TV Writing II Pilot
GUIDE TO SCRIPTWRITING COURSES
TV Writing II Pilot is a 10-week workshop, which includes lectures, exercises, and the critiquing of student projects. The prerequisite is TV Writing I (10-week), or the equivalent; Level II courses work best when students know the fundamentals and have experience with the workshop process. Farther down, you can view a syllabus for this course.
The best TV shows are addictive, beckoning us to bring the characters into our homes or devices, episode after episode. The people might be cops, thugs, monsters, geeks, doctors, lawyers, fixers, or just ordinary people with everyday problems. The format might be network, streaming, or a web series. As long as it hooks us.
Each TV show is a unique story-machine, with its own rules and formulas. Here you’ll learn how to write for TV and how to market your work.
Whether you seek to write comedy, drama, or something in between, we’ll show you how to write TV episodes that might, someday, get everybody buzzing.
If you want to get started on writing a pilot, this a great way to do it.
Steven Marmalstein
TV writer/producer
Notes
TV writers either work on the staff of an existing series or they create an original show. To break into the business, you need samples of your work—either episodes of existing shows or original scripts, the latter more desirable these days.
TV Writing I focuses on writing “spec” scripts for existing shows, which is the best way to learn how TV episodes work. TV Writing II Pilot focuses on creating an original series and “pilot” episode.
These courses cover “scripted” shows, as opposed to reality TV.
Upcoming Classes
Syllabus
This course teaches you the fundamentals of writing a TV pilot script for an original series, sharpens your TV writing skills, and helps you begin to develop a TV pilot.
Lectures
Writing exercises
Workshopping of student projects (each student presenting work two times)
New York City/Zoom classes
The syllabus varies from teacher to teacher, term to term. Many topics will be similar to those covered in the Online classes.
Online classes
Week 1
Series Concept: TV today. Finding the seed idea for a series. Consistency of a series. What a series needs in terms of the major elements—type, premise, episodes (self-contained/serialized, storylines, signatures), characters, setting, tone, secret theme. Originality.
Week 2
Pilot Episode Conception: Pilot explained. Kinds of pilot episodes. How a pilot embodies all the elements of a series—type, premise, episodes, characters, setting, tone, secret theme.
Week 3
Pilot Episode Outline: Review of acts and act outs. Effective prose and step outlines for pilots. Outlining tips.
Week 4
Stories: Finding the show's central source of conflict. Generating numerous stories from that conflict. Embodying the conflict in the pilot storylines.
Week 5
The Regulars: Creating the series regulars—personality, dimension, background. Delivering strong first impressions of regulars in the pilot.
Week 6
Good Pages: Description. Dialogue. Scenes. Effective pilot openings.
Week 7
Enticers: Techniques for using mystery, suspense, and surprise in your pilot, and beyond.
Week 8
Setting/Tone: Setting—sets, environment, geographic location, socio-economic status. Setting reflected in pilot. Tone—calibrating the light/dark and real/surreal of a series. Other methods of finding tone.
Week 9
Signature/Secret Theme: Exploring “signatures" and finding the right one for a show. Finding and incorporating secret theme.
Week 10
Selling Your Series (and Self): Writing samples. Getting in the door. Networks/studios/production companies. How to pitch a series. Deals. The road to production. The yearly cycle. Web series.
Note: Content may vary among individual classes.
