In conjunction with the launch of it’s latest online publication, “How to Write for Television”, HowTo.co.uk has prepared a snapshot.
Writing for television is an exciting and financially rewarding career for those who can get their work produced. Writing for TV is not a subject covered in school, so most new writers are stuck without some simple advice for starting out. Here I’ve set out Ten Top Tips for Writing for Television
TIP ONE: Read Screenplays and Watch Good Television
Reading screenplays (many available from the BBC) will give you a better idea of how the black fills the white, how the page is filled by the writer. It allows the neophyte to get a stronger grasp of the format of a television screenplay but also how they are structured and how a great story is told in 30 or 60 minutes. Watching good television gives you a better idea of how it is all put together in practice.
TIP TWO: Show Don’t Tell
Screenplays and writing for the screen, small or big is a matter of show and not tell. It’s not a novel, it’s not told in words, it’s told in pictures. You need to describe what’s being seen by the viewer. Keep your descriptions concise but vivid. Use action to speak for you.
TIP THREE: Get Feedback from People Who Know
You can get your friends and family to read your screenplay and if possible give you some constructive feedback. The best way to get good feedback though is from professionals or other writers. Join a writers group or send your work to the BBC via their Writers Room.
TIP FOUR: Open your story with something special
Make the first scene, first page, first speech, first line of that speech something special. It’s really easy for the script reader to get bored and it’s really easy to turn the television off or over to another channel. Give the reader and the viewer a reason to stay glued.
TIP FIVE: Give your main character a problem
Your main character, known as the Protagonist needs a problem. This will make them interesting and force them to push forward in the story, encountering and overcoming obstacles and new conflicts as they go. The plot of your screenplay becomes how they try to solve that problem.
TIP SIX: Let the Viewer do some Work
It isn’t necessary for you to explain everything for the audience. Give them opportunities to make the connections in the story for themselves, they’ll love that level of involvement and it will keep them engaged in the story.
TIP SEVEN: If you have to Tell, Tell something New
Since Desperate Housewives started using Voice Over, it’s become hip again to use V/O in television screenplays. However, the key rule in this particularly ‘Telling’ device is not to describe anything that the audience sees, but to add insight to what they can already discern by themselves.
TIP EIGHT: Don’t Copy a Success
When a successful television show airs and increases in popularity, producers receive a huge batch of similar screenplays from writers keen to jump on the bandwagon. This is rarely the way to get interest in your work. The Wire, Desperate Housewives and The Office are all successful because they are original!
TIP NINE: Writing is Re-Writing
Once you have written your script, most of the work is in re-writing it with a strong structure, deeper characters, snappier dialogue and better plot. This is the hardest lesson because it’s hard to destroy some of your work now in order to build better work in the long term.
TIP TEN: Write Every Day
Writers write, but one of the great challenges is to sit down and put words down on a page every day. Get into a habit of sitting down, even for half an hour each day and moving forward with your screenplay.
These tips won’t make you successful by themselves, but they will help you avoid many of the problems that young writers experience when they first begin writing and this will put you ahead of the game.
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