It's very difficult to get networks or producers to look at an original TV series proposal unless you already have a track record in TV, but occasionally there are contests for new series proposals, called "bibles."
If you're interested, this article at nofilmschool.com is the best model I've found and it includes a template you can use. Good luck!
https://nofilmschool.com/how-write-tv-show-bible-free-template
Good luck!
There are some scenes in movies that are cliches, or too improbable, or just plain silly. Here are ten to avoid:
At the moment our stories about what is normal are in disarray. It doesn't seem normal not to hug your friends, not to be able to go to the movies, not to be within six feet of people in a store without a mask. The stories we tell ourselves about progress and goals and what's important have been shaken up.
The silver lining is that when old stories are questioned, there's room for new stories to emerge. It seems to me what is needed now is stories that promote healing.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes, in Stories as Medicine, "Stories, particularly healing stories, depend on the amount of self--the gristle, blood, and bone--that the teller is willing to put into them. Not all story is medicine. Generally, a story is not medicine unless it has caused the teller to laugh or to weep."
The teller, not just the listener. In other words, the story has to come from your heart. That doesn't mean it has to be a heavy drama; Groundhog Day and Tootsie are two examples from comedy.
EXAMPLE: HEALING AT MIDLIFE
In Fairy Tales and the Psychology of Men and Women at Midlife, Allan B. Chinen writes, "Before newspapers, radio, or television, fairy tales and folk tales were the only mass media, providing news, commentary, humor and entertainment. Storytellers put insights about their lives and the human condition into their stories. Many dealt specifically with characters in the middle third of life."
He notes, "Mid-life stories emphasize the importance of dealing with life as we find it, not as we imagine or hope it to be. These tales highlight an important point: that growth is possible in the middle years, no matter what kind of childhood one has had."
YOU ARE THE NEW MYTH-MAKER
If you write for TV and movies you are one of the myth-makers now.
Of course, traditionally a lot of commercial television has been treated as the placeholder between the commercials that sell us bogus stories, for instance, if we use shampoo X we'll have a great love life.
A lot of movies are near-duplicates of each other, seeing how many sequels the producers can crank out before we tire of that story.
However, there have always been exceptions and with all the additional outlets available now there's more room than ever before for a wider range of stories--including the one you feel the strong need to tell.
STORIES, NOT SERMONS
While your story has a theme, the screenwriter's or novelist's job isn't to propagandize, it's to say, "Here's an authentic story." Then it's up to the reader or viewer to decide what if means to them and whether there's anything in it they can use.
THERE'S A BONUS!
I've always found when I've written about a subject close to my heart, it's been therapeutic for me, as well. That's the bonus you get when you write a healing story--at the very least, it helps heal you.
As I write this, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the near-term future of film and TV production. What is certain is that for at least the next year, productions will have to adjust. What does this mean for screenwriters?
We are all experiencing that ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." It's not easy, but it's up to us to make the most of the challenges.
Dana Terrace had an idea for an animated magical comedy-horror TV series. She told the LA Times, "I was working with someone at that time who kept discouraging me from working on it."
Her colleague called it a dumb idea.
Named "The Owl House," it has already been renewed by Disney for a second series before the first one has even aired.
Terrace says one of the things that motivated her was proving that former colleague wrong. It wasn't the first time she was out of step. She says, "When I was a kid, and I think a lot of kids feel like this--especially if you're artsy or creative or have any kind of offbeat hobby--you feel a little left out."
I'd add that this still is true for a lot of adults.
However, often it's the oddballs who come up with breakthrough ideas. You know, the kind that are called dumb before they catch on.
Naturally, sometimes a "dumb idea" actually is dumb, but if you believe in yours, stick with it--as Dana Terrace has proved, it can pay off.
"The Owl House" (Disney Channel)
The web is full of good advice. It's also full of bad advice.
Here's some bad screenwriting advice:
"Quite frankly, Hollywood people don't like to read; the first time they see so much as a simple metaphor in your scene description, their eyes are likely to glaze over in incomprehension and they'll slap your front cover down with a definitive 'nope.'"
