Bill Rabkin and I will be teaching an online, four-week screenwriting course entitled "Writing Dramatic Television" (punchy title, huh?) beginning on April 4th for the Writers University. Here’s the course listing:
In this four week course, two established executive producers/showrunners
will give you an inside look at the world of episodic television. You will
learn—and practice— the actual process involved in successfully writing a spec
episodic script that will open doors across Hollywood. You will learn how to
analyze a TV show and develop “franchise”-friendly story ideas. You will develop
and write a story under the direction of the instructors, who will be acting as
showrunners… and then, after incorporating their notes, you will be sent off to
write your outline. Finally, you will develop and refine your outline with the
instructors, leaving you at the end of the course ready to write your episodic
spec script…the first step in getting a job on a TV series.
So what are you waiting for? Sign up!
I’m waiting for inspiration. And a month when I won’t have 20 books I’m trying to read at a book a week.
Count me in 🙂 I’ve been following your work and the prospect of learning directly from you is exciting. Is this something new or a regular class for you Lee?
Jonathan,
If you’re interested in writing for TV, I would strongly urge you to read Lee’s book “Successful Television Writing.” (It should be linked up on the right side of the page.)
The education it provides is invaluable.
This is something new for us. We were approached by the Writers University a few months ago and figured we’d give it a try and see how it goes. If we enjoy ourselves, and the students feel they get something useful out of it, we’ll make it an ongoing thing.
Now this sounds like a great class!!! Tell me again how I sign up!!!
Isn’t episodic television almost impossible to break into?
It is for me.
As the governor is fond of saying, “Old news.”
You will develop and write a story under the direction of the instructors, who will be acting as showrunners…
Will you be using a specific show (or shows) for this? If so, do students need to be familiar with that show, its characters, and its format if they want to take the class?
We aren’t concentrating on anyone one, specific show. We do ask that students have several episodes of their favorite, currently airing, hour-long, episodic series on video or DVD. Preferably, several episodes of several hour-long shows for comparison purposes.
I’ve got the complete first season of a currently airing, hour-long series on DVD. The show is, of course, now in its 3rd or 4th season…
Most desirable fields are difficult to break in to, but people still do it all the time. If you’ve got talent and persistance, you can do it.
I was referring to intra-genre-business specificity. Usually one writes a speck feature script, two’s better, and then tries to land an agent with those. It may lead to an assignment or rarely, a sale.