The TV Writer's Workbook: A Creative Approach To Television Scripts by Ellen San

Description: The TV Writer's Workbook by Ellen Sandler Here is the first hands-on how-to book for aspiring television writers, with in-depth exercises and substantive advice from an Emmy-nominated TV writer. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description From one of the most accomplished writer/producers in television today, comes the first hands-on guide for aspiring sitcom and drama writers, with in-depth exercises and techniques that takes their ideas from first germ of concept all the way to finished script and pitch.Why is TV writing different from any other kind of writing? How will writing a spec script open doors? What do I have to do to get a job writing for TV? Writing for television is a business. And, like any business, there are proven strategies for success. In this unique hands-on guide, television writer and producer Ellen Sandler shares the trade secrets she learned while writing for hit shows like Everybody Loves Raymond and Coach. She offers concrete advice on everything from finding a story to getting hired on a current series.Filled with easy-to-implement exercises and practical wisdom, this ingenious how-to handbook outlines the steps for becoming a professional TV writer, starting with a winning script. Sandler explains the difference between "selling" and "telling," form and formula, theme and plot.Discover-. A technique for breaking down a show style so youre as close to being in the writing room as you can get without actually having a job there. The 3 elements for that essential Concept Line that you must havein order to create a story with passion and consequence. Mining the 7 Deadly Sins for fresh and original story lines. Sample scripts from hit shows. In-depth graphs, script breakdown charts, vital checkpointsalong the way, and much, much more! Author Biography Ellen Sandler has over twenty years of experience in the TV writing business. She was Co-Executive Producer and writer on the Emmy-winning hit series Everybody Loves Raymond, and has written for over 25 prime-time network television series, including Taxi, Kate and Allie, and Coach. She is a highly-regarded script consultant, and in addition to her Television Writing workshops in LA and NYC, is a frequent featured speaker at schools and universities across the country. Excerpt from Book The Spec Script No one (I hope) watches television all the time, but everyone watches it sometimes. Television is pervasive and common, in the sense of communal, familiar, and available to all. Television establishes our ethical, moral, social, and, God knows, material boundaries more than any other factor in modern life. More than the movies, more than politics--no wonder you want to write for it. Its powerful! Because it is common, television is often dismissed as insignificant, unworthy of respect or care. Because it is pervasive it is voracious--television needs material, and it reproduces like an amoeba, constantly dividing and replicating itself to fill the continuing void. Television needs more, and it needs it now. Thats where you come in. Your job as a writer is to supply it with content. This leads to fast, which leads to sloppy, which leads to formulaic, writing. "Its not brain surgery," youll often hear people in the industry say about working in TV. As a way to deflate self-importance, its a perfectly good sentiment, but resist the impulse to use it as an excuse to lower standards; because in a way, when you create for TV you are doing a kind of brain surgery. You are shaping peoples perceptions, and affecting their reality. A career as a writer in Hollywood begins with excellent writing (excellent by commercial standards--well get into that in a minute). After that its about persistence, tenacity, and some luck, though less than you might think. These are not secrets. Everybody knows the rules. The secret is committing to them. Thats what makes a career happen. In order to write for TV, you must get a job. In order to get a job, you must have material to show that you can write. Usually that will be a spec script. What Is a Spec Script? A television spec script is an unsolicited, original episode written for an established TV show. No money, no contract, no guarantees. In all likelihood, a spec script will never be sold or produced. What it will be is READ. Thats what you write it for: to be read by as many people connected to show business as you can get it to. Everyone counts. You never know who knows someone who knows someone. There are two different kinds of spec scripts, one for TV and one for film. You write a spec screenplay when you are not established enough to get a deal to write a screenplay based on a pitch. You write a spec screenplay and hold on to the dream that a studio will pay you for the rights to make it into a movie. Or, more likely, pay you for the rights to change it completely and never make it into a movie, but at least you get a check. You can sell a spec screenplay. A television spec script is different. You dont write a TV spec with the expectation of selling it to the show. It could happen, it has happened--its Hollywood, everything happens once or twice--and if it happens to you, great! Call your lawyer and make sure youre protected on the back end. (Not as sexy as it sounds, but even more exciting; see Showbiz Meanings for Regular Words: A Selective Glossary.) But whats much more likely, and therefore what well be talking about in this book, is that youll write a spec TV episode to prove that you can do the work. Its a writing sample, a portfolio piece. In film, people are looking for a script, but in TV they are looking for a writer. Why Write for TV? I teach scriptwriting classes and when I ask students why they want to write a spec script, I usually get an answer like, "Its fun." Well, thats great, but that wont get you to the end of your script because a lot about writing isnt so much fun. A lot of it is frustrating, confusing, and downright hard. So they think about it and I hear, "To tell a story" or "To make people laugh." Ive even heard, "Because I really, really, really want to." All of those are good reasons to write