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WRITING FOR TV
AS AN EMERGENCY SITUATION
In his book on the psychology of survivors called, Deep Survival, L. Gonzales states that the best way to successfully meet with an emergency situation is to have the following obvious bullet points:
- to gather information
- to analyze the information
- to handle strong emotions
He derived from this a realization that an emergency and a TV or movie script had the same structure. It was a script in three acts.
- Act I - You get into trouble.
- Act II - You struggle.
- Act III - You get out of trouble.
Trouble = Jeopardy!
A T.V. episode has to grab out at you A.S.A.P. Right from the first scene. Just like a short story has to grab you with its first sentence. Strong emotions, of course, always get peoples attention, so does funny, but that is a strong emotion too.
So the point of most T.V. series is some form of Jeopardy!
- Life or death,
- emotional,
- financial,
- love or loss,
- to be funny or not to be funny,
It doesn't matter, actually, but it has to be emotional and simple. A clear, distinct kick in the head. A kick in the head is easier to sell to money people too.
But for the viewer to actually care about what happens to your main characters, the viewer has to be involved with those characters. The folks in your script need to be as close to real people as possible, meaning they have a past, present and a future. So personal history for each character is important. The characters' back-story. It doesn't have to be a detailed exposition. A few words here. An expression there. This is the way stereotypes are built so be careful.
Especially with a TV series, involvement with the characters is essential for viewership. You'll notice that in this treatment there are extensive character backgrounds.
Attached is a TV series Treatment that was worked from the short story Witness Protection Hawaii. Also attached is a treatment for a series or graphic novel called The Unknown Protector.
The story is in the main menu off the home page. The Series Treatment is available at the click of the button to the side here or below.
Click on the title at the very bottom of the page or the buttons on the side to get to the individual items.
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"Television: chewing gum for the eyes."
Frank Lloyd Wright