The Secret to Writing Great Scenes

Over the past several years, I’ve read a lot of television scripts of both the sold and the unsold variety and I’ve come across one feature that I think is the most common differentiator between the two.

It’s missing in most unsold scripts I read and it’s often missing in even my own writing, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a scene in a critically acclaimed TV show that doesn’t have it.

It’s not about formatting. It’s not about whitespace. It’s not about voiceovers or scene description or how many pages long it is.

It’s about reversals.

The Wire (2002), “Middle Ground”

When I say “reversal” I’m talking about a power shift that results in a reversal of fortune for a character. The best scenes often have several reversals but pretty much any scene of substance needs at least one.

It’s impossible to completely avoid spoilers while discussing this topic so while I avoid sharing unnecessary information, there are mild spoilers below for:

  • Game of Thrones (2011), Season 7, Episode 5, “Eastwatch”
  • The Sopranos (1999), Season 4, Episode 12, “Eloise”
  • The Wire (2002), Season 3, Episode 11, “Middle Ground”

I’ve included Youtube embeds below, but the full episodes are available from HBO. If you have Amazon Prime and you’ve never subscribed to HBO through Amazon before, you can get a one-week free trial.

Reversals aren’t only for big, meaty, important scenes. The scenes below aren’t climactic scenes in their respective episodes. They didn’t win anyone an Emmy1. In fact, the scene I chose from The Sopranos didn’t even merit a mention in the A.V. Club review of the episode.

These scenes are table-setting for more substantial meals to come, but even so, the writers took the time to craft real drama, moving the story forward by reversing the fortunes of its characters, sometimes multiple times in a single 2-3 minute scene.

I sometimes use terms like “act three” and “midpoint” and “inciting incident” to describe the structure of the scenes below, but it’s very unlikely the writers outlined these scenes with act breaks when writing them.

I note these structural beats because most great scenes have a beginning, middle, and end — a setup, a rising action (complication), and a climax/resolution (payoff). That’s a helpful thing to keep in mind.

The goal is not to pull out a calculator and make the setup exactly 25%, the rising action exactly 50%, and the climax/resolution the last 25%. You might find that a well-paced scene ends up close to that naturally, but the scenes below don’t match up perfectly to those percentages, nor should they.

Instead, the concept of a beginning, middle, and end to a scene is something to consider if a scene you wrote feels weak. Weak scenes often lack a real setup, complication, or payoff. Is there a power shift in the scene? Does a character experience a reversal of fortune, however small and subtle?

Game of Thrones (2011)

Season 7, Episode 5, “Eastwatch”
Written by: Dave Hill

Watch the full episode here for context.

Premise: Davos and Tyrion have secretly come to King’s Landing. Davos is attempting to sneak Gendry (a man he doesn’t think can fight but who he’d like to protect) back to Dragonstone with them. Tyrion is a wanted man in King’s Landing but he’s there for a secret meeting.

Goal: Davos, Gendry, and Tyrion want to escape King’s Landing unnoticed and unharmed. At the start of this scene, they’re very close to achieving this goal.

Intro/Setup: This part is cut out of the Youtube embed above, but the first ten seconds or so of the scene is Davos and Gendry preparing to sail as Davos tells Gendry not to tell anyone back on Dragonstone who his real father is.

First Reversal: The first reversal, which acts as the inciting incident of the scene, is when two guards happen upon Davos and Gendry and wonder why they’re boarding a boat on a hidden beach instead of at the docks.

Davos immediately launches his first tactic, which is to pretend that he and Gendry are traders trying to avoid high tariffs at the dock. He gives the guards a bribe. This seems like it’s going to work.

The guards demand a higher bribe. Davos pretends to be annoyed by this, but it’s actually part of his plan to make the guards feel like they won so they’ll leave them alone.

Second Reversal: It seems like Davos and Gendry are going to be able to escape, but then at almost exactly the 25% mark (the beginning of “act two” of the scene) one of the guards asks: “What’s in the boat?” They’re not going to let Davos and Gendry leave that easily.

Midpoint Reversal: Fortunately, Davos is an experienced smuggler so he has a backup plan for this too. He has fermented crab stowed in the boat under blankets and tells the guards it’s an aphrodisiac. He gives them a sample and encourages them to go to a brothel.

Third Act Reversal: The guards are leaving and it looks like everything’s going to work out, but at about the 75% mark, the beginning of act three, Tyrion returns from his meeting just in time for the guards to see him. They recognize him. Davos tries to offer them more gold but they refuse.

Final Reversal: In a final twist, Gendry kills both guards with the hammer he packed earlier that Davos was skeptical he’d be able to fight with, thus proving his value as a fighter and securing their freedom from King’s Landing.

Total Reversals: There are at least five reversals in this three-minute scene.

  1. Davos and Gendry think they’re going to easily escape, but then guards happen upon them. Davos offers them a bribe. They demand a higher bribe and he agrees.
  2. Davos and Gendry once again think they’re safe, but then the guards want to see what’s in the boat.
  3. It seems like Davos and Gendry are done for, but then Davos shows the guards some decoy fermented crab and convinces them that it’s an aphrodisiac, sending them off to the brothels.
  4. Davos and Gendry once again think they’re going to escape, but then the guards see Tyrion and recognize him from his description as a wanted man.
  5. It for sure seems like they’re toast this time, but then Gendry kills both guards with his hammer. They are finally able to escape.

Change of Fortune: This scene begins with the characters thinking they’re going to successfully escape and it ends with them successfully escaping, so from that perspective, there’s no change at all. But the larger change is that Davos and Tyrion now see that Gendry is a worthy fighter.

The Sopranos (1999)

Season 4, Episode 12, “Eloise”
Written by: Terence Winter

Watch the full episode here for context.

Premise: Little Carmine has come back to New Jersey from Miami to meet with his mob boss father and underboss Johnny Sack over a game of golf. At Johnny’s request, Little Carmine has come to convince his father to back down on a dispute he’s having with Tony Soprano over a HUD scam.

Goal: Our point of view character in this scene is Johnny Sack (we open and close on his emotional state), who’s done a lot of political maneuvering to make this conversation happen and whose goal is for Little Carmine to stay on script and convince his father to back off the conflict with Tony.

Intro/Setup: The first 25% of this scene is a friendly chat between Johnny and Little Carmine that drops a little exposition and setup. They seem to be on the same page about this upcoming conversation and Johnny is relieved that it’s all so close to being resolved.

Johnny: “Anything you can do to change your father’s mind.”
Little Carmine: “I’m going to try, John. I came all the way up here for that.”

First Reversal: The first reversal, which kicks off “act two” of the scene, is that Carmine Sr. immediately takes power in the conversation, belittling his son in small ways (“You put your sunblock on?” “I’m taking a mulligan.”).

For the first half of act two (approximately the next 25% of the scene), Little Carmine is staying on script, but Carmine Sr.’s bullying makes Johnny nervous. Johnny likes to be in control, but his tactic here is to hang back and give Little Carmine space to do what he promised to do, but he can’t resist overstepping a bit when he says, “Even from the beginning I thought forty was a tad steep,” which leads to —

Midpoint Reversal: The big reversal comes at the midpoint when Carmine Sr. says of Tony Soprano: “I’d have been proud to call him my own son.” Little Carmine is desperate for his father’s approval so this line is a blow to his ego and Johnny knows it.

In the second half of act two of this scene, Johnny sees what’s happened and quickly changes tactics, taking over the conversation to try to smooth things over himself with Carmine Sr. (“Maybe there’s a compromise here then.”) It seems like this might work. (“There’s always a compromise.”)

Third Act Reversal: But at the 75% mark (the beginning of “act three” of this scene), Little Carmine can’t resist the urge to take a dig at Tony, though he came all the way from Miami to advocate for him. “He’s a bit of a poseur, you ask me.” Now he’s aligning himself with his father, sucking up to him and throwing Tony under the bus.

At this point, Johnny has to change tactics yet again, dropping the charm and stating his feelings baldly. “Whatever they are, Carmine, the Sopranos bring in a lot of cash. I’ve been close with Tony for a lot of years.”

Now Little Carmine turns on Johnny too. “Maybe… Tony feels like you’re friends and not business associates.” Johnny was so close to getting what he wanted, but now he’s lost.

Total Reversals: There are at least three reversals in this two-minute scene.

  1. Johnny and Little Carmine think this intervention is going to be a success, but Carmine Sr. shows up and makes a power move by belittling his son, setting the meeting off on the wrong foot. But Little Carmine sticks to the script and continues making his case with Johnny playing a supporting role.
  2. It seems like maybe Little Carmine is going to overcome his father’s bullying, but then Johnny oversteps. In retaliation, Carmine Sr. says he’d have been proud to call Tony Soprano his son, which throws Little Carmine off his game. Johnny Sack jumps in to try to smooth things over.
  3. It seems like Johnny might get through to Carmine Sr., but Little Carmine switches allegiances and takes his father’s side against Johnny and Tony.

Change of Fortune: Our POV character, Johnny Sack, starts out the scene hopeful that his work has paid off and this problem is about to be peaceably resolved, but by the end of the scene he’s frustrated and pessimistic about his ability to solve this conflict without bloodshed.