That's in a book of essays giving writing advice and it's totally wrong. The first person your script will encounter is somebody who reads a lot of scripts and is grateful when they find one that's enjoyable to read. A fitting metaphor or simile can help make the images come alive, as shown by these two examples from the screenplay for Fargo, by the Coen brothers:
"A car bursts through the curtain of snow..."
"She screams, staring at her own imprisoned wrist..."
Illustrating a sense of style and humour in descriptions, this is from the screenplay for The Favourite, by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara:
"ABIGAL, an open, friendly innocent woman is crushed to the side [of the carriage]. She clutches a dirty purse and a letter in her hands. Two kids, snot streaming from their noses, cough TB into the air."
Here's an example in a character description, from The Imitation Game, by Graham Moore--it's not a metaphor or simile but it's the kind of thing that the "only the actable facts!" absolutists object to:
"DETECTIVE ROBERT NOCK, 40's, athletic, more interested in football than in being a detective, hustles past a few double-parked police cars..."
Finally, this example from Logan, screenplay by Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green:
"Logan cruises the wet El Paso streets. LCD Billboards for chemically enhanced life. Gang graffiti on self-driving buses. A kaleidoscope of moments, dark and mundane."
I doubt anybody slapped down the front covers of these screenplays with a definitive 'nope' and I feel sorry for any aspiring screenwriters who buy into the idea that employing a well-chosen metaphor is a prescription for failure in Hollywood.
Probably the best strategy for spotting dodgy advice is to keep your eyes open for absolutes. When you see phrases like, "If your screenplay is one page longer than 120...," or "If your script contains even one metaphor..." you're probably looking at bad advice.
When I was a student of Danny Simon (Neil's brother and a very successful TV writer) one of his maxims was, "Don't go for the joke!"
This may seem like strange advice from a comedy writer, but what he meant was that you should stay true to the situation and the characters. If you have them say or do something they wouldn't logically do, you're sacrificing them for the sake of a joke. If you do that a lot, you end up with characters nobody believes. A high price to pay for a cheap laugh.
I was reminded of this the other day when I watched a few minutes of a US TV series called 911. It's on the Fox network, which says, "The show draws from real-life, high-pressure experiences of first responders who regularly face heart-stopping situations that are often unpredictable, intense, and uplifting at the same time."
One of the situations was an old guy who was working on an old car that somehow sucked his head, or maybe just his beard, into the innards of the engine. A woman who may have been his wife or daughter calls 911 and says the car is eating the man and starts to talk about his relationship to the vehicle, and when the responders show up she tells them the car is finally getting her revenge...this is while somebody she presumably loves has his head stuck and she doesn't know how seriously he could be hurt.
Yes, it's comic relief, designed to give the audience a breather from the more tragic plots, which is fine, but it was so obviously written to be a zany moment that it cheapened the entire enterprise.
The writer might say, "Hey, there are all kinds of crazy people who say just about anything." That's true, and if you've established that the character is like that before the moment of maximum craziness, it works. But in this case, this was the first time we'd seen these people.
I'm using a comedic example but you'll find plenty of examples in drama as well, with people saying or doing things solely because that's what's needed in order to advance the plot. It's not only dishonest, it's also lazy.
If in doubt, it's useful to ask, "Would a human being really say this in this situation?" If the answer is, 99% of the time, no, then it's worth rewriting.
Screenwriter Scott Meyers suggests boiling the story of your screenplay down into six words. If you can't do that, he says, you don't have a story.
Sometimes I really resist the idea that everything should be simple, but he has a point. Obviously, six words will not encapsulate the totality of your script but especially if you tend to get lost in your story sometimes, this can be a good tool.
Let's try some examples. See if you can tell right away which films I'm describing:
Son takes over family business: the mafia
Racist driver. Black passenger. Southern roadtrip. (I may be cheating, road trip probably should be two words.)
He's down, she's up: love possible?
Or, for a classic play: Father murdered. Son's revenge consumes all.
I imagine you got those: The Godfather trilogy, Green Book, A Star is Born, Hamlet.
Admittedly, these descriptions don't reveal that Michael doesn't want to be the new godfather, or that a friendship develops between the driver and the passenger, or that the 'down' and 'up' refer to fame and musical careers. And six words can't do justice to Hamlet. However, these do all identify the core elements of each plot.
