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 [...]

*Spoiler alert: the endings to several popular movies are revealed in this article. Revealing the End at the Beginning Sometimes you want to reveal the ending at the beginning then explain the story through flashback.  This is a favourite temptation with rookie writers who try to resolve their story issues by putting the ending up [...]

Everything you put in your script contributes to tone.  Tone is the mood or feeling the audience gets from the show that underscores your overall message, giving your show a distinctive voice. Every show has a tone, but some are stronger than others.  The ones with a weaker voice are more or less ‘cookie cutter’ shows: the characters are a [...]

Yesterday, I talked mostly about humour that comes from pain; either pain in others or pain in self.  It also comes from truth.  The writers of Frasier (and Cheers) are brilliant at comedy so I’m mostly going to refer to it in examples.  Below are examples of verbal comedic devices used most often in this [...]