His fortune really only changes once in this scene, but his misfortune escalates with each reversal throughout the scene.

The Wire (2002)

Season 3, Episode 11, “Middle Ground”
Written by: George Pelecanos

Watch the full episode here for context.

Premise: Omar Little, a notorious stick-up man, is walking home with his laundry when he’s stopped at gunpoint by Brother Mouzone, a hitman from New York. They have a violent history but also a grudging respect for each other, and they are each pretty much the only person the other has reason to fear.

Goal: Omar’s external goal is to escape this encounter alive, killing Brother Mouzone if he has to, but his internal goal is to find out what the other man wants. He could probably kill him if he wanted to, just as Brother Mouzone could probably kill Omar, but they’re as intrigued by each other as they are wary.

Brother Mouzone’s goal in this scene is to make an important proposition to Omar without being killed before he can do it.

Intro/Setup: Omar is walking home with his laundry, whistling his trademark tune.

First Reversal: The inciting incident comes about 20% into the scene when Brother Mouzone stops him at gunpoint. Omar’s first tactic is to threaten Mouzone (“I need to remind you who I am?” and “I ain’t tossing nothing.”) even though he’s at the clear disadvantage. He slowly reaches for his gun and it seems like he’s going to get to it in time when —

Midpoint Reversal: At the midpoint of this scene, Omar asks how he found him and Brother Mouzone tells Omar that his boyfriend gave him up. “He didn’t give you up easily.” Omar is afraid now that Brother Mouzone killed his boyfriend. Now he’s angry and he has his gun in his hand though it’s not pointed at the other man. (“Even if I miss I can’t miss.”) Brother Mouzone seems confident Omar won’t shoot when —

Third Act Reversal: At the 80% mark, Omar levels the gun fully at Brother Mouzone. Now any advantage of surprise Brother Mouzone originally had is gone. They are on equal footing. Either could kill the other at any moment. Instead —

Final Reversal: Brother Mouzone lowers his weapon. “I want to ask you something, brother.” Omar lowers his as well. “Omar listening.”

Total Reversals: There are at least four reversals in this 2.5-minute scene.

  1. Omar is having a pleasant night before he’s unexpectedly stopped at gunpoint by Brother Mouzone.
  2. It seems like Omar is going to get to his gun in time to shoot Brother Mouzone when the hitman tells him that his boyfriend gave him up and that he still has him captured.
  3. Angry, Omar still slowly moves for his gun as the two men talk. Brother Mouzone seems confident Omar won’t shoot, but then Omar does turn it on him.
  4. They’re trapped in an old Western style stand-off, when Brother Mouzone decides to lower his own gun even though Omar could easily kill him. He surprises Omar one more time: “I want to ask you something.” Omar lowers his gun to listen.

Change of Fortune: At the beginning of this scene, Omar and Brother Mouzone are on opposing sides but they share a wary respect for each other and they have a shared enemy. During this scene, they nearly kill each other, but by the end of the scene they are entering into a partnership.

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Note: I chose these three scenes pretty much at random based on what was available on YouTube, trusting that any scene from a critically acclaimed series would be a good example for this post. I chose shows that are widely watched among people who care about TV writing so that it would be more likely that readers had seen the episode.

What’s funny is that without meaning to, I somehow chose three scenes that are not only written by men, but all the actors in the scenes are men! I’ll make an effort in future posts to choose more balanced examples.

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6 Surprising Ways to Make Better Use of Your Villains

It’s a lot of work to craft a compelling, complex, and truly formidable antagonist, so once we’ve put in that time, it makes sense to wring as much value out of those characters as possible. Here are six surprising ways I’ve found to make effective use of an antagonist:

  1. Use delayed gratification of an antagonist’s punishment to increase narrative tension.

    The more your villain wins, and the more he deserves to lose, the more desperately we’ll be turning every page (or hitting that “next episode” button) to see him finally get his comeuppance. This is especially effective if the villain is pretending to be a good guy and some of your protagonists haven’t figured it out yet.

    The first time I realized the power of this dynamic was while watching The Sopranos. In the third season, there’s a character that everyone on the show loves but who the audience knows is terrible. It is enraging to watch this character be coddled and cheered in every episode when you know he’s secretly a villain. I was glued to my screen that entire season, desperate for the satisfaction of seeing this character be found out and brought to justice.

    Similarly, I’m watching Game of Thrones now for the first time and this line in a season 1 episode recap, referring to Joffrey, sums it up perfectly: “I will watch this show even if it goes on for a hundred seasons if they promise me gruesome violence against that little kid.”

    Joffrey is another great example of a character who continually gets what he wants when he doesn’t deserve it while doing increasingly despicable things, building narrative tension in the audience as we froth at the mouth to see him get what’s coming to him.

    Are there ways you can ratchet up the tension in your story by making things easier and easier for your terrible antagonist, delaying our gratification in seeing his eventual punishment?

  2. Use lesser antagonists to take some of the load off your Big Bad.

    Whether you’re writing a TV show or a feature film, you almost certainly have multiple layers of antagonists, not just a single villain. And I don’t just mean a “Big Bad” and his three henchmen, I mean other types of antagonists who are causing problems for our hero on all sides.

    Some of those antagonists are mere nuisances or even well-meaning characters who are nevertheless blocking your heroes from doing what needs to be done, but others are more serious threats that will help the hero train for her eventual climactic fight against the Big Bad.

    You can find examples of this in pretty much any movie or TV show, but one great example you’ve probably seen is Die Hard (1988). Of course Hans Gruber is the Big Bad and John McClane will have to defeat many henchmen before he can fight Hans, but there are several other antagonists to contend with as well: Harry Ellis (John’s wife’s arrogant coworker who reveals John’s identity to Hans), Dick Thorburg (the irresponsible reporter who carelessly exposes the identity of John’s wife and children), and Dwayne Robinson (the police chief who doesn’t believe John that the building is under siege or that John is a cop).

    Hans Gruber

    These “lesser” antagonists can do some of the dirty work of your Big Bad, which helps your main villain retain an aura of mystery while still keeping your heroes under constant threat.

    One of the movies most famous for a mysterious antagonist is Jaws (1975) — so much of what made that shark terrifying is that we rarely actually see it. If every time something bad happened in that movie it had to be the shark eating someone, that would get old very quickly and the shark would lose his power to frighten. By having other, lesser antagonists in the movie, we were able to have continuous conflict and obstacles without getting burned out on shark attacks.

    Is your Big Bad doing dirty work in your story that steals some of her menace? Can you farm out those conflicts to lesser antagonists instead?

  3. Use a lesser antagonist as a more narratively satisfying deus ex machina to save your hero from another, worse villain.

    You’ve probably heard this famous writing advice from Pixar story artist Emma Coats: “Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.”

    But sometimes you really do need a satisfying way to get a hero out of an impossible jam. Even the best stories need an occasional deus ex machina, but we’ve all felt that disappointment when a sidekick just happens to ride up at the exact moment a hero needs help. We wanted them to get out of trouble, but not like that!

    Another benefit of having multiple layers of antagonists is that you can have a lesser antagonist be the deus ex machina that saves our hero from a much deadlier one.

    A movie that does this to great effect is Attack the Block (2011) which has its heroes running scared from cops, a murderous drug dealer, and aliens all at the same time. There is at least one moment when a well-timed attack from one antagonist gives our heroes a means to escape another.

    This is much more narratively satisfying because it’s not completely fixing the hero’s problem — they still have to deal with this new problem, it just saves them from a truly impossible one.

    Do you have an unsatisfying deus ex machina in your story that you could make more satisfying by having an antagonist come to the rescue instead of a helper?

  4. Use an antagonist to make a challenging protagonist more palatable.

    Your protagonists don’t have to be innocent Pollyannas for the audience to care about them, they just have to be not as bad as the antagonistic forces against them.

    On another series, a conceited mean girl would be the antagonist, but because Sansa Stark is the victim of much crueler characters on Game of Thrones, we empathize with her. You can make even the most horrible character empathetic by putting them at odds with someone even worse.

    This is a good opportunity for those smaller antagonists who aren’t quite to the level of Big Bad Villain, but are thorns in the side of your hero.

    In your story, is there an opportunity to make an unlikable character more empathetic by giving them an even more unlikable opponent?

  5. Use your villain to help the hero see her own dark side.

    Someone told me once in a job interview, when I’d failed to find a satisfactory answer to the question “what is your greatest weakness,” that weaknesses are usually the excess of our strengths.

    Often, a great villain is simply the hero run amok; it’s someone with the qualities of the hero taken to their terrible logical extreme. This can create a great opportunity for your hero to look inside herself and see her own flaws and the danger that awaits her if she doesn’t change, as it does in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) and in The Last Jedi (2017).

    Is there a way you can make your Big Bad a better “upside down” reflection of your hero, or make better use of that reflection?

  6. Use a secret antagonist to upend the audience’s expectations.

    I can’t give examples of this without spoiling the stories, but there are several extremely successful movies and TV shows in recent years that involved an antagonist initially posing (to the hero and to the audience) as someone who was on the protagonist’s side.