IT'S ABOUT THE PLOT
Someone said that plot is what the story is about, and theme is what the story is REALLY about.
For instance, Macbeth's plot is the series of murders the Macbeths commit to try to make him king; the theme is the price of ruthless ambition.
Usually, your six words will be about the plot. In the example above, only the six words about Hamlet hint at the theme: that revenge can destroy the person exacting it as well as that person's target.
Don't try to make the six words reflect the theme unless that comes naturally. Of course, it's your execution of the plot that largely determines the quality of the script, but you have to have a solid plot before you can execute it.
HOW TO USE THE SIX-WORD STRATEGY
I'd never use the six-word format in a pitch, but it can be useful to work it out to make sure you know the core of the story.
Write the six words on an index card and put it where you can see it as you work on the script.
When you're unsure about a scene, ask yourself whether it is in alignment with that core idea. Even if it's a scene in a subplot, probably it will reflect the main idea in some way. I haven't done an analysis, but I'm pretty sure almost every scene in A Star is Born is about either him going downhill, her rising to fame, and/or their love.
Think about the films you've seen most recently. How would you sum up their plots in six words? Practicing with other people's stories will make it easier to do it with your own.
"Beautiful Boy" was a well-acted and generally well-made film that earned Amazon Studios some critical plaudits but didn't do too well at the box office. With an estimated budget of $25 million, its worldwide earnings were just over $8 million.
One thing that surprised me was the naked exposition in the opening scene.
Steve Carell, as the boy's father, is talking to a therapist. He says he's there on a personal matter, not as a journalist, and then this is the dialogue:
DAVID It’s about my son.
DR BROWN (O.S.) Okay, how can I help?
DAVID There are moments that I look at him, this kid that I raised who I thought that I knew inside and out, and I wonder who he is? He’s been doing all sorts of drugs, but he’s addicted to crystal meth, which seems to be the worst of all of them. And I guess I am here because I just want to know all that I can about all of it. Know your enemies right? So... my two big questions are, what is it doing to him and what can I do to help him?
FADE TO BLACK.
Whoa! If this had been the first page of a script by one of my students I would have advised finding a scene that would intrigue the audience, not spell out exactly what the story is.
Stories about addiction tend to be predictable (on drugs, off drugs, on drugs, off drugs), the only question usually being whether or not the addict survives. Therefore this script needed to find fresh ways of keeping the audience's interest and that first speech didn't help. Yes, the point of view of the father desperate to help his son and willing to go to extreme lengths to do so added depth to the story, but the way it was presented didn't.
THREE WAYS TO PUT CLOTHES ON NAKED EXPOSITION
There are a few ways to disguise exposition. The first and best is to show the information, rather than telling it. There are plenty of scenes in the movie that establish the boy's drug habit, the father's frustration, and the dad's extreme desire to help. I don't think this speech was needed at all.
Another method is to put the exposition into an emotional scene. Instead of saying that he thought he knew his kid inside and out but now sometimes wonders who he is, it's easy to imagine that being built into a dramatic confrontation scene between the father and son in which the father's anger turns to tears of frustration.
The third strategy is to involve an outsider who doesn't know the full situation, ideally someone who has an emotional connection to your protagonist rather than a neutral figure like a therapist. For instance, a close friend of the father, who has noticed how distracted and torn up the dad is but doesn't know why, could ask, "What the hell is happening to you?!" There could even have been a bit of irony if the friend asked, "You're not on drugs, are you?"
If you find any naked exposition in your own scripts, quick, cover it up!
Can you write dialogue that sounds improvised? Should you?
Eric Roth, co-writer of the current version of "A Star is Born," talks about how he abandoned his usual approach to writing dialogue:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.
I saw the film recently, and I did wonder how much of the dialogue was improvised--and Roth says in the clip that some of it was.
Obviously, any dialogue can be improvised, but it seems to work best when it's side-comments that help establish the nature of the relationship of the people talking. That might take the form of teasing or being playful, as in "A Star is Born," or maybe some other additional subtext.
