When starting out as in TV writing, there are a lot of choices to make and a lot of freedom to choose among them. Too much freedom.
Looking at everything you can possibly write about is completely daunting in the worst way.
It can paralyze you and make you stop everything and say FUCK IT! I'm not gonna write anything.
So, let's avoid that "fuck it" mentality.
Instead, let's look at the easy choices you can make regarding your yet-to-be-written pilot, and the pros and cons behind each of your big decisions. That way, you can narrow things down and at least have a smaller field of choices to choose from.
So, instead of banging your head against a wall or biting through a pencil (as in this weird stock photo), you'll at least be able to start your script and THEN get to your procrastination phase.
Here's the first thing you have to decide...
When it comes to TV writing, do you want to write comedy or drama?
I already know the answer. "I want to do both!" Or "I prefer writing dramedies." That's fine. You can explore that in the future.
And whatever you decide to write can certainly have both dramatic and comedic elements. But there's a much more practical choice being made here that a lot of up-and-comers in TV writing don't understand.
Even though TV these days are all sorts of lengths, and even though dramas like The Bear can win a Best Comedy Emmy, the powers that be are still stuck in their old school ways.
And old school ways dictate that comedies are half-hours and dramas are hour-long.
Therefore, even if you want to write a dramedy, you need to decide which direction your dramedy veers.
Does it lean more heavily dramatic, or does it lean more heavily comedic?
Also, what do you feel more comfortable writing?
When I was first starting out, the idea of writing a 30-minute script seemed daunting. Now try a 60-minute script! That seemed crazy! Eventually I got there. But a 30-page script is a much easier endeavor.
So, take a minute and think about where your sensibilities lie by answering the following questions. These will be unfair, but they might help illuminate something for you...
Do you feel the need to create complex storylines or to create fun, witty dialogue?
Do you prefer creating a big backstory to your world and characters or do you like dropping your reader right into the world you've created?
What are your favorite TV shows - drama or comedy?
These are purposefully unfair questions and are just meant to lead you one way or another. If you answer the first option for any of these, you'll probably fit into drama a bit more.
Now, the eventual writers' rooms you'll be in will be very different depending on if you're in a drama room or a comedy room.
A drama room is more serious. It's not all about making the room laugh. Comedy rooms are hilarious, but also extremely difficult.
Everybody is an insecure comedian and nobody really knows what's funny and what's not. What that leads to is a group of writers who are scared for their jobs and they know everyone else is out to get them. Paranoia and insecurity runs deep.
All of these things are good to keep in mind if you still haven't decided whether comedy or drama is right for you.
Network TV writing vs. Cable/Streaming TV Writing
Even within the same comedy or drama genre, there are many different styles of TV. But broadly these can be broken into network and cable/streaming.
Even though there's every type of television show everywhere now, this all comes back to the powers that be, and how they can classify you. So, let's break it down because it may give you some ideas for where you want your writing to guide you.
Network comedies have big, hard jokes and are broad. These are shows meant for the masses like The Office or The Big Bang Theory. That doesn't mean they're bad (Big Bang is, but still). It just means that they appeal to a wide audience. They're pretty clean cut - no cursing. They are packed with jokes. In fact, traditionally, showrunners would look for three jokes per page from a comedy sample.
Cable/Streaming comedies, on the other hand, are much more specific. Think about Atlanta, or Archer, or Our Flag Means Death. These are shows you wouldn't expect to see on CBS because they're either a little weird, they curse, they're violent, or any other reason. Basically, they don't appeal to a wide audience in the same way a traditional sitcom does.
There are similar differences on the drama side.
Though the network drama world has gotten so specific that you can pretty much place them all under the header "procedural."
These are shows like Law & Order, or 9-1-1. Shows that have a case of the week, and characters that don't really change too much season over season. The cable/streaming world is taking care of all the rest of the types of drama on TV.
So, now that we know what it means to work in comedy or drama, and that there's a difference between "network"-style scripts and "cable/streaming"-style scripts, let's took at the last factor to consider when picking what type of script you want to write.
What type of TV shows do you like watching?
This question seems kind of obvious. But it's an important one regardless because of what it will mean for your future.
No matter what type of script you're going to write, it's going to be important to research the structure of shows like it. If you want to write a cable drama, Breaking Bad would be a great place to start.
Do you like Breaking Bad or shows like it? Do you like it enough to watch the pilot and read the pilot scripts? Do you like it enough to break out the structure of it and analyze the pilot to see the characters turns they made?
This is the type of analysis that will be needed when jumping into a specific type of script. Therefore, it's a MUST that you actually like to watch and study the type of script you want to write.
Lastly, choose wrong
It's really hard to start writing. So, don't think too hard about it.
Choose one and move forward. It's far more important just to start your writing journey than agonizing over which is the perfectly correct script to write.
Merely starting and writing that first page will separate you by miles from the tons of "writers" who have never written a thing. So, take the wrong step as long as it's a first step.