    This is tricky to pull off without pulling the rug so hard out from under the audience’s feet that they have nothing left to stand on, but when this works for a story, it really, really works. Is there an antagonist in your story who you could initially portray as good? Or a protagonist in your story who you could make secretly bad?

 

“It’s Basically a Soap Opera.”

“It’s basically a soap opera” is an accusation I’ve seen hurled at shows as disparate as Downton Abbey and The Walking Dead — and it is almost always framed as an accusation or a dismissal, not merely a description. I just started watching Game of Thrones (I know) and last night I described the notoriously violent fantasy series just that way, and then wondered what I’d meant by it.

So now I’m wondering: what is it that makes a show “like a soap opera?” Are there shows that aren’t like a soap opera? And is being like a soap opera inherently a bad thing?

I definitely need to do some more thinking on this so I welcome your comments if you disagree, but here is a list of qualities that I think are what people are referring to when they say that a show is like a soap opera:

  1. The show is almost entirely about interpersonal relationships.

    Almost all TV shows have important relationships at their core (except maybe some procedurals at the extreme end of the episodic-serialized spectrum, like the original Law & Order), but on some shows the relationships are the music underscoring the plot and on other shows the relationships are the plot.

    For example, I would not describe The Americans as a soap opera because though Philip and Elizabeth’s relationship is absolutely central to the show and is in fact in many ways what the show is “about” in a thematic sense, the plot rarely revolves around it, but on Game of Thrones pretty much everything that happens is driven by someone’s relationship with someone else.

    Is this a bad thing? I would definitely say no, but I do think it might be sometimes described as a bad thing because talking about relationships is something that’s traditionally thought of as “chick flick” stuff and is therefore devalued by a society that devalues most things feminine.

  2. The show has a lot of “talking head” scenes in which two people just have a conversation about their relationship with each other, about their relationship with someone else, or about someone else’s relationship with someone else.

    The Walking Dead is famous for relying on these types of scenes more heavily than its zombie-craving audience would prefer. I think it especially starts feeling “like a soap opera” when characters seem to be having the same conversation over and over, or start dissecting the inner workings of each other’s relationships more often than they ever would in real life.

    Is this a bad thing? Yes, sometimes. Television is a visual medium, though maybe less so than film, and while talking head scenes can keep your budget down, they can get stale after awhile to viewers.

    HBO is famous for putting naked women in the background of scenes like this to make the scene more visually interesting (a move perfected on The Sopranos, another show I would describe as “basically a soap opera” — think about how much of the plot on that show was driven by someone essentially hurting Tony’s feelings).

  3. The show has a sprawling cast and a plot that’s heavily reliant on complicated histories between characters, often requiring lengthy “Previously Ons” before each episode.

    Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, but be wary of it in your own work if you’re a new writer.

  4. The show’s plot revolves around a lot of extremely dramatic and dysfunctional relationships full of secrets, lies, and misunderstandings. A surprising number of plots hinge on someone happening to be outside a door in time to overhear a private conversation.

    I’m not as confident about this one because it doesn’t describe The Walking Dead (a show that is constantly described as a soap opera by its detractors) or The Sopranos, but it certainly describes Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey.

    Is this a bad thing? I don’t think a secret baby plot is any more ridiculous than a “zombie virus outbreak threatens humanity” plot, so no.

What do you think? What did I miss? What did I get wrong?

Are there other shows you think are secretly “basically a soap opera” or shows that are definitely not a soap opera?

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How to Avoid Plot Twist Fatigue

Plot twists in a movie are great. There are few greater joys in a film than that moment when you are truly, satisfyingly surprised by a twist you never saw coming, but in retrospect realize was inevitable.

But sometimes… there’s too much of a good thing.

We’ve all seen a movie like this. There are so many plot twists and reversals that after awhile, you’re not so much surprised as you are confused, and not so much on-the-edge-of-your-seat as you are put at a distance. The spy wasn’t just a spy, she was a double agent! Actually, she was a triple agent! Actually, she’s been dead the whole time! Actually, the whole movie was a dream! It’s not fun, it’s annoying.

I don’t ever like to name and shame movies on this blog, but I will say that I saw a movie in theaters recently that had so many never-saw-’em-coming twists and turns that by the end of the film, there was nothing left in the story to believe in or care about. Nothing could be trusted, nothing was real. Every aspect of that story I’d invested in had been a lie, from the big, important themes down to the smallest, stupidest facts. It made me feel cheated and like I’d wasted my time.

Here are two ways to avoid that:

  1. Keep your big reversals to the ends of acts. End of Act 1, midpoint (end of Act 2a), end of Act 2, and probably one more at the end of the movie, depending on what kind of movie it is. That’s it. If you have giant twists happening in every scene, the audience will get confused and exhausted. (If you’re writing for TV, then it’s even more straightforward because it is probably unmistakable where your acts end.)

    If you must do the thing where there’s a twist at the end of the movie and then there’s a second twist the audience didn’t see coming because they were still reeling from the first, I would not deprive you of that. Those can be fun. BUT YOU CAN ONLY HAVE ONE EXTRA TWIST. Don’t then have a third twist and a fourth, unless you’re writing a parody because that might actually be really funny.

    This is not one of those things where one twist is great so fourteen must be amazing. More is not better. Better is better.

    Also, when I say a reversal at the end of each act, I don’t mean that each of those reversals is an M. Night Shyamalan style shocker. They can’t all have been dead the whole time. When I say a reversal or a twist, I just mean something that changes the audience’s understanding of the situation and spins the story in a new direction.

    I think sometimes writers are afraid to put reversals at the end of an act because that’s where the audience expects it. But it’s actually satisfying when a story delivers what you expect! The key is to deliver it in a way that’s unexpected. So, yes, do put a big twist at the end of the act (or a small reversal if it’s a quiet, contemplative story), just don’t make it the first, most obvious idea that popped in your head.

  2. Have a few things in your script that you keep sacred and do not let any reversals undo those things. A classic example of this would be a primary relationship if your story has one (and it almost certainly does). It could be your protagonist’s love for her daughter, or it could be a romantic relationship you want to hold sacred in your story. You may want to make that bond untouchable by plot twists so the audience has something to hold onto throughout all the twists and turns of the story.

    Or, if you do want your primary relationship to be undone by a twist because that’s what your whole movie is about (you lovable cynic), then have something else be your Untouchable Truth — maybe it’s your protagonist’s loyalty to his country. Maybe it’s your mentor’s inherent goodness. Maybe it’s the way your magic system works. Whatever it is, have a few important things in your film that are core to what the movie is about and make sure those things are never upended in a twist.

    In fact, if anything, any twists should cement those things. Underline, not strikethrough.

What else am I missing? What makes for an especially good or bad twist? How much is too much?

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Your Pilot’s Twist Ending: You Might Be Doing It Wrong

I’m excited about a pilot I’m working on right now, partly because it’s a unique concept set in an interesting world, but partly because I had an idea for a really badass Twist Ending to End All Twist Endings. It’s a stunning visual, a huge surprise, and the kind of thing that if I was watching it on TV, I would sit up in my seat and be like “WHAAAAAT” and immediately text everyone I know.

But after some reflection, I’ve decided to change it.

A common theme across most pilots, whether it’s an hour-long family drama like This is Us or a half-hour sitcom like How I Met Your Mother, is that it ends with what I very scientifically refer to as a “‘whaaaaaaat’ moment.”

You might call it a twist, a reveal, a reversal – it’s something that happens at the end of the episode that you were not only not expecting but that completely changes how you see the show, and that ideally makes you excited for the next episode. It’s hard for me to think of a single modern pilot that doesn’t end this way.

How Do Pilot Twist Endings Work

These kinds of endings usually involve one of the following on the last page of the script (or close to it):

  • the introduction of a new main character
  • the death of someone we thought was going to be a main character
  • a surprising reveal that the relationship between two characters is not what we thought it was (they’re not really married, they’re actually related, they haven’t actually met each other, etc.)
  • the entire situation we thought the characters were in is not the situation they’re really in (it’s actually a computer simulation, it was actually a dream, we’re not actually on Earth, we’re actually in the past, etc.)
  • a main character is not who we thought she was on a fundamental level (she’s actually a villain, he’s actually a superhero, she’s actually a ghost, etc.)
  • something we accepted on faith is not actually true (the murder victim isn’t really dead, the faithful husband isn’t really faithful, the successful business isn’t really successful, etc.)
  • the predicament the main characters are in is actually much worse than we thought (not only are they trapped back in time but there’s also a supervillain after them, not only is the detective on the trail of a serial killer but the serial killer is also on the trail of her, etc.)

These kinds of twists, as a concept, are a great idea. They can make your pilot memorable, they give people something to talk about after reading, and they can make us anxious for the next episode. They’re especially helpful if your pilot on the whole isn’t very good, because at least the twist will trigger our natural human curiosity.

Why Pilot Twist Endings Often Don’t Work

But there are three huge downsides to them if handled poorly, and almost every unproduced pilot I have ever read has made at least one of these mistakes (and I’ve made them myself):

  1. It’s all about the twist.

    When we fall in love with our own twist ending, we’re tempted to make it the focal point of the pilot. Instead of telling a great story in a fascinating world with characters the audience cares about, we kill time for 25-60 pages until we can get to the “good part” which is the big abracadabra ending.

