learn best if you learn from the best. As to the wasteland — with a thousand channels and sites, and access to programming from every era of television history and from all over the world, television is whatever you choose to watch.

Nor is television monolithic, even within American primetime. I’ve heard people disparage TV as aimed at 12-year-olds. I answer
Yes
, TV shows
are
aimed at 12-year-olds — if you watch certain stations at 8 PM. Pre-teen and teen programming fills the early evening shows on the CW, Fox, and some cable outlets, attracting viewers whom advertisers believe are especially susceptible to their commercials. Beyond sales of acne medications and cosmetics, some of those shows even link to websites where viewers can buy the clothing styles worn by the actors.

I don’t recommend emulating those shows as you learn to write, but I do understand that very young writers may be more comfortable with characters close to their own age. If a student sincerely tells me that she hasn’t had enough life experience to deal with adult issues or relationships, but wants to learn the craft, I direct her to a well-written show with a young cast.
Friday Night Lights
was a perfect case of honestly observed high school students written with insight. So if you’d like to write teen television, go ahead. If you choose truth as your guide, your script will ring true at any age.

Traditionally, the primetime evening, from 8 PM to 11 PM, was divided into components:

8:00 PM — family sitcoms featuring children, “Unscripted” game shows and contests, teen melodramas.

8:30 PM — more sitcoms, though not necessarily with children, “Unscripted/Reality,” teen shows continue.

9:00 PM — sophisticated comedies, hour dramas that are thoughtful, romantic, inspirational, or teen.

10:00 PM — the most sophisticated hour dramas for adults; on cable, serious half-hour “dramedies;” historic miniseries.

At least that’s how it used to line up. Of course, now you can view anything at any time on demand or by recording the show, and cable reruns its programming throughout the week. Most networks stream their programming on the Internet, and if for some reason you still haven’t caught the show, you can buy or rent the DVD.

So you’d think that the traditional schedule is meaningless. Funny thing, though — despite all the alternate options, most people still watch shows at the time they’re broadcast. Programmers at networks still vie to “counter-program” their rivals, and “appointment viewing” is still the goal — making people feel it’s so important to catch the latest installment of
True Blood
that they will make plans to be in front of a screen at 9 PM on Sunday night, even though they could easily view it any day later.

Most talented writers want to work on the 9 PM or 10 PM shows, and in fact those are the ones I recommend learning. When you’re out in the business, though, you may find more openings at 8 PM and in less lofty outlets at first. That’s okay, you have to start somewhere, and in
Chapter Six
you’ll read about breaking in.

True Blood

T
HE
R
ULES
OF
S
ERIES
T
V

•   AN HOUR SHOW HAS TO FIT IN AN HOUR.

Actually, a network or basic cable hour is more like 45 minutes, plus commercial breaks, although pay cable may take the entire time. Usually, scripts for drama series are between 50 and 60 pages, though a fast-talking show like
The West Wing
sometimes went to 70 pages. On networks that break shows into five acts plus a teaser, writers are stuck with reduced screen time, and find themselves with 8-page acts and scripts coming in around 48 pages. Each script is timed before production, and if it runs long (despite the page count), the writer needs to know what to trim in dialogue or which action to tighten; or if it runs short, where a new beat could add depth or a twist, not simply padding. And you need the craft to get it revised overnight, which leads to the next rule:

•   SERIES DEADLINES ARE FOR REAL.

Your show is on every week, and that means there’s no waiting for your muse, no honing the fine art of writing-avoidance, no allowing angst to delay handing in your draft. If you can’t make the deadline, the show-runner has to turn over your work to another writer.

From the time your episode is assigned, you’ll probably have one week to come in with an outline, a few days to revise it, two weeks to deliver the first-draft teleplay, a gap of a couple of days for notes, then one week to write your second draft — a total of around six weeks from pitch to second draft (although polishes and production revisions will add another couple of weeks or so). Maybe that sounds daunting, but once you’re on a staff you’re living the series, and the pace can be exhilarating. You’ll hear your words spoken by the actors, watch the show put together, and see it on screen quickly too.

It’s fun until the nightmare strikes. On a series, the nightmare is a script that “falls out” at the last minute. It may happen like this: The story seems to make sense when it’s pitched. The outline comes in with holes, but the staff thinks it can be made to work. Then they read the first draft and see that the problems aren’t solved. It’s given to another writer to fix. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. Preproduction, including sets, locations, casting have to go ahead if the script is going to shoot next week. Tick tock. Another draft, and the flaw — maybe an action the lead character really wouldn’t do, or a plot element that contradicts the episode just before or after, or a forced resolution that’s not credible — now glares out at everyone around the table. Yet another draft, this time by the supervising producer. Tick tock. Or maybe it’s not the writer’s fault: the exact fictional crisis depicted has suddenly occurred in real life, so the episode can’t be aired. The script has to be abandoned — it “falls out.” Meanwhile, the production manager is waiting to prep, and publicity has gone out.

I once heard a panel discussion where a respected showrunner told this very nightmare. The cast and crew were literally on the set and absolutely had to start shooting that day for the episode to make the air date. But they had no script. In desperation, the showrunner, renowned as a great writer, commenced dictating as a secretary transcribed and runners dashed to the set bringing one page at a time. A hand shot up from an admirer in the panel audience, “Was it the best thing you ever wrote?” “No,” he laughed, “it didn’t make sense.”

•   DRAMA SERIES HAVE AN ACT STRUCTURE.

Put away your books on three-act structure. Television dramas on networks have for decades been written in four acts, though many broadcast shows now use five acts, and a few are broken into six. You’ll learn more about that in
Chapter Four
, where a teleplay is analyzed. For now, think about what happens every 13 to 15 minutes on a traditional network show. You know: a commercial break. These breaks aren’t random; they provide a grid for constructing the episode in which action rises to a cliffhanger or twist (“plot point” may be a familiar term if you’ve studied feature structure). Each of the four segments are “acts” in the same sense as plays have real acts rather than the theoretical acts described in analyzing features. At a stage play, at the end of an act the curtain comes down, theatre lights come up, and the audience heads for refreshments or the restrooms. That’s the kind of hard act break that occurs in television. Writers plan toward those breaks and use them to build tension.

Once you get the hang of it, you’ll discover that act breaks don’t hamper your creativity; they free you to be inventive within a rhythmic grid. And once you work with that 10- to 15-minute block, you may want to use it off-network and in movies. In fact, next time you’re in a movie theatre, notice the audience every 15 minutes. You may see them shifting in their seats. I don’t know whether 15-minute chunks have been carved into contemporary consciousness by the media, or if they’re aspects of human psychology which somehow evolved with us, but the 15-minute span existed before television. In the early 20th century motion pictures were distributed on reels that projectionists had to change every 15 minutes. Then, building on that historical pattern, some screenwriting theorists began interpreting features as eight 15-minute sequences. Whatever the origin, four acts became the original template for drama series on the networks.

But as the value of advertising segments declined on traditional networks, more commercials began to be inserted to make up for the loss, leading to series written in five acts. These may also have a teaser (explained in
Chapter Three
) which is sometimes almost as long as an act, giving an impression of six acts, each around eight to ten pages long. On the other side of the spectrum, premium cable series like those on HBO and Showtime have no act breaks, and may be structured more like movies.