Juggling and Insomnia

I usually don’t have insomnia, but last night for some reason I woke up around 1:30 A.M. and couldn’t fall back asleep. After a few minutes of staring into space, I got up and went to my home office (formerly the dining room). It was nice actually, everything so quiet.

I made myself some coffee and set out to tie up some loose ends in preparation for the writing marathon that must take place between now and the end of the year, a marathon that will take place mostly on the weekends, but possibly also in the wee hours of the morning.

There I was shuffling papers, cleaning dishes, taking out the trash, responding to blog comments, cleaning up my desktop, when the puppy came out of the bedroom to look at me like,”What the hell are you doing?” Then she turned around and went back to bed. I could have kept going, but I figured I should try and get some sleep before work. I’m on a solid three-week streak of showing up on time.

Keeping a schedule, being organized and on top of things has always been important, never more so than these days. I can’t think straight in a disorderly, chaotic environment, and there is so much to think about right now that I’m literally just trying to keep up.

The memoir is currently out to my mentor and three other people for review. While I wait for their notes, I’m rewriting the pilot I gave my manager earlier this year, and drafting a new one. I want to have two under my belt for staffing season in the spring, a one-hour drama and a half-hour dark comedy, different subjects, different tones.

I’m applying to more residencies and television writing programs, all worthy endeavors but time consuming.

I’m scheduled to revise the script I optioned in March from another writer. If I can manage it, I’d also like to rewrite a couple of my own feature scripts, but that might need to wait until the pilots are further along. My plan is to basically always be writing. When one project is being read/reviewed, I’ll be working on something else.

On top of all that, I’m also trying to “get out more,” as in reconnecting with folks in my field. Social media networking isn’t enough. I need face time with people to rekindle the personal relationship, find out how and what they’re doing, where they’re working, and let them know what I’ve been up to, etc.

I’ve thought about dating too but, frankly, between all the projects, working full-time, taking care of Ruby, and taking care of life, I simply don’t have time.

It feels a bit like a juggling act, or like being in a one-woman band. Balls in the air, balls in my hand, eyes darting from this to that, mind focused, heart pounding but trying to remember to breathe, nerves rattled but trying to appear relaxed, friendly and like this is the easiest thing in the world.

As Diane Keaton used to say in (one of my favorite movies) ANNIE HALL, “La di dah. La di dah.”

Have a great weekend, folks.

Anatomy of a Television Pilot

For those unfamiliar, a “spec” television script is written for an established show. A “pilot” is written to sell an original, new show, be it comedy or drama. I’ve written mostly film screenplays to date, and one spec television script (for the show HUNG). These days I’m writing my first ever television pilot, and I gave it to my manager two weeks ago for notes. She sent me back three television pilot scripts to read, all being produced this year on major networks, all similar in tone to mine and to each other, but with distinctly different plots.

Reading these scripts was incredibly helpful and inspiring. They were all great scripts, easy to read and compelling. I will watch these shows. More importantly, they were very well structured and well-developed… both areas in which my own script needs improvement.

The following are some things I picked up from these scripts:

They were all one-hour dramas, one clearly meant for cable, the other two meant for network. How could I tell? Because of the controversial subject matter, curse words, nudity, etc.

They were 62, 67 and 69 pages long, respectively.

They all had 5 acts. An Act is basically how the show is divided (like chapters). On channels with commercials, the commercial breaks separate the Acts.

Each Act ended with a twist that made me want to know what happened in the next Act. Put another way, each twist propelled the plot in a different (forward) direction. And the Really Big Twist was on the last page of Act 5, the last-minute or two of the pilot. This is what gets viewers hungry to know what happens in the next episode.

I’m going to focus the rest of my analysis on Script A because it had the clearest structure.

Script A was 62 pages long and had a total of 79 scenes:

Act 1 – 17 pages, 16 scenes
Act 2 – 8 pages, 4 scenes
Act 3 – 15 pages, 28 scenes
Act 4 – 11 pages, 10 scenes
Act 5 – 11 pages, 21 scenes

You can tell from this that Acts 3 and 5 had a lot of very short scenes, indicating perhaps a chase sequence. In general, scenes are no longer than 2 or 3 pages (most are shorter).

The narrative set up of Script A was established in Act 1. So, basically by the first commercial break you have an idea of the show’s main dilemma and the main characters.

The characters were established as follows:
5 main characters were introduced in Act 1
1 main character was introduced at the top of Act 2
1 main character was introduced at the top of Act 3
1 minor character was introduced in Act 5

The title of script was explained in Act 4.

The location of the story shifted dramatically in Act 5. It’s hard to say if the whole show was going to move there or if it was just for the pilot (me thinks the latter).

Without knowing anything further, you basically now have a rough structural guide to a one-hour dramatic television pilot script. Obviously, these numbers are not set in stone and you can deviate from them. Personally, I don’t plan to deviate from them that much because I want my pilot to resemble the pace of Script A.

But you need more than a rough guide. You need to read some scripts for yourself, preferably scripts that are similar in tone to yours.

Here are three sites for free scripts you can download:

https://sites.google.com/site/tvwriting/us-drama/pilot-scriptshttp://www.simplyscripts.com/tv.html
http://www.dailyscript.com/

Try breaking a couple down like I did and see what you come up with. If you have more tips and/or advice, by all means chime in.

Happy creating!