    The obvious problem is that no one will actually make it to the “good part” unless they’re being paid to finish reading it (or are a very loyal friend).

  2. The twist invalidates what the reader understood – or worse, liked – about the show.

    We just spent 60 pages getting the reader invested in a hero only to, on the last page, kill off the only character they empathized with.

    We just spent 25 pages introducing the reader to a world they loved, only to reveal on the last page that the rest of the series will be taking place in a completely different setting.

    At best, this kind of twist is confusing because the reader isn’t sure what to expect from the rest of the series (since it will obviously be nothing like the pilot). At worst, it takes away or invalidates the only thing the reader actually liked about the script.

  3. No one is going to be surprised.

    If your entire pilot’s success rests on the surprise twist of the ending then we really better not see it coming. Unfortunately, readers and viewers are savvy these days and have learned to expect a twist, so we’re likely to see it coming from three acts off.

    Worse, if by some miracle your pilot was actually produced, what would the marketing campaign look like? Won’t it need to spoil the twist to sell the concept of the series? It’s bad enough to spend a whole episode stalling for the big twist reveal – it’s even worse if it’s a reveal everyone knew was coming.

Some Examples

In the real pilot episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it’s Buffy’s first day at a new high school. Before the episode began, she was expelled from her previous high school for burning down the building. She already knows she’s a vampire slayer.

During the course of the pilot, Buffy learns how things work at her new school, she meets the main characters that will populate season 1, she comes around to accept her role as slayer (which she rejected at the beginning), she deals with ordinary high school things, and she slays vampires with the help of her new friends.

Though this is a “premise pilot” (in that it sets up a new situation that did not exist before the show started), it is  representative of a typical episode of the first season. These are the characters we’ll be spending time with, these are the kinds of things they’ll be doing, and this is where they’ll mostly be doing them.

But what if the pilot had taken place at Buffy’s old high school when she first found out she was the slayer? What if that was the surprise ending? That’s arguably a more interesting “bang” for a pilot – an ordinary teen finds out she’s a vampire slayer, burns down her high school, and is forced to move to a new town. The obvious problem is that we’d spend the whole episode with characters and a location that are not representative of the real show (plus, what would the show be called? Buffy, the Totally Normal Teen, We Swear?).

If you haven’t seen the first episode of this season of Black Mirror, I won’t spoil it for you, but there’s a twist in the episode that felt so much like a typical Black Mirror twist ending that I thought it was the end of the episode. It turned out to be the end of Act 1.

Alec Bojalad nails it in his review of the episode when he says:

“The best part of ‘USS Callister’… is that it takes what would have been the ending to a weaker episode of Black Mirror and turns it into the beginning. Black Mirror, great as it is, sometimes falls into a science fiction trapping that has felled many other fine sci-fi stories. It treats the ending as the ultimate ‘ta-da!’ This can, of course, be a thrilling experience still but the best science fiction stories treat the ‘ta-da!’ as the beginning.”

How to Fix Your Twist

Does your pilot have one of these problems? Luckily, there are three things you can do to fix it.

  1. Make the rest of the pilot more interesting.

    Easier said than done, I know, but if your pilot is just spinning its wheels until the big reveal at the end of Act 5, go back and figure out how to use those five acts to tell a real story.

    Give your characters goals and values and stakes and obstacles. Put those characters into conflict. Have a clear plot arc with complications and at least a partial resolution.

    Now you’ve earned your twist ending, if you even still want it.

  2. Make the twist underline what came before it, not strikethrough it.

    The best twists are shocking while simultaneously emphasizing, confirming, or deepening the premise or theme put forth by the preceding 25-60 pages, rather than invalidating them. This is a tricky line to walk, but if you know what you’re trying to say with your story, you’ll know if your twist upends it or cements it.

  3. Move the twist earlier.

    Take the big twist you planned for the end of the pilot and make it the end of Act 1. Or even the end of the teaser! Instead of making the pilot about the twist, make the pilot about the story that happens after the twist. This will make for a more interesting pilot and will make for a pilot that feels more like a typical episode of your show.

    Now you can come up with a second surprise for your pilot’s ending – but one the audience truly doesn’t expect and that doesn’t invalidate the story you just spent five acts telling.

For my own pilot, I decided to make my abracadabra twist ending the end of Act 1 instead, and then spend the next four acts telling an interesting story that’s more representative of a typical episode of the show.

But don’t worry – I came up with another twist for the end.

***

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Writing Monologues for Television: Analyzing 7 All-Time Greats

Everyone loves a monologue. Writers love writing them, actors love performing them. And when they’re transcendentally good, viewers love watching them. Monologues are an opportunity to uncover hidden depths of a character and their relationships, to reveal important background, and to shape the pace of a story for maximum emotional resonance.

Let me start by encouraging you to not write one.

Monologues are very, very hard. They’re hard for writers. They’re hard for actors. And if the monologue isn’t spectacular, they’re hard for the audience too. Most stories don’t need one at all, and our impulse to write one is usually driven by a masturbatory indulgence in the sound of our own voice.

But there are times when a monologue is important, even necessary, and there are ways to ensure yours is the kind that makes actors salivate and viewers illegally screencap your episode to upload to Tumblr.

clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose

So much of what makes a monologue sing is the actor and the director. A gifted actor can make the most lifeless text sound like Shakespeare2, while a terrible actor can make Shakespeare sound like gibberish.

But if you’re writing a script to be read by agents and producers and contest judges, you won’t have an actor, so you’ll need to be aiming for Shakespeare.

In real life conversation, people speak for an average of two seconds before yielding (or being forced to yield) the floor. It’s generally agreed that one page of a screenplay equals about one minute of screen time (on average), and one page of a screenplay is (on average) about 60 lines of text, so using some back-of-the-envelope math, you can estimate that the average line of dialogue should be about two lines if you want a conversation to sound “natural.”

That’s obviously not meant to be prescriptive (please don’t go through your script and painstakingly add and remove words until every line of dialogue is exactly two lines), but if you find that most speeches in your script are three or more lines, you may have some unnaturally loquacious characters on your hands3.

So what makes a great monologue? Great monologues in television usually have most of the following qualities, though not necessarily all of them:

  • Three-act structure: a narrative arc with an introduction, a complication, and a powerful resolution
  • Deepens character: often reveals an unexpected vulnerability or a power shift or a piece of surprising information
  • Circular reference: the end of the monologue ties back to the beginning, or to something said just before the monologue, giving a sense of closure (much like Blake Snyder’s opening and closing image in a screenplay)
  • Contains distinct beats and levels: contains distinct beats in which the speaker changes their intensity level, the emotion they’re expressing, or the tactics they’re using to get what they want
  • Surprising: communicates surprising information or has another unexpected twist, such as a character reacting to something differently from how they normally would
  • Emotional: it doesn’t just communicate facts; it communicates how the character feels about those facts (and sometimes how the listener feels as well – in fact, sometimes the listener’s feelings are even more important than the speaker’s)
  • Climactic: structurally, a monologue like this typically takes place at or near the climax of the episode (roughly 70-85% through the runtime)
  • Powerful ending: the monologue ends with a sucker punch punchline

I asked friends (and Google) for great examples of TV monologues. Let’s take a look at seven of them and see how they stack up against the features I outlined above.
Sherlock

Season 3, Episode 2 (“The Sign of Three”)
Writers: Stephen Thompson, Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss

The first monologue we’ll look at is Sherlock’s wedding speech from BBC’s Sherlock. Nothing is revealed in this monologue that I would consider a spoiler except maybe the existence of the wedding itself, but it’s no secret that these characters eventually marry4.

This monologue hits several of the bullet points above:

  • Three-act structure:

    Act 1 (01:27 – 02:17): Introduction – Sherlock rambles nervously about how he came to be best man at John’s wedding

    Act 2 (02:37 – 03:45): Complication – Sherlock behaves as typical Sherlock, managing to insult both John and the bridesmaids, generally offend everyone in the audience, and makes the speech all about himself

    Act 3 (03:46 – 05:17): Resolution – Sherlock does something we’ve never seen him do: show vulnerability and express love

  • Deepens character: We’re well aware of what John sees in Sherlock (he’s exciting and charming and brilliant), but for the first time, we learn what Sherlock sees in John and how much he values him. It also might be the first time we see a glimmer of self-awareness in Sherlock and realize that his difficulty in relating to others is more painful than he lets on.

    It’s important to note that while Sherlock is talking about John in this monologue, the monologue is not about John. It’s about Sherlock. His name is literally in the title of the show – the show is about him. So when you have a long, emotionally resonant monologue like this, the goal is generally going to be deepening Sherlock’s character, not anyone else’s.

  • Circular reference: The monologue begins with Sherlock talking about how John asked him to be best man and that he didn’t understand why. It ends with Sherlock admitting that he was surprised to be asked to be best man because he’s surprised to find that he has a best friend.

  • Emotional: Is someone chopping onions in my general vicinity?

  • Powerful ending: “We will never let you down and we have a lifetime ahead to prove that.”

Scandal

Season 3, Episode 1 (“It’s Handled”)
Writer: Shonda Rhimes

What occurs in this scene is technically a spoiler, I guess, but every second of this show is so batshit bananas that I don’t think a preview of this one tiny plot point would diminish your enjoyment of the series.

