by Linda Venis
What’s your favorite pilot idea? What does it need to make it “click” for you?
Help! I Have No Ideas! Not One!
Really? Not one idea? Not one faint glimmer of a hint of a concept of a notion?
(Or are you actually saying, “Well, I’ve come up with a few ideas, but they all suck.” If so, skip to the next section: “Help! My Ideas All Suck!”)
Okay, let’s prime the creative pump with a few brainstorming techniques.
(A caveat: These are techniques. Not rules, not commandments, and most definitely not the Only Officially Approved Methods. Try them—but if they don’t work for you, no worries; try something else.)
The first vital step: Turn off your inner critic. Silence that voice in your head that comes up with reasons why something’s no good and won’t work. It’s easy for the inner critic to shoot down every notion the creative side of your brain comes up with—and when that happens, it’s also easy for the creative side to get discouraged and quit trying.
Don’t let that happen. Ignore your inner critic. Your goal is to generate as many ideas as you can—good, bad, or indifferent. When we brainstorm, we’re after quantity, not quality. Come up with a ton of ideas, and at least a few of them might have possibilities—but you won’t get to those good ones unless you give yourself permission to churn out a lot of not-so-good ones first.
Make a document with two columns. Label the left-hand column “Favorites.”
In the “Favorites” column, list all the current TV shows you enjoy. Nobody’s going to see this list but you—I promise I won’t peek!—so be honest: Don’t just list shows you think are “good” or classy or Emmy-worthy; list what you actually watch and like.
Add to the “Favorites” column all the TV shows no longer on the air that you used to watch and enjoy. Again, be honest; don’t leave anything off because, for instance, you were only twelve then and you’re sure you’d think it was horrible if you watched it today. Indeed you might—but this isn’t about quality. This is about what hooked you.
For good measure, also list a few of your all-time favorite movies, books, plays, graphic novels, operas—any dramatic works in any medium that have stayed with you.
Now label the second column “Elements”—and for each item in your “Favorites” list, ask yourself, “Why did I like it? What appealed to me?” Maybe you watched it for its clever banter…or its intricate plots and unpredictable endings…or its rousing action…or its dark, gritty tone…or because it felt so emotionally real…or because it felt so mind-bendingly unreal.
Isolate the specific elements you latched on to. They won’t necessarily be the show’s primary elements, or what it was best known for, or what the critics liked, or what made it popular. Keep it personal. This is about your likes. Jot down those elements in the second column.
When your “Elements” list is complete, look for patterns. Some will be obvious: “Yeah, I’m a sucker for sci-fi, especially with space battles.” Some might surprise you: “Gee, I never noticed, but all the stuff I like best has characters who are seriously screwed up.”
Start a fresh list entitled “Rough Ideas,” making sure your inner critic is still on “mute,” and then…Mix and match. Take two or three items from your “Elements” list, stir them together, and voilà! There’s a possible idea for a pilot. Write it down.
For example: What if you had two seriously screwed-up characters something like the ones in your favorite shows A, B, and C…in an interstellar navy something like the one in show D…but with something like the harsh, realistic tone of show E instead of the campy action-adventure tone of show D…?
I’ve emphasized something like because I’m not suggesting you simply copy-and-paste together a Frankenstein’s monster that obviously rips off other shows. This is an idea generator, not an idea recycler; it’s meant to spark inspiration, to start you down paths of your own.
When you find combinations that pique your interest even a little—“there’s something there, but…”—try mixing them up even more. What if you make the two lead characters both female? Both male? One young, one old? Teenagers? Gay? Rich? Formerly rich, now poor? Not human? Best of friends? Mortal enemies?
And/or…what if the interstellar navy is…mostly aliens, and humans are in the minority?
And/or…this navy isn’t the good guys, it’s the bad guys, and our main characters soon realize they’re on the wrong side?
And/or…our main characters are in two opposing navies, kind of like brother against brother in the Civil War….
Keep jotting these combinations down. The longer your “Rough Ideas” list, the better.
For each combination, ask yourself what appeals to you about it, and see if you can tweak that aspect to increase its appeal. “Hmm…I really like the brother-against-brother-in-wartime notion…but what if it’s a husband and wife on opposite sides? Still in love, but forced to be enemies? Yeah. That could be cool. I could do something with that.”
Do I hear an objection from the balcony? “That method just sounds like a way to mash up old ideas. Isn’t it better to create new ideas?”
Here’s the thing. Combining “old ideas” in innovative new ways is how “new ideas” get made.
Your task as a television pilot writer is not to create something utterly unlike anything anyone’s ever seen.
Songwriters don’t invent new tonalities, new musical instruments, and new languages for the lyrics. Restaurant chefs don’t create meals from entirely unfamiliar ingredients. We don’t expect anyone to reinvent the wheel. It’s the particular combination of ingredients that makes a creation new.
Look at the shows you consider “freshest and newest” on your “Favorites” list. What was “new” about them? Break them down and you’ll likely find old ideas combined in new ways.
