What shows should you spec? Shows you love to watch A show that’s been around 1-2 seasons but expected to last Highly-rated, critically acclaimed shows Episodic shows One half-hour comedy and one procedural Not the show you want to write for That’s the simple answer. You should always write something you love to watch because [...]

ONE. That’s the simple answer.  A show like Entourage for example, it really does have three “acts” like any story, but if you get your hands on a script, you’ll see it’s written in standard screenplay format like a feature, not like a sitcom.  It has no act breaks because it airs for the full [...]

By now you have the series act breaks, story lines and story arc.  You’re not done yet!  You need to break down each act into scenes and note what happens when.  If you’re thinking, “I already noted what happens when while looking at the story arc”, you may have noted the major plot points for [...]

You’ve broken down the skeleton or act structure and figured out the story lines so now you have to map out what happens in each act for each story line.  This is the story arc. Story arc is simply knowing where your story is going and how it maps out over the course of the [...]

So now you’ve got your series act breaks down.  Your skeleton is there.  Now you have to determine how many story lines are in an episode. What is a story line? A story line is a self-contained story that follows the relationship between two or more people dealing with a single problem, likely to be [...]