If you asked me for my top three monologue writers of all time, I’d probably say Shakespeare, Sorkin5, Shonda – not in that order. And this monologue is classic Shonda: a funny, surprising, infinitely quotable and emotionally gutting rollercoaster engineered by an eloquence we only wish we could have when angry. When I asked for TV monologue recommendations on Facebook and a friend posted this link in the comments, I got a preemptive chill before I even watched it.

  • Three-act structure:

    Act 1 (00:00 – 01:05): Introduction – Rowan tells Olivia (and us) the situation and what they will do to her (“I know more than you can possibly imagine about things of which you cannot dream”)

    Act 2 (01:06 – 02:08): Complication – Rowan launches into a protective, belittling, patronizing rage against Olivia for falling for Fitz (“Do you have to be so mediocre?”)

    Act 3 (02:09 – 02:56): Resolution – Rowan calmly tells her what’s going to happen next (“Olivia, you are getting on that plane”)

  • Deepens character: Like in the Sherlock monologue above, though Rowan (Olivia’s father) is the one delivering the monologue, this show is not about Rowan, it’s about Olivia, so most of what he reveals here is actually about her.

    Olivia, who is often found delivering searing, soaring, Shonda-certified monologues of her own, is reduced here to a sniffling teenager before her towering father. So much is revealed here about their relationship and about the weakness (or what they both fear is weakness) beneath her strength.

    We see Rowan’s deep, painful love for his daughter (possibly for the first time), but we also see the controlling, menacing way that he expresses it, and how that’s made her who she is today.

  • Contains distinct beats and levels: Rowan moves seamlessly between tender, raging, calmly professional, and cruelly belittling in his attempt to convince Olivia that she has failed him, that she must get on that plane, and that she must never make a mistake like this again

  • Powerful ending: “Olivia, you are getting on that plane, come hell or high water. And to be clear? I am the hell… and the high water.”

Mad Men

Season 1, Episode 13 (“The Wheel”)
Writers: Matthew Weiner & Robin Veith

  • Three-act structure:

    Act 1 (00:39 – 01:19): Introduction – Don opens by talking about his first job and a Greek man named Teddy who taught him about the concept of nostalgia. “My first job, I was in-house at a fur company…”

    Act 2 (01:20 – 02:23): Complication – He explains what nostalgia is (“the pain from an old wound”) and how the carousel can invoke it. “This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine.”

    Act 3 (02:24 – 03:20): Resolution – He brings it home emotionally for himself, for the executives in the room, and for us. “… to a place where we know we are loved.”

  • Deepens character: Yes. Don is an enigma at this point in the series. Does he have feelings at all? Is he just always in manipulation mode? But this slideshow of photos of his kids and wife feels real and for probably the first time on the show, you get a glimpse of the depth of emotion he buries inside himself.

  • Circular reference: Sort of. Just before the monologue starts, one of the Kodak executives asks Don if he “figured out a way to work the wheel into it,” adding that “we know it’s hard.” A few minutes later, Don brings this home emotionally when he says, “It’s not a wheel… it’s a carousel.”

  • Contains distinct beats and levels: It’s a quiet monologue but it definitely has levels. In the beginning, Don seems light-hearted, telling a folksy story about a Greek man he used to work with, but as the monologue progresses, what he’s saying takes on a heavy emotional weight until he himself is nearly in tears.

    The rhythmic click, click, click of the slide carousel and the ghostly light of the projector (and of course the non-diegetic music scoring the scene) adds to this feeling of growing emotional weight.

  • Emotional: Yes. We see real emotion in Don (and in at least one other character in the room).

  • Climactic: Yes. This monologue takes place 35 minutes into the 48-minute first season finale.

  • Powerful ending: “It lets us travel the way a child travels, around and around and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.”

The Blacklist

Season 2, Episode 6 (“The Mombasa Cartel”)
Writer: Daniel Knauf

This clip contains major spoilers for this one particular episode, but not for the series as a whole (except that you learn the backstory of how Red and Dembe met, which I would not consider a huge spoiler but is technically unknown until this reveal).

I pity the fool who wrote a spec script for The Blacklist when it was in its prime. Every damn episode has a killer monologue at the end for Raymond “Red” Reddington (played to perfection by James Spader) and nailing that in a spec is probably the hardest part of imitating this show.

His monologues are always a fascinating story with beautiful imagery and an emotional gut punch at the end, and this one I’ve selected is one of the best.

  • Three-act structure:

    Act 1 (00:00 – 00:59): Introduction – Red sets the stage and tells the story of a young boy captured by the cartel. “Twenty-nine years ago in Sierra Leone…”

    Act 2 (01:00 – 01:30): Complication – Red explains that he took the boy after he’d been left to die and saw to his education. “His name is Dembe.”

    Act 3 (01:31 – 02:00): Resolution – Dembe tries to dissuade Red from killing Geoff, but fails. “You see? That is what a good man does.”

  • Deepens character: Yes. Every episode of The Blacklist involves Red convincing the FBI to help him take down a criminal mastermind from his secret “blacklist” for the good of mankind. They do, and it does benefit mankind, but it also always turns out at the end that Red had some secret selfish motivation for taking down this particular criminal, like obtaining a shipping container full of illegal weapons, etc.

    What’s special about this episode, and thus this monologue, is that it turns out this particular criminal takedown isn’t about personal gain at all, but about vengeance on behalf of someone Red loves. That someone is Dembe, Red’s mysterious personal driver and bodyguard who we as an audience already felt some affection for. The monologue has emotional resonance because it shows a depth to Red that we hadn’t fully seen before – a selflessness and a love for another person.

  • Contains distinct beats and levels: Red starts out almost friendly, educating, but then becomes bitter and angry over Dembe’s treatment, then proud as he reflects on Dembe’s accomplishments, and finally resolved when he kills Geoff.

  • Surprising: Yes. We didn’t know this backstory about Dembe or that Geoff was a bad guy (he’s initially presented as a friend).

  • Emotional: Yes. Red gets emotional when talking about his love and respect for Dembe.

  • Climactic: Yes. It takes place 37 minutes into a 43-minute episode.

  • Powerful ending: Yes. “That is what separates men like him from men like you… and me.”

The Leftovers

Season 1, Episode 1 (“Pilot”)
Writer: Damon Lindelof & Tom Perrotta

This is from the first episode of the show so I wouldn’t say it’s a spoiler.

This is Nora’s “Heroes’ Day” speech from the pilot of The Leftovers.

  • Three-act structure:

    Act 1 (00:23 – 01:20): Introduction – Nora tells the crowd about a beautiful day at the beach with her family a few months before the “departure.” “The best day of my life happened… but I didn’t know it.”

    Act 2 (01:21 – 01:46): Complication – She tells the story of a terrible day a few months before when the whole family had the stomach flu. “I thought… this is it.”

    Act 3 (01:47 – 02:06): Resolution – She says if she could have her family back, she’d gladly take that horrible Saturday. “I’m not greedy. I’m not asking for the perfect day at the beach. Just give me that horrible Saturday.”

  • Deepens character: I believe this is the first time we’ve ever met Nora, who will turn out to be a very important character.

  • Circular reference: Yes. She starts by talking about a perfect day her family shared at the beach, but ends by saying she doesn’t even need that – she just wants to have them back, even if it was the worst day they’ve ever had.

  • Contains distinct beats and levels: Yes. She seems peaceful when reflecting on her nice day at the beach, and even laughs when talking about the terrible day when everyone was sick, but then fights tears at the end when she says she just wants her family back.

  • Surprising: Yes. It’s the first time we’ve met Nora (I think?) and we’re surprised by this speech.

  • Emotional: Yes.

  • Powerful ending: Yes. “I’m not greedy. I’m not asking for the perfect day at the beach. Just give me that horrible Saturday, all four of us sick and miserable but alive and together.”

Breaking Bad

Season 4, Episode 6 (“Cornered”)
Writer: Gennifer Hutchison

The only spoiler this monologue contains is that it reveals one pivotal thing that happened in Season 3. Don’t watch it if you don’t want to know.

Also this monologue is a pretty awesome moment that you should get to experience in context if you haven’t watched this far in the series yet.

  • Three-act structure:

    Act 1 (00:51 – 01:00): Introduction – Walt asks Skyler what she sees when she looks at him. It’s almost a friendly question, but it’s chilling. “What is it you think you see?”

    Act 2 (01:01 – 01:23): Complication – He tells her that a business big enough to be on the NASDAQ would crumble if he went to prison. “You clearly don’t know who you’re talking to, so let me clue you in.”

    Act 3 (01:24 – 01:37): Resolution – His rage overfloweth. “I am not in danger. I am the danger.”

  • Deepens character: Yes. Walt shows a side of himself to Skyler that she has never seen, altering their relationship forever and cementing for the audience how far he has really gone.

  • Circular reference: Yes. Attempting to appeal to Walt’s fear, Skyler suggests he might “(get) shot when you open your front door.” He ends the monologue by famously saying “I am the one who knocks.”

  • Contains distinct beats and levels: Yes.