Take, for example, Homeland. Your mileage may vary, but I’d certainly describe that series as “fresh and unique.” But at its core, it’s a blend of two far-from-new Hollywood tropes: the brilliant-but-troubled Defective Detective and the hero-who-might-secretly-be-brainwashed Manchurian Agent. (See www.tvtropes.org for more about these and many, many other tropes.)
Another example: Countless TV shows have dealt with the drug trade. What sets Breaking Bad apart? The drug-dealer protagonist is a high school chemistry teacher—middle-aged, married, and (at least in the pilot) meek.
New combinations of old ideas are new ideas. What are your favorite “TV ingredients” that you can mix and match?
Help! My Ideas All Suck!
Now that you’ve got a long list of pilot ideas, pick out and develop the ones that appeal to you the most.
What’s that you say? None of them appeal to you? Not a single one? Why not? Too vague? Too familiar? Too unclear?
You’re not letting your inner critic talk you out of any ideas, are you? We’re still at the “no negativity, anything goes” stage; keep that inner critic quiet!
“I don’t hate my ideas,” you may be saying, “but I don’t love them either. Some seem okay, but none set me on fire.”
Fair enough; in that case, let’s try a few more idea-generating techniques.
“Someday…”
If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Someday, they’ll make a TV series in which [fill in the blank]…” then what are you waiting for? Go write it yourself!
If “someday” seems a long way off because the idea is way out there or the subject matter’s controversial or any such variation on “TV’s not ready for this yet”—all the more reason to write it now and beat everyone else to the punch!
Given the explosion of cable channels that produce scripted series—and the success of so many “way out there” shows on cable—TV just might be ready for your series now.
I mean, c’mon. We’ve seen TV dramas about mobsters, serial killers, advertisers in the 1960s, sex addicts, Roman gladiators, meth makers, polygamists, and Prohibition-era Atlantic City…and nearly all those shows won Emmys! So tell
me—what exactly isn’t TV ready for?
Besides, even in the unlikely event that your pilot is “too far out” for TV at the moment, it could still be a superlative writing sample. Risk-taking, boldness, and originality get attention. Playing it safe? Not so much.
“My Dream Job Would’ve Been…”
What’s your all-time favorite series that’s no longer on the air, the one you wish you could travel back in time and write for? Let’s call it Dreamshow.
Pretend a Big Network Executive says to you, “We’ve acquired the rights to Dreamshow and we’d like you, its biggest fan, to write a pilot for a new version of it. How would you update it and make it relevant to today’s audiences yet still keep its original appeal? You can do whatever you want—continue the original; do a Dreamshow: The Next Generation–type sequel; reboot it from scratch like Battlestar Galactica…anything.”
You eagerly set to work, have a huge amount of fun, and bang out a sparkling pilot script for Dreamshow Revisited. The Big Network Exec says, “It’s brilliant! We want it to go to series and pay you a zillion dollars to run it. However, there’s a snag: Turns out we don’t have the rights to Dreamshow after all. But we still love what you did with it and we want to produce it! Can you change the names and the setting and the other recognizable Dreamshow elements enough so that we don’t get sued but still keep the stunning excellence of your script intact?”
In other words: If you loved Dreamshow, why not create a series in the same vein, but different enough so viewers say it’s “kind of an updated version of” or “seems inspired by” or “has delightful echoes of” Dreamshow rather than being a “blatant rip-off” of it.
“Why Don’t They Make Shows like ____ Anymore?”
Also known as, “In my opinion, TV needs more musicals/space operas/westerns/whatever.”
Consider the western. In 1959, when there were only three TV networks, twenty-six western series aired every week in prime time. Bonanza ran for fourteen seasons, Gunsmoke for twenty. But that was long ago, and audiences have moved on…right? The genre’s old-fashioned and played out; every possible permutation of every conceivable western plot has been done to death. You’d be nuts to pitch a western now…
…or would you? Deadwood ran on HBO for three seasons starting in 2004 and won eight Emmys. It was a gritty, profane blend of fiction and history—and although it was a western through and through, it didn’t look like any western that had come before.
That’s the challenge: to invigorate a beloved but tired genre by taking it in a fresh new direction. What kind of series would you like to see return to television? Come up with a unique way of doing it—and give it a shot!
“It’s an X Dressed Up as a Y”
Another way to make an old genre new again is to dress it up as something else—transplant some of its elements into a different time and place.
Justified, for instance, is a western dressed up as a cop show. Its lead character is a hat-wearing, quick-drawing US marshal…in present-day Kentucky. Although the setting is contemporary, the themes are pure western.
Firefly was also a western, but dressed up as space opera. Once Upon a Time and Grimm are fairy tales masquerading as a soap opera and a police procedural respectively. House M.D. was a mystery cloaked in a medical drama.
The influences don’t have to be large or obvious. I wouldn’t say Castle and Bones are romantic comedies dressed up as mysteries, but there are certainly strong elements of romantic comedy in both.
How will you take a favorite genre, blend it with something else, and come up with an appealing new hybrid?
What About Trends?
While searching for pilot ideas, some writers look at what’s currently “hot” on TV and attempt to capitalize on the latest trend. For example: “Vampires are hugely popular; I’m going to dream up a vampire series!”
