by Linda Venis
INSIDE the ROOM
INSIDE
the
ROOM
WRITING TV with the PROS at
UCLA EXTENSION WRITERS’ PROGRAM
Edited by Linda Venis, Director, UCLA Extension
Department of the Arts and Writers’ Program
GOTHAM BOOKS
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Copyright © 2013 by Linda Venis
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Inside the room : writing TV with the pros at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program / edited by Linda Venis, Director, UCLA Extension Department of the Arts and Writers’ Program.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN: 978-0-698-13837-7
1. Television authorship—Vocational guidance. I. Venis, Linda editor of compilation.
II. UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.
PN1992.7.I525 2013
808.2’25—dc23 2013004221
Designed by Spring Hoteling
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction by Linda Venis
SECTION I
Writing Your One-Hour Television Drama Specs and Pilots
1. Writing the On-Air One-Hour Drama Spec: The Story and Outline by Joel Anderson Thompson
2. Writing the On-Air One-Hour Drama Spec: The Script by Charlie Craig
3. Writing the One-Hour Drama Pilot by Richard Manning
4. Revising One-Hour Drama Specs and Pilots by Matt Witten
SECTION II
Writing Your Half-Hour Television Comedy Specs and Pilots
5. Writing the On-Air Half-Hour Comedy Spec: The Story and Outline by Julie Chambers and David Chambers
6. Writing the On-Air Half-Hour Comedy Spec: The Script by Julie Chambers and David Chambers
7. Writing the Half-Hour Comedy Pilot by Phil Kellard
8. Sitcom Master Class: Creating Comedy Through Character by David Isaacs
SECTION III
Being a Professional in the Television Business
9. Launching and Sustaining a Television Writing Career by Alison Lea Bingeman
10. The TV Year by Richard Hatem
About the Editor and Contributors
Index
To Laura
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Inside the Room: Writing TV with the Pros at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and its “companion” book, Cut to the Chase: Writing Feature Films with the Pros at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, grew out of creating and refining Writers’ Program’s film and television writing curriculum, in close collaboration with its instructors and staff, for more than two decades. My sincere hope is that these books appropriately thank and honor the expertise, generosity, and contributions of all of the Program’s screenwriting and creative-writing teachers and staff members—past, present, and future. I have assigned all royalties over to UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.
Foremost gratitude goes to Cindy Lieberman, Program Manager of the Writers’ Program, my right-hand person, colleague, and friend who has been Inside the Room’s and Cut to the Chase’s most meticulous and dedicated reader. Special appreciation goes to Program Representative in Screenwriting Chae Ko for his helpful comments on every chapter; to Assistant to the Director Carla Janas for her abiding support; and to UCLA Extension Interim Dean Michelle Stiles, whose work on the highest administrative level of this project helped bring it to fruition.
I am indebted to and in awe of four screenwriters whom I call, for lack of a more elegant term, the books’ “core authors”: Writers’ Program instructors Cindy Davis, David Isaacs (now at USC), Steve Mazur, and Billy Mernit. This dream team provided invaluable feedback on the books’ content and organization, contributed spectacular sample chapters, and maintained a steadfast commitment to this project that is humbling. My gratitude also goes to the Editorial Board, whose constructive advice and insights, generously rendered, made every chapter better.
Thank you to my agent, Betsy Amster (Betsy Amster Literary Enterprises); Gotham Books/Penguin Group (USA) Executive Editor Lauren Marino; and Emily D. Wunderlich, Susan M. Barnes, and Aja Pollock of Penguin Group for their belief in and support of Inside the Room and Cut to the Chase. That my name would appear on the same page as the Penguin logo is amazing to me.
To my precious late parents, Grace Bullock Miller and Ashton and Dona Venis; to my “I’m so lucky I married into it” family Leona Berg Town, Alec Berg, and Maggie Trinh; to my dear friends David Bushnell and Karla Klarin; to my incomparable husband, Gary Berg; and last but never, ever, least: to my daughter Laura Berg, the gift of a lifetime: thank you.
INTRODUCTION
by Linda Venis
Welcome to Inside the Room: Writing TV with the Pros at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program—the first-of-its-kind book on how to write on-air and original dramas and comedies and how to launch and sustain a TV writing career. Based on the renowned UCLA Extension Writers’ Program’s TV-writing curriculum and written by some of its most talented writer-teachers, it takes you, as the title promises, “inside the room.”
Which means what, exactly? On the most basic and important level, “inside the room” refers to a literal room: a room full of writers (i.e., the writers’ room) who work as a team to write and rewrite, often line by line, the shows we watch every week. This is a key fact about TV writing, and one that many people outside the industry don’t know: It is a highly collaborative medium, not the domain of the individual artist. And when everything is clicking in the room, scripts are made stronger by creative input from all the writers congregated in that single space.