  • Surprising: Yes. Skyler appeals to Walt’s fear and weakness, but is surprised to learn she’s only stoked the fires of his ego.

  • Powerful ending: “I am the one who knocks.”

Parks & Recreation

Season 6, Episode 9 (“Second Chunce”)
Writers: Amy Poehler & Michael Schur

The content of this monologue is only a spoiler in that it takes place in season 6 and so it reveals something about the emotional/plot journey the protagonist has taken by that point in the series.

This is another monologue that is delivered by someone other than a main character. The purpose of this monologue is not to reveal hidden depths of Kathryn Hahn’s character (though it does do a bit of that) but to propel the protagonist to make a pivotal choice.

  • Deepens character: The monologue itself doesn’t reveal information about Leslie’s character, but the advice Jennifer gives her triggers a major decision in the next act, and the fact that this advice resonates with her in the way it does expresses something about her character and how she’s grown.

  • Climactic: Yes. This monologue occurs 17.5 minutes into a 21-minute episode.

  • Contains distinct beats and levels: Yes. She goes from critical to silly to inspiring to business-like.

  • Surprising: Yes. Leslie expects Jennifer to help her run for office, but instead she encourages her to not run at all.

  • Powerful ending: “You can trust me… because I don’t care enough about you to lie.”

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Structuring Your Half-Hour Dramedy Pilot

So now you know what makes a half-hour dramedy what it is and you know how to get to the core of what yours should be about. The next step is writing the actual script, or punching up one you’ve already written.

As promised, I analyzed the structure (length, act breaks, number of characters, and narrative arc) of a group of half-hour dramedy pilots. I found that all the pilots I studied were structured in a very similar way1, even across networks.

I did a less in-depth version of this analysis for one-hour drama pilots here.

I share this information not to give you a paint-by-numbers template because there are hundreds of TV series out there that take a paint-by-numbers approach to storytelling and most are instantly forgettable. But if you write about something that matters to you and set it in a world you find interesting, comparing its structure to this template might help you see what your story is missing or why it feels too slow or too rushed.

There are definitely some outliers, like FX’s Better Things, which is more of a stream of consciousness “slice of life” pilot, but even that episode has act breaks and still loosely follows the pattern of the other shows I studied, just in a quieter, more subtle way. (It’s a beautiful pilot that I recommend watching even if it’s hard to take many structural lessons from it.)

Better Things on FX

Amazon’s Transparent is another pilot that doesn’t fit comfortably in the structure of most half-hour dramedies because each season is written as a five-hour movie.2 The first episode is really just the first half of Act 1 leading up to the inciting incident. So it does have a formal structure, it’s just not TV structure. I would not recommend attempting this unless, like Jill Soloway, you already have a full season order from a streaming network.

How Long Should Your Pilot Be?

The half-hour dramedy pilots I studied all had 4 or 5 acts (usually 5), including any teaser or tag that might be included. Across those acts, the episodes were divided into 11-16  scenes, usually in the 14-15 range. These pilots were all 21-27 minutes long (most were 21-22 minutes), but one minute doesn’t always equal one page. Note that at least one of the major TV writing contests requires half-hour pilots to be at least 25 pages. I assume the higher page count is because comedies have historically had more quick back and forth dialogue which means more line breaks on the page in a short period of screen time.

So your pilot would feel similar to a produced pilot if it was 5 acts (possibly including a teaser and/or tag), divided into 14-15 scenes of about 1.5-2 pages each (on average).

I don’t mean that prescriptively, but if something about your script feels off, that’s a place to look if your script differs wildly from this very common template.

How Many Characters Should I Introduce?

I read a lot of pilots and some of them feel too thin because there aren’t enough characters to create conflicts between, while others feel overwhelming because there are too many characters to keep straight in your mind.

Of course, it’s much less about the number of characters you have and more about how you differentiate those characters and how you make use of them. Every character should represent a different side of the argument you’re making or the theme you’re exploring, and those characters should have between them inherent potential for conflict and inherent potential for connection in as many different combinations as possible.

What really makes a script feel like it has “too many characters” is when multiple characters are serving the same purpose in the story, and what makes a script feel like it has “too few characters” is when there aren’t enough built-in opportunities for conflict or connection between characters.

What really makes a script feel like it has “too many characters” is when multiple characters are serving the same purpose in the story, and what makes a script feel like it has “too few characters” is when there aren’t enough built-in opportunities for conflict or connection between characters.

This is why shows like The Walking Dead (in later seasons particularly) keep piling on more and more new characters – it feels like there aren’t enough characters even though there are already so many, but it’s actually just that the characters they already have don’t have enough different combinations of naturally-occurring opportunities for conflict and connection between them. This is a common problem I see in pilots I read.

All of that said, the pilots I studied had between 10-20 speaking parts, and of those speaking parts, there were only 2-4 main characters. I define “main character” here as a character who is in a lot of scenes and will obviously play a major role in the series going forward with their own problems to solve and a meaningful character arc. This is important because if you have more than 3 or 4 main characters in a half-hour pilot, it’s going to be hard for the audience to keep track of and care about all of them.

People of Earth on TBS

We also see between 3-10 secondary characters introduced. I define “secondary character” here as a character with a name who will be coming back in future episodes. These characters usually don’t have their own goals, problems, and arcs, though they might develop them in future seasons. These are characters like Dory’s boss in Search Party, the priest in People of Earth, or Sam’s dad in Better Things.

These kinds of characters are important because while they do not initially have goals and problems of their own (or at least not ones we’re invested in), they can create or complicate conflicts for our main characters, and they’re waiting in the wings in later episodes when you start running out of story ideas for your protagonists.

Last, these pilots had between 2-10 minor characters, which I define here as characters that only have a line or two, usually don’t have a real name, and most likely will not return in future episodes. These are characters like “Bellhop” or “Protestor #2.”

It’s worth noting that the line between “main character” and “secondary character” can be blurry. For example, in the pilot of The Good Place I considered only Michael, Eleanor and Chidi to be main characters, while I classified Tahani, Jianyu, and Janet as secondary characters. This is accurate based on the pilot, but if you keep watching the show, those three secondary characters take on a much bigger role and some minor characters step up as new secondaries. This happens on most series, but for the purpose of this analysis, you should think of your characters in the context of just your pilot.

 

What Happens in Each Act?

First Section (Teaser or Act 1)

The first section (either a teaser or Act 1) is 1-2 scenes and lasts between 1-3 minutes. In this section, we establish the basic premise (what this show is about on the most logline-y level) and the tone (funny and action-packed, heightened reality, a musical, dreamlike and tender, etc.).

These are really important concepts that are missing from the first section of most pilots I read. We don’t need to understand every complexity of the plot and theme in the first three minutes of your pilot, but we should be able to state the logline of your series (or at least the first half of it) based on these three minutes.

It’s also important that we get the tone of your show – if it’s a show that’s mostly funny, the first scene should be funny. If it’s going to have scary parts or a heightened, fantastical quality, that tone should be presented in the very first scene so we understand what we’re watching and can view it through the right lens. If it’s a musical, there better be a song real quick.

In this first section, we also usually meet the main character, but sometimes not if it’s a teaser. If we do meet the main character, we might also meet one or two other main or secondary characters, but almost certainly not all of them.

Search Party on TBS

 

Second Section (Act 1 or Act 2)

The second section (either Act 1 or Act 2) is 3-6 scenes and lasts between 3-8 minutes. In this section, we meet the rest of the main characters. We learn what we need to know about the world. The main problem of the series/season/episode is established.

When I say that we meet the main characters, it’s not enough that they are just physically on screen. We should understand their deal, at least on a basic level. What is one word that most strongly describes their personality? Of course your characters are more complex than can be summed in one word, and we’ll hopefully have a chance to learn this over the course of many episodes and seasons, but there’s probably one quality that describes them most simply: arrogant, insecure, sullen, idealistic, selfish, gullible, logical, etc. That one word should come across right away so the audience has something to hold onto about this character, even if later we will come to understand them in a more nuanced way (which we hopefully will).

This is also where we’ll probably meet the antagonist if there is one. Remember that an antagonist doesn’t have to be a mustache-twirling supervillain, just a character whose choices, values, and desires stand in opposition to our protagonist.

When I say we learn what we need to know about the world, this is sometimes as simple as an establishing shot of a city skyline and a scene in the office that makes clear what everyone’s job is in a company. In other shows, the world is unfamiliar and complicated and so a lot more time must be dedicated to explaining how it works.

If your pilot is in an unfamiliar, complicated world, you’ll need to figure out exactly what the audience needs to understand in the first episode to understand and enjoy the show, and then communicate that in as succinct and entertaining of a way as possible. You don’t need to explain every single fact about your world in the pilot, but you need to explain enough that they feel grounded in the story. Watch the pilot of The Good Place for a great example of how to do this.

THE GOOD PLACE -- "Michael's Gambit" Episode 113 -- Pictured: (l-r) Ted Danson as Michael, Kristen Bell as Eleanor Shellstrop -- (Photo by: Vivian Zink/NBC)

The Good Place on NBC

If you have any unusual elements like magic or musical numbers, it’s especially important to introduce these right away so it doesn’t feel like it’s coming out of nowhere later. Similarly, if your world has a complicated geography that’s important to understand, you might need to spend some time laying that out visually.

