TV Scripts
If you put a stage play and a screenplay in a blender, and you put it on high speed, you’ll get a TV Script. Some television shows are very similar to movies (these are also called one-camera TV shows), in that they jump through space and time, through multiple scene locations, and have special effects. Others are more like stage plays (these are called three-camera TV shows), in that they are filmed in very few locations, usually in front of a studio audience.
The great thing about writing for television is that there are so many choices. You can write an hour-long drama, sci-fi, or mystery show. You can write a 30-minute sit-com or cartoon. You can even write a script for a new episode of your favorite existing TV show. And television plots are usually a lot less involved than those of most movies, plays, and comic books. Though your characters are usually going after something that they want in each episode—whether it is solving a crime, or getting a date—it is usually not life-changing! As a matter a fact, you don’t want your characters to change very much at all. The reason people keep watching a certain show is because they love the characters just the way they are. You might want your protagonist's ultimate goal to be more life-changing than getting a date—like saving the world from evil vampires—but if he or she does this in the first episode then you’ll have nothing to write about in the next.
Writing for the small screen does have its challenges. Television shows have a lot of dialogue, and this is especially true for three-camera shows that are shot in very few locations without a lot of props or special effects. Without suspense, action, and fancy effects, you’ll have to move the story forward and keep your audience's attention using dialogue. That means that not only will you have to write a lot of dialogue, you’ll have to write a lot of really witty and quick dialogue to keep people watching.
But don’t be discouraged. If you're like a lot of people, you already know a lot about television from watching it. And if you choose to write a TV script, you’ll have the perfect excuse to watch even more television: for research purposes!
To read more about writing a TV script, check out Intro to Writing for Television in our Writer’s Resources section.
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