These past eight weeks have been exciting. My writing class carried me through a lot of work and I am utterly proud to say that I am leaving this class with the first draft of my pilot in hand! I feel satisfied with all of the work that I’ve done and excited to see where the rest of this goes. I cannot wait to continue working on my pilot and ameliorating my writing as well as this current project. I have learned so much from this class and am excited to share a bit of what I have learned with all of you! These tips have been learned the hard way and I am sure that any of you venturing off into the world of writing for television will appreciate them.

1.       Start small. I’m not talking about the project you are going to be working on, you should be thinking as big as possible when it comes to that. What I’m suggesting to start small with is the development of said ideas. When you have a great imagined pilot, it can be easy to feel motivated to sit down and write the whole thing (or try to). I have done this multiple times, and basically, it never leads to finishing anything. When this idea blooms in your head, start by working it out one piece at a time. You have to know the characters as well as you know yourself because you will be, after all, writing their deepest darkest secrets that no one else would know. So start small, and watch your project continually grow.
2.       Be precise. When writing a script you don’t want to beat around the bush. Even though it may seem interesting when you’re writing a roundabout, confusing script, an audience would much rather get their questions answered quickly. Think about any show you’ve seen. Any episode of House, for example, starts out with a huge mystery, “what is wrong with this patient?” They may seem like they answer no questions throughout the show until the end, but it only SEEMS that way. Here’s a typical episode layout:

      “What’s wrong with this patient?”
      “She has a fever. It must be phlytomosis (I just made this up for the sake of the example).” “No.”
      “She’s tired… It must be cosmetologypherosis.” “No.”
      “Oh well we looked in all of these books and it’s actually just constipation.” “It is!”
      And there you have it. The typical episode layout of the TV show House. See how you think they aren’t answering anything, but they actually ARE answering things throughout the show? It’s just not the RIGHT thing. When it’s the right one, the episode is resolved.

1.       This may seem like a silly tip, but it makes your life way easier if you remember it. Editing can be quite the headache, so it is always easier if you watch out for yourself at the beginning rather than needing to fix everything at the end.

      If you are writing a pilot please tweet us, or send us a message on Facebook to tell us how it is going! We always love hearing from actors, writers, and filmmakers but most of all, we love helping them!