Last, this is the section where you’ll introduce the main problem of the series (or the problem of the season or of the episode). The problem might be as small as “teen girl doesn’t get along with her mother” or it might be as large as “aliens have invaded a small town” or “a mild-mannered accountant must solve a murder.” Whatever the problem is, this is when you introduce it.

 

Third Section (Act 2 or Act 3) *OPTIONAL*

The third section (either Act 2 or Act 3) is usually 3 scenes and lasts 5-7 minutes. This section is optional. Some pilots skip this section and instead make their first or second section (or both) on the longer side. You’d be especially likely to skip this section if your pilot requires more world-building due to a complicated setting or situation.

If you do include this section, it’s where you’ll do any combination of the following, depending on the needs of your story: introduce B-stories, explore the primary relationship, explain mythology, or complicate the protagonist’s problem.

If your show is about several characters with their own separate problems, you might choose to introduce B-stories in this section to tee up conflicts that will play out over the course of your season. These will not be lengthy, complicated scenes, because you don’t have time for that. You’ll need to introduce these stories very efficiently. For a good example of how to do this, watch the pilot of Search Party.

In some pilots, there’s a primary relationship that’s key to the show. In a show like Please Like Me that has a love interest at its core you might use this section to explore the primary relationship.

Please Like Me on Hulu / ABC (Australia)

If your show has a complicated mythology, like in the case of People of Earth, this section might be when you explain the mythology.

The last thing you might do in this section is complicate the protagonist’s problem if the main issue in your pilot is a problem the protagonist is individually facing.

 

Fourth Section (Act 2, Act 3 or Act 4)

The fourth section (either Act 2, Act 3 or Act 4) is usually 5-7 scenes and lasts 8-11 minutes. In this section, you’ll do some (but probably not all) of the following: resolve some problems, bring the protagonist’s main conflict to a climax, have a “moment of real” in which the protagonist reveals their vulnerability, complicate B-story situations previously introduced, culminate the main relationship, and escalate the protagonist’s problem in a way that’s caused by their own actions.

In some cases you’ll also have the protagonist choose to “step across the threshold of the series” and introduce a twist to launch us into the next episode, but sometimes those two things are done in the following section instead.

You’ll definitely want to resolve some problems in this section because there’s nothing more frustrating than a story that only asks questions and never gives answers. Leaving some of those mysteries unsolved and problems unfixed is necessary to bring people back next week, but to gain trust you need to show the audience that you are capable of resolving some problems and giving some answers.

For example, if it’s the kind of show that has a Problem of the Week along with a larger season- or series-long arc, this is where you’ll want to resolve this week’s problem.

This is the section where you bring the protagonist’s main conflict to a climax. Whether that’s an explosive fight with her daughter or a final showdown with the Monster of the Week (can’t it be both?), this is where things come to a head for this episode’s story (not the larger arc of the series).

In this fourth section, you’ll almost certainly have a “moment of real” in which the protagonist reveals their vulnerability. Depending on the tone of your show, this might be played half for laughs or it might be a truly dark moment. In this moment, the protagonist will often reveal a secret such as a fear, a weakness, or something in their past.

If you have B-stories in your pilot, this is the section where you might complicate B-story situations previously introduced.

If there’s a primary relationship in your pilot (not necessarily a romantic relationship), this is probably the time to culminate the main relationship by the characters either finally coming together or finally breaking apart.

This also might be the time to escalate the protagonist’s problem in a way that’s caused by their own actions. In other words, make them suffer, and make sure it’s their own fault.

 

Fifth Section (Act 3, Act 4 or Tag)

The fifth section (either Act 3, Act 4 or a tag) is usually 1 scene and lasts 30 seconds to 3 minutes. Usually this section is where the protagonist steps across the threshold of the series and a twist is introduced to launch us into the next episode, but sometimes this section is just a funny scene to end the episode if the threshold/twist happened in the previous section.

In very rare cases like Better Things, you might not have a threshold/twist at all because the show is “smaller” and lower concept, but keep in mind this is very rare and you will generally only see that in pilots created by showrunners with a proven track record. Your pilot should probably not be like that. But as always, listen to your own story.

If this is where your protagonist steps across the threshold of the series, what I mean is that they make an active choice to leave their ordinary world and step into the new world of the series. The audience should understand from this action what the show is going to be about (the second half of the logline) and that the protagonist is actively choosing it.

If you have a last minute plot twist that spins us into the next episode (and many pilots do, but not all), this is most likely when it will happen. This is usually a surprising piece of information revealed to the audience at the last minute that complicates what came before it and makes us anxious to see how it affects what happens next week.

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So You Want to Write a Half-Hour Dramedy? Then Dig Deep.

There’s a new genre of TV series that is becoming very popular to write: the single-cam, half-hour dramedy. For the purpose of this article, I’m not talking about multi-cam sitcoms3 like Black-ish or hourlong dramedies like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

the good place, search party, people of earth

Some examples of single-cam, half-hour dramedies include The Good Place, Search Party, People of Earth, Fleabag, Dear White People, One Mississippi, BoJack Horseman, and even Transparent (which is less of a comedy than the others but still often funny). These shows may not seem to have much in common on the surface, but here are some common elements they share:

  1. They are usually 22-30 minutes per episode (a length we’ve historically associated with comedy).
  2. They are usually serialized (an element we’ve historically associated with dramas, whereas comedies have usually been episodic).
  3. They often star stand-up comics or actors known best for their comedic work.
  4. They often, but not always, contain “genre” elements such as mystery, thriller, horror, or science-fiction (a hybrid we’ve historically expected in dramas, not comedies).
  5. They are usually very funny with lots of quotable, gif-able moments and a few characters who are purely or almost purely comedic.
  6. They have poignant, even heartbreaking moments with some regularity, even ending episodes or entire seasons on a downbeat (which pure comedies almost never do).
  7. They have an overarching, “serious” theme they explore from different angles throughout the series.

So are these comedies or are they dramas? No wonder the Emmys can’t figure it out. But despite the genre confusion, it’s no mystery why these are appealing to write:

  1. They have a low page count (usually in the 22-30 range).
  2. Writers can flex their comedy, drama, and often even their genre muscles.
  3. Some of the best, most celebrated shows on television fall into this category.
  4. If the pilot doesn’t sell, it can usually be split at the act breaks into web-series-sized episodes.

I love watching single-cam, half-hour dramedies (or what The New Yorker aptly referred to as “heartbreak comedy“) but I rarely enjoy the unproduced scripts I read in this genre and I finally realized why: they’re not about anything.

“What makes single-cam, half-hour dramedies special? They're ABOUT something.” #amwriting Click To Tweet

It’s not even enough to just be about something – these types of shows, when they’re successful, are about something deeply important, emotional, and meaningful. The Good Place is about what it really means to be a “good” or “bad” person. Search Party is about what lengths a human is entitled to go to to find meaning in her own life. People of Earth is about what it really means to be “normal.”

When I say these shows are “about” these things, what I mean is that the theme is inherent in the very premise (People of Earth is about a group of people who claim to be survivors of alien abductions, Search Party is about a directionless young woman who becomes obsessed with solving the disappearance of a former acquaintance, and The Good Place is about a self-identified jerk who dies and is accidentally sent to heaven through what appears to be some sort of clerical error) and it’s a complex enough issue that it can be explored from different angles over the course of several seasons and through the lens of characters with different worldviews.

All of these series explore a profound, complex, and nearly universal question in brief, serialized episodes using comedic, dramatic, and sometimes genre elements. The pilots I read that I don’t like are usually just about a bunch of people hanging out and doing stuff under the umbrella of a comedic premise with occasional downbeats.

So how do you pick a “profound, complex, and nearly universal question” to make your pilot about? I have an idea for that actually: How to Write What You Know When You Don’t Know Anything.

Already have your profound theme but aren’t sure how to structure the pilot? Structurally, I’ve deconstructed a group of good single-cam, half-hour dramedy pilots into acts and story beats – check out the common features between them here (it turns out they’re mostly structured in exactly the same way).

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How Long Should the Acts Be in My Pilot? (Data Analysis)

There was a discussion in one of my writers’ groups this week about how long a teaser should be in an hourlong pilot. We all thought it should be fairly short, but we had different ideas of what “short” actually meant. I remembered that awhile back I’d made a spreadsheet analyzing act lengths from 51 hourlong pilots so I decided to go to the data.

(If you’re interested in half-hour dramedy pilot structure, I broke that down here.)

 

What I found: across all pilots that had a teaser, the average length of that teaser was 8 pages (with the shortest teaser being 3 pages and the longest at a whopping 16 pages). This surprised me! I would have guessed that teasers were more like 3-5 pages on average.

I shared this info with my writers’ group and someone asked if I could also share average act lengths for the other acts. This is tricky because I assumed the average length of an act would depend on how many acts the pilot has in total – this group of pilots ranged from 4 acts to 7 acts.