Three cautions here. First, as mentioned earlier, a shameless attempt to pander to the marketplace often looks like just that. Producers and agents read thousands of scripts. They see right through gimmicks and hype. They can tell when you’re faking it. Don’t fake it.
Second, by the time a trend becomes clear, it’s already too late to join the bandwagon. If something’s a hit, networks and studios instantly jump on it and develop more copies than will ever see the light of day. Your vampire pilot will be lucky to get noticed amidst the crush; it’ll have to work really hard to stand out.
Third, when the trend inevitably burns out, your pilot will seem stale. Why invest time and effort into writing something with a short shelf life? Why not create a pilot that won’t expire once everyone’s moved on from vampires to zombies to whatever’s next?
Don’t follow a trend. Start one.
What’s My Franchise?
The next step in developing your pilot idea is to choose/identify your series franchise. What’s the engine that drives your series? What’s the primary story-generator? In short, what the heck will everybody be doing week to week?
Usually, the franchise refers to the occupations of the main characters. The three top TV drama franchises are cops, lawyers, and doctors. (And cops can be broadly defined to include “any crime-solver with a gun, badge, or license,” such as FBI agents and private detectives.)
Why are these three franchises so perennially popular? Several reasons:
They deal with life-or-death situations. Will a murderer be caught and convicted? Will a patient be saved? Drama, conflict, and suspense are inherent in each franchise.
There’s a built-in supply of stories. Crimes are constantly committed. Cases constantly go to trial. Illnesses and accidents constantly strike. The writers don’t have to concoct ways to involve the protagonists with each week’s story; stories come to the protagonists instead of the other way around.
Each franchise is open-ended. The job’s never finished; there’s always another problem on the way.
Cops, lawyers, and doctors date back to the beginning of television. A fourth franchise that’s become popular is what I’d call survivors, in which the characters’ primary goal is simply to stay alive in a hostile (often postapocalyptic or postinvasion) environment. Some examples: Revolution, Lost, The Walking Dead, Falling Skies.
But not all franchises deal with life-and-death subject matter. Look at Glee and The Secret Life of the American Teenager, where the franchise is high school…or Parenthood and Downton Abbey, where the franchise is family conflict…or The Newsroom, where the franchise is right there in the title.
The measure of a good franchise isn’t how “big” or “significant” it is, but how well it propels the series as a source of stories.
The corollary: A not-so-good franchise is one that doesn’t generate a whole lot of stories. For instance, I doubt that a drama series set in, say, an accounting firm would work, simply because I can’t imagine very many compelling stories springing from an accounting firm.
You disagree? You have a terrific idea for a drama set in an accounting firm? Excellent! Go write it and prove me wrong…and I’m not being sarcastic. I was almost as skeptical about the franchise “a Madison Avenue advertising agency in the sixties”…yet, at this writing, the multiple-Emmy-winning Mad Men is entering its sixth season.
The moral of the story? A good franchise is important, but what’s more important is what you do with it, which leads to the next question.
What’s My Premise?
Time to zero in on whatever it is that makes your series unique…your personal “take” on the franchise. We’ll call it your series premise.
Ideally, your premise should be “pitchable” in a simple sentence or two (the one-line or logline)—clear, concise, and catchy. It answers the question “How does your cop (or whatever) show differ from the nine billion cop (or whatever) shows already out there?”
For example, let’s start with a franchise: cops. Specifically, detectives.
Let’s narrow the franchise further: civilian detectives. Further still: amateur detectives.
Now, here’s an idea using the amateur detectives franchise: A writer of murder mystery novels helps the police solve actual murder cases.
Is that a premise? No, not yet…because it’s not unique. It could describe the Ellery Queen novels and TV series adaptation as well as the long-running series Murder, She Wrote.
So let’s give that idea a very specific take: A male writer of murder mystery novels teams up with a female NYPD homicide detective to solve actual murders; they butt heads at first but develop a partnership, friendship, and romance.
That’s the premise of Castle, currently in its fifth season. Anything new about the franchise? Nope. Any new elements in the premise? Not really…“murder-solving novelist” isn’t new, nor is “female homicide detective,” nor is “male and female lead characters who don’t initially hit it off but slowly find romance.” The novelty is in the mix, not the ingredients.
What’s the recipe that’ll make your pilot unique?
What Are My Arcs?
The arcs of a TV series are the story lines that continue across episodes.
In a series with a strong overall arc, the episodes are like chapters in a book. They’re not meant to be viewed individually or out of order, but sequentially as parts of one long story.
Conversely, in a series with zero arcs, each episode is a pure “stand-alone” with a self-contained story. Episodes can be viewed in any order.
Few series are either 100 percent arc or 0 percent arc. “Non-arc” shows generally portray some character changes over the life of the series, often in the characters’ romantic relationships. “Heavy” arc shows usually structure each episode with some dramatic payoff, either to one aspect of the ongoing plot or to a smaller story self-contained in the episode.
Most drama series today blend arc and non-arc elements. Let’s look at Castle again. It’s non-arc in that there’s a new murder each week that the regular characters solve by the end of the episode. But it also contains arcs dealing with the unsolved murder of Beckett’s mother as well as the slow-blooming romance between the leads.