I find that a good strategy is giving your 'final' draft one more look and seeing whether loosening up the dialogue that way will add to the richness of your characters. Of course, the specifics depend on the nature of your characters, but by loosening up, I mean something like this:
Original line: "Would you like that?"
Looser exchange: "Would that float your boat?"
(Other character:) "Float my boat? Did you just escape from the 70's?"
While dialogue is almost never the same as actual speech, strategically bringing it a bit closer can help your characters come alive.
I created a surreal sitcom for which I wrote a spec script not so long ago. A friend got it to a writer/producer who said he thought it was very funny, but he couldn't identify enough with the characters and I should change it to make it more like a current comedy series about the challenges of a working class single parent.
There was a time when I probably would have scrambled to try to do that, but I won't, and here's why:
IT IS WHAT IT IS.
What I mean is that while it's always possible to improve a piece of writing, it's a waste of time to change it to try to make it something that it isn't. Usually, the result is a compromise that won't please anybody. And I have the stories to prove it...
AN EXPERIENCE I CAN (ALMOST) LAUGH ABOUT NOW
Once upon a time I wrote a romantic comedy TV movie that the wonderful producer Stan Margulies wanted to make (he produced the original "Roots' mini-series).
We took it to one network and they said they wanted to do it with a particular actress. The next week, it came out that this actress had a drug problem, and the network backed out.
Stan and I took it to another network. They said they loved it, they wanted only one change: "Someone should be trying to kill the young woman."
What?!
We pointed out that it's a romantic comedy. "Oh yeah, don't lose that," the network exec said. "Just add the thriller element."
Stan and I had a lunch of pasta and lots of wine. LOTS of wine. We talked ourselves into trying it. I hated every minute of writing that version.
I hated every minute of writing that version.
We took it back to the network exec. He loved it. However, his boss, who made the final decision, didn't, and the network didn't make it.
We'll never know whether the top guy would have gone ahead with the original if we'd been able to get it to him directly, but I learned a lesson.
IF IT FAILS, LET IT FAIL FOR THE RIGHT REASON
In the sitcom, naturally I want my characters to be plausible within the world I've created, but the series is about the strangeness of everyday life, as reflected in fantasies and events that, while grounded in the greater reality, are not commonplace everyday events.
Giving the characters the kind of emotional reality that might attach to a single parent struggling to make ends meet would be incompatible with the basic idea of the series.
The series may or may not be any good, but if it fails I want it to fail on its own terms.
It calls to mind a quote that has been attributed to various people, including Luther Price:
"Be what you is, not what you ain't; 'cause if you ain't what you is, you is what you ain't."
I share this in case it's helpful when you get advice about your writing.
Ask yourself whether the change would make it a better version of what it is, or would it force it to try to be something it ain't.
If it's the latter, forget it, no matter how much wine you've had.
(Come to think of it, this might be a good practice regardless of what the advice is about.)
Pixar has the most consistent record of success of any current studio. Why is that? Songwriter and composer Randy Newman said this:
"The Pixar people always emphasize that the characters in their films are adults and deal with adult emotions. That’s really kind of a big idea. I always worry toward the end of their process when the picture is about to lock in terms of story, script and form if it’s funny enough. They never worry about that. They worry about emotion. Whether an audience will feel it. Whether it’s got, I think it’s called heart."
What's the source of this heart? Newman says, "And, about heart, you can’t put it there, like you sometimes can a joke. It’s got to proceed from who’s up there on the screen and if we care about what happens to them. It must be hard to do, but they’ve done it over and over like no other studio ever has."
When I was story editing a sitcom, I had the same philosophy: first, let's make sure the story works, meaning that it presents a conflict that we will care about in terms of how it might affect our protagonist, and it has a beginning, middle, and end. Then we'll make it funny. If you concentrate on the funny first, it's easy to get distracted from the story.
Randy Newman's quotes above come from the notes with the new Walt Disney Records Legacy Collection, which has 20 hours worth of rarities in 12 discs. Each disc comes with an illustrated book, adding up to almost 50,000 words. You can read more about it here. Warning: it'll put a dent into your pocketbook: £222.96 (on Amazon.co.uk) or $240.03 (Amazon.com).