something, but not necessarily a TV spec script. The only reason to write a television episodic spec script is: money. When I teach, I usually draw a big $ on the whiteboard and everybody laughs. I suppose because thats what they were really thinking but were afraid to say. Or maybe they were even afraid to think it. Maybe they feel its not a worthy reason to write. But the truth is that television is a commercial medium and you write it for money. Theres a story about George Bernard Shaw, who in the 30s came to Hollywood for a meeting with Samuel Goldwyn, the head of MGM. Goldwyn wanted the rights to Shaws plays, but, naturally, wanted to pay as little as possible for them. Goldwyn went on and on about what a genius Shaw was, how much he admired his plays, what a great artist he was, and how he, Goldwyn, was also a great artist and that he, in fact, would rather make a great artistic picture than eat a good meal. Shaw finally got up, thanked Goldwyn for the meeting, but respectfully declined to sell him the rights. Goldwyn was stunned: "Why not?" Shaw replied, "The trouble, sir, is that you are interested only in art, while I am interested only in money." Form Versus Formula What writing for money means is that when you sit down to write you have to follow the rules. By rules, I dont mean formula--formula is what makes a writer a hack, and leads to predictable, dull scripts that nobody wants to read past page 8. However, there is form--quite a different thing. Television scripts have a specific form, and you must follow it. It doesnt matter if you think you know how to do it better or funnier than whats on the air. Thats not your job when youre writing a spec script. Your job is to do it exactly the way its done and still be original. If you follow the rules without originality, your work will be okay but it will not distinguish itself as special. Yes, youre writing for money, but you are not writing only for money. You must also put some art into your commercial product. Its very unlikely that youll ever get to write for money if you dont put something of yourself into your script. The richest, most successful television writers I know have all written commercially savvy products from a personal point of view. Creative with the form? No. Creative with the content? Yes. On any given day on any given readers desk (or more likely, on the floor) there are going to be three piles of scripts. The piles will look like this: Pile A, the smallest one, will be, as you probably guessed, the good scripts. The ones with a story we care about, dialogue that jumps up off the page, something very special thats worth noting. These are the scripts that will get passed along with "Recommend" written on the coverage form. Pile C will be the hopelessly bad scripts--handwritten, incorrectly formatted, offensive, plagiarized, and so forth. And Pile B, the one that rises endlessly to the ceiling? That is what I call the Big Pile of Okay. Scripts that look like scripts, read like scripts, and might even have some pretty good laughs. Theres nothing really wrong with them, but theres nothing really right with them either. This, in my experience of reading scripts (Ive read thousands, honestly), and in the experience of everyone else I know who reads scripts for a living, is the category that the vast majority of scripts fall into. I dont think I need to tell you where these scripts are going; suffice to say they are not going on to anyone elses desk. Once, in an agents waiting room, I picked up a scratch pad to make a note. As I tore off a page, I saw that the back had printing in the distinctive Courier font on it. These were lines of dialogue! This agent had scripts cut up and made into memo pads! You know those scripts came from Pile B. But the good news is that many of these okay scripts could be turned into A scripts with significant commitment to the writing process. Or maybe thats the bad news; I guess it is, if you thought writing for TV was going to be easy. The exercises in this book are tools to guide you in following the form and infusing it with your own original creative force. That will get you from the Big Pile of Okay to Recommend. And if you can do that, you can probably get paid to write TV. What Show Should You Spec? Write a show you love to watch. That, in my opinion, is the single most important factor in choosing a show to write. Dont write a spec of a show you dont like, even if someone in the industry has told you its the hot show to write.* When you get to pick, and your spec may be the only time you have that opportunity, by all means be picky. Only write a show that you relate to, a show you like to watch, with characters you care about. That is first and foremost--but its not the only criterion. Here are three other factors to keep in mind when choosing a show to write for. 1. The show must be on the air now This is a rule. Dont write a Friends spec, even if you saw every episode and you have the greatest idea for a Rachel story ever. Anything that is off the air is an old show, even if it went off yesterday and the reruns are playing every day. Theres a story thats been circulating around Holly-wood for years--you may have heard it--about somebody who wrote a great episode of the old Dick Van Dyke Show and people thought it was so gutsy and original that the writer got a lot of interest. First of all, I dont believe that really happened--I believe someone did it, I just dont believe it got them work--and secondly, if it is true, then its been done and no longer has any value as a gutsy or Details ISBN0385340508 Author Ellen Sandler Short Title TV WRITERS WORKBK Language English ISBN-10 0385340508 ISBN-13 9780385340502 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 808.225 Illustrations Yes Year 2007 Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States DOI 10.1604/9780385340502 UK Release Date 2007-03-27 AU Release Date 2007-03-27 NZ Release Date 2007-03-27 US Release Date 2007-03-27 Pages 304 Publisher Random House USA Inc Publication Date 2007-03-27 Imprint Random House Inc Subtitle A Creative Approach To Television Scripts Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! 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