The most common three structures among these pilots were:

  • teaser + 4 acts (17 pilots)
  • 5 acts (13 pilots)
  • teaser + 5 acts (11 pilots)

So I decided to break down average act length by structural type:

TEASER + 4 ACTS 
Teaser: 8 pages (range: 3-16)
Act 1: 17 pages (range: 11-22)
Act 2: 14 pages (range: 5-22)
Act 3: 11 pages (range: 6-16)
Act 4: 11 pages (range: 4-18)

5 ACTS
Act 1: 17 pages (range: 11-30)
Act 2: 13 pages (range: 8-18)
Act 3: 11 pages (range: 7-15)
Act 4: 10 pages (range: 5-15)
Act 5: 9 pages (range: 4-14)

TEASER + 5 ACTS
Teaser: 9 pages (range: 5-13)
Act 1: 10 pages (range: 6-15)
Act 2: 11 pages (range: 7-17)
Act 3: 11 pages (range: 7-15)
Act 4: 9 pages (range: 6-13)
Act 5: 9 pages (range: 1-15)

As you can see from the ranges provided, the range of lengths for each act is quite broad which means there is not some hard and fast rule about act length that every professional writer follows. Some individual networks and shows may have rules about act length, but that’s not something you can really concern yourself with when writing an original pilot.

Because there are so many different ways you can tell a story, even on television, you should obviously choose a structure that you feel fits your particular story (or possibly the network you’re hoping to be on, which is a different analysis entirely).

That said, one hunch I had that this data backs up is that acts do tend to get shorter as you progress through a pilot (with the exception of the teaser, if there is one, which is usually shorter than Act 1). This makes sense because it creates a sense of quickening pace as we barrel through the story to the inevitable BANG at the end (which then hopefully propels us to episode 2).

That isn’t a rule you must follow, but it might be a helpful thing to look at it if you’re writing a pilot and the pacing feels slow. Maybe your earlier acts are too short or your later acts are too long.

Another interesting observation is that the total number of acts in a pilot didn’t seem to have as much effect on individual act length as I expected. The only exception is that in pilots with five total acts ([teaser + 4 acts] or [5 acts]), Act 1 is quite a bit longer than the other acts, whereas in the six act structure ([teaser + 5 acts]), the acts are all a more uniform length. You can see this is true even in the broader ranges and not just in the average.

One last fact: the average total page count across all 51 hourlong pilots was 61.5 pages. The shortest was 56 pages (nine pilots were 56-58 pages) and the longest was 69 pages (six pilots were 67-69 pages).

Some caveats on the stats here:

  • This dataset is not huge. It only includes 51 hourlong pilots: 17 are [teaser + 4 acts], 13 are [5 acts], 11 are [teaser + 5 acts], and the rest are a sprinkling of other structures composed of teasers, acts, and tags in various combinations.
  • These pilots come from a mixture of cable and broadcast networks but none are from streaming networks like Netflix. (Look out for a future imaginary post titled Stop Using “My Pilot is Written for Streaming” as an Excuse to Be a Lazy Storyteller.)
  • This list includes pilots that premiered as long ago as 2002 and as recently as 2017. It’s possible (even probable) that trends have changed. That said, 22 of the 37 pilots premiered in the past three years (14 of them in 2017), so most of these are recent.
  • Speaking of recency, I’d need to do a different kind of analysis to confirm this, but it seems like among the more recent pilots, the [5 acts], [teaser + 5 acts], and even [6 acts] structures have increased in popularity over the classic [teaser + 4 acts].
  • Genre isn’t taken into account here at all (except that they’re all hourlongs, so no sitcoms). This may not be true, but my hypothesis is that teasers for crime shows might be shorter than other types of dramas because it’s a more traditional find-a-dead-body “cold open.”

  • Keep in mind that “average” can be a misleading statistic – all datasets have a calculable average, but just because you can calculate a statistic doesn’t mean it’s meaningful.

    For example, let’s imagine that my dataset had included 20 pilots and that in ten of them the first act was 10 pages and in the other ten the first act was 50 pages. In that case, the average length of act 1 would be 30 pages. The problem is that if you took that information and wrote a pilot with a 30-page first act, you would be writing a pilot that doesn’t look like any of the pilots in that dataset. If you were trying to mimic existing pilots from that list, you’d actually be better off writing either a 10-page first act or a 50-page first act, not splitting the difference down the middle.

    Fortunately, our data here is not that dramatically split. Most of the data tends to be grouped around the averages with a few outliers that are much longer or shorter than the average. I included the full range of lengths for each act so you can see how long and short some of those outliers were.

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Writing Difficult Characters: 6 Lessons from Hulu’s “Difficult People”

Writers love writing difficult characters. And with over a decade of antiheroes on so-called “prestige television,” who can blame us? Bonus: it’s fun to write the cutting one-liners you’d never say in real life.

Unfortunately, while likeability is not the most important quality in a character, what many writers think are fascinating antiheroes are actually just repellant characters the reader/viewer doesn’t want to spend even an hour following, let alone eight seasons.

And yet, there are shows that make these kinds of characters work. A great example is Hulu’s Difficult People (tragically canceled after three seasons). This half-hour comedy, starring Julie Klausner and Billy Eichner, is about two grumpy, judgmental, acerbic, self-centered New Yorkers trying to make it in show business. They are indeed difficult people. And yet the show managed to be charming, delightful, and even heartwarming, despite this acerbity. How did they do it?

“Difficult People managed to be heartwarming despite its acerbity. How did they do it?” #amwriting Click To Tweet

I’ve isolated six ways that Difficult People makes its “difficult” characters not just palatable but empathetic. These are great tools for writers who want to give their characters an edge without making them unwatchable.

1. Even Difficult People Have a Code

Too often, “unlikable” protagonists are just generic assholes who are indiscriminately cruel to everyone and have no core values or beliefs of their own. But even Omar Little, The Wire‘s most beloved stick-up robber, has his own ethical code.

On Difficult People, Julie and Billy are the heroes of their own stories. They have a particular worldview that drives their actions and though they do terrible things, they do have a set of ethics (artistic standards, loyalty to each other, opposition to Nazis) and in fact it’s these very ethics that continuously separate them from what they want most (usually love, acceptance, or career success) at the end of an episode.

2. Even Difficult People Love and Are Loved

A consistent thread in Difficult People is that Julie and Billy are infallibly loyal, generous, and kind to each other, even while being unrepentant jerks to everyone else. You’ll never see a storyline on Difficult People in which Julie is maliciously lying to Billy or Billy is callously using Julie.

The scene in season 2 when Billy dives across the stage of a Christian Siriano show to save Julie – even though it will make him look lame to the Cool Gays he’s trying to impress – was so heartwarming it nearly brought tears to my eyes. They are always in each other’s court.

Similarly, Julie’s boyfriend Arthur is a grounding force in the series because he loves and accepts Julie, even at her most difficult. Though Arthur rarely drives the story himself, Difficult People would be a lesser show without him. Because he sees good in Julie, we see good in her too.

3. Even Difficult People Encounter People More Difficult Than They Are

An old trick this show uses effectively is to bring in a character that is even worse than the protagonists to make the protagonists seem better by comparison.

Because Julie and Billy are so unpleasant, the villains on the show have to be almost cartoonishly evil – some recent examples were nazis, cannibals, and a millennial YouTube star. But it works. Even if you weren’t on Julie and Billy’s side at the beginning of the episode, by the end you will be.

4. Even Difficult People Suffer

In fact, if you want them to be empathetic, they probably have to suffer the most.

On any given episode of Difficult People, Julie and Billy are rejected, humiliated, physically injured, blacklisted, arrested, attacked, and emotionally devastated. As badly as they treat others, they always receive back ten times what they dish out. Seeing them suffer makes us empathize with them, even if it doesn’t seem to make them any nicer.

5. Even Difficult People Have Good Qualities

Julie and Billy are catty and selfish, but they’re also smart, funny, hardworking, loyal to each other, and truly passionate about the entertainment industry.

When a window of opportunity opens, they’ll stay up all night working to make it happen. They’re good at what they do and sincere about the craft and we feel they deserve to find success. These are all traits that make these characters more empathetic than they would be otherwise.

6. They Have (Slightly) Tragic Backstories

Ok, so neither of them grew up in a war-torn country or even lower middle class, but Billy never had a real father figure and he’s had a disappointing love life. Julie’s mother is a narcissist (albeit a hilarious one). Their backstories may not exactly be tragic, but they do occasionally elicit sympathy or at least some understanding.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it’s ok (even desirable) to write characters with glaring flaws, just make sure you give the audience something to care about and to empathize with. Some ways to do that:

  • Make sure your characters have a specific set of values and beliefs that drive them, however misguided, so they aren’t just generic assholes.
  • Stories need a lot of conflict, but make sure at least some of the characters sincerely love and/or are loved. In a sea of sarcasm and irony, audiences need a flotation device of sincerity to keep them above the waves.
  • If you want your protagonist to be a jerk, it helps if you make someone else an even bigger jerk.
  • If your characters are going to do crappy things to other people, it can make them more sympathetic if even crappier things are dished back at them.
  • It’s ok – even desirable – to give your character flaws, but if you want them to be watchable and empathetic, give them some genuinely admirable traits too.
  • And when all else fails: tragic backstory.
“In a sea of sarcasm and irony, audiences need a flotation device of sincerity to keep them above the waves.” #amwriting Click To Tweet

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