The Pros Take You Inside Writing for TV
Inside the Room embodies a similarly rich and collaborative spirit. Ten working TV writers have come together “in the room” of this book to teach you the kinds of lessons in the craft and business of television writing that have, until now, only been available in UCLA Extension on-site and online classrooms.
Reflecting a scope of professional experience that no single author can possibly duplicate, Inside the Room’s contributors collectively have had hundreds of hours of television episodes and pilots produced. Their credits include House M.D., CSI: Miami, Battlestar Galactica, Pretty Little Liars, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Simpsons, The Wonder Years, Cheers, and Frasier. They have won Emmys and Writers Guild Awards. They have been producers, supervising producers, consulting producers, and showrunners (Medium, Mad Men, The Glades, The X-Files, and The Wayans Bros., among many others). They have created series (ABC/Touchstone’s Miracles and Paramount TV’s Almost Perfect). They are, in short, the real deal.
Insi
de the Room Brings You into the TV Community
There is a second layer of meaning that “inside the room” has for writers—particularly at the beginning of their careers. When they have the chance to hammer out scripts with a group of creative, talented peers, their own skills improve dramatically. Just as importantly, they learn that collaboration is vital to professional survival; as Alison Lea Bingeman puts it, “Knowing how to be an effective member of a writing staff is critical to your success as a writer in television.”
In my many years as director of Writers’ Program, I’ve had thousands of interactions with those very special professional writers willing to pass along their hard-earned knowledge to our students, and I’ve seen their facility for collaboration in action. At instructor retreats, they excel at being creative in a group; when they judge the UCLA Extension Television Writing Competition, they are expert in the art of give-and-take. And in particular, when they teach, they often conduct their classes as modified writers’ rooms, in which students learn to break stories together, bounce jokes off one another, and offer feedback to their fellow “staff writers”/classmates. They listen respectfully, guide students to their best ideas, and chime in when helpful—thus modeling skills central to a successful TV writing career.
The same spirit infuses Inside the Room: Its contributors do a remarkable job of replicating—as much as prose alone allows—these lessons. Every chapter contains its own versions, its own permutations, of how to write well and work successfully in this community. If you tune in to this aspect of the book, you’ll gain a whole new level of insight from it.
Writers’ Program Success Stories: Who’s “in the Room”
The phrase “inside the room” has a final meaning: It’s a metaphor for being an insider in an elite, high-paying, high-stakes industry. As Joel Anderson Thompson puts it, new writers are “on the outside, trying to join the club.”
To inspire you as you make your way through Inside the Room, here’s a sampling of writers who studied TV writing with the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. Their talent, passion, dedication, and training helped them get inside the room:
Tucker Cawley (Parks and Recreation, Everybody Loves Raymond); Zoanne Clack (Grey’s Anatomy, ER); Lee Eisenberg (The Office); Doug Ellin (creator, Entourage); Al Gough and Miles Millar (Smallville); Drew Z. Greenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dexter); Alexa Junge (United States of Tara, Big Love, Friends); Melissa Rosenberg (Dexter); Kevin Williamson (creator, Dawson’s Creek, The Following; writer/executive producer, The Vampire Diaries); and Ellen Byron, a staff writer and/or producer on twelve half-hour comedies, including Just Shoot Me! and Wings, who says of her training, “The caliber of the teachers and courses is stupendous. I can’t imagine a better writing program in the country.”
How to Use This Book and Get the Most out of It
Inside the Room is designed for writers at various levels to dip into and use according to their abilities and goals. Each chapter stands on its own as a resource for beginning and experienced TV writers alike.
There is only one “rule” I’d strongly suggest you follow: If you have never had any experience or instruction in writing for television, first devour the chapters that cover how to write on-air dramas and sitcoms, starting with the all-important story and outline. The almost 100 percent irrefutable answer to the question “How do I write for TV?” is by learning how to mimic the stories, characters, and style of an existing show. Doing so helps you understand the elements of how and why a successful show ticks—knowledge you need to sell scripts for existing shows and pilots. This is what we tell aspiring TV writers who contact Writers’ Program from all over the world.
If you’re a first-time one-hour-drama writer, Joel Anderson Thompson (chapter 1, “Writing the On-Air One-Hour Drama Spec: The Story and Outline”) is your initial mentor. He tells you, “I promise not to tell anyone. You’ll feel better once you admit it. You love TV,” and then teaches you how to capture a show’s stories, characters, plots, settings, tone, and style; work within specific television time slots, outlets, and genres; and come up with an outline—the all-important blueprint for an on-air drama. With a solid outline in hand, Charlie Craig (chapter 2, “Writing the On-Air One-Hour Drama Spec: The Script”) assures you that “writing a script is actually fun—but it’s a process.” He then helps you refine your stories and make characters and plots come alive, and shows you how to maximize the power of each and every scene.
If you’re a new sitcom writer, Julie Chambers and David Chambers (chapter 5, “Writing the On-Air Half-Hour Comedy Spec: The Story and Outline”) take you through a step-by-step process to brainstorm ideas, develop stories (and complicate them!), and create a beat sheet and outline. In chapter 6 (“Writing the On-Air Half-Hour Comedy Spec: The Script”), they show you how to write and rewrite your script, learn to think in screen time, nail the essence of the characters, put in great jokes, and make act breaks pop.
Once you’ve fulfilled the basic TV writing requirements, you are ready to use Inside the Room as your “personal trainer.” Flexible, versatile, and grounded in practical experience, this book helps you focus on your individual writing goals.
Of course, all TV writers, no matter how seasoned, need at least one original pilot in their portfolio. In chapter 3 (“Writing the One-Hour Drama Pilot”), Richard Manning says, “Be unique. Be bold. Be passionate. Be original. Above all, be yourself,” and helps you discover how to tap into your one-hour drama “TV taste,” choose a subject, develop a solid franchise, and create fresh characters. In chapter 7 (“Writing the Half-Hour Comedy Pilot”), Phil Kellard lays out how to write a sitcom pilot that conveys “your voice, your brand of humor, and your sensibility” and gives you suggestions for coming up with a Big Idea that can be sustained for one hundred episodes; for creating a cast of funny, memorable characters; and for pitching with style.
As you focus on improving your scripts, be they for on-air shows or pilots, Inside the Room provides you with more pro tips and strategies. In chapter 4 (“Revising One-Hour Drama Specs and Pilots”), Matt Witten begins by telling you that if you’re ambitious enough to finish a spec or pilot, you should “take a moment to pat yourself on the back.” He then hands you twenty-seven proven tools for rewriting it: six to prep yourself for the process of rewriting, and twenty-one nitty-gritty suggestions to get it done thoroughly and successfully. “Character rules” is the mantra of chapter 8 (“Sitcom Master Class: Creating Comedy through Character”), in which David Isaacs explores how character drives the story, conflict, and theme of the best half-hour comedies and shares his techniques for creating captivating and relatable comedic characters.
As every chapter in Inside the Room reiterates, the best of TV writing is a creative triumph (think Modern Family; think Mad Men), but within the overarching context that it is a business. Your scripts are products; they have a “shelf life” that expires quickly after a show goes off the air. When you write a sample script for an existing show, it’s crucial to “think inside the box” in order to demonstrate that you understand the show’s dictates. And while the pilot you conjure up from your own imagination demands a fresh perspective, “your task as a television pilot writer,” as Richard Manning puts it, “is not to create something utterly unlike anything anyone’s ever seen.”
Which brings us to Inside the Room’s singular chapters on the business of television writing. In chapter 9 (“Launching and Sustaining a Television Writing Career”), Alison Lea Bingeman gives you a mother lode of tips on branding yourself, building a portfolio of the right kinds of specs and pilots, networking, getting jobs that give you a leg up in the business, managing representation, and the necessity of loving what you do. In the final chapter, Richard Hatem provides an unprecedented glimpse into “The TV Year”: an intimate and sometimes hilarious look inside the process of creating, selling, and getting a fictional (yet so real!) TV show made.
Bon Voyage and Good Luck!
Whatever phase you are at in
your journey from TV fan to TV writer, my sincere hope is that Inside the Room’s practical tools, tips, strategies, insider advice, reality checks, and business savvy will make it easier, faster, and better informed. The first step to joining the amazing community of TV writers is to write, and you’re now on your way!
CHAPTER 1
Writing the On-Air One-Hour Drama Spec: The Story and Outline
by Joel Anderson Thompson
I promise not to tell anyone. You’ll feel better once you admit it. You love TV. For richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, TV has always been there for you to make you laugh, cry, and sometimes, dare I say, even think. No doubt it was love at first sight. Yet it’s now become far more than that. Being a fan standing on the sidelines doesn’t cut it anymore. You’re here and hungry because you want in on the game.
How Do You Become a TV Writer?
Television writers come from everywhere and have diverse backgrounds. However, there is one common thread among 99.9 percent of them: They wrote scripts for on-air shows for free as part of their goal of writing TV professionally. These noncompensated scripts, based on the characters, structure, setting, tone, style, and format of an existing show, are called “spec scripts,” written with the hope or “speculation” that they will eventually be bought or lead to other paid writing assignments. In addition, the term spec can be used as a verb (“I’m going to spec a script”) or as a noun (“The competition is accepting specs”). The takeaway is that a well-executed spec script can open many doors because it proves to agents, managers, and/or producers that a writer can mimic a given show and therefore is in command of the form.
