Warning: this document contains a lot of scriptwriting lingo! If you find that there are terms on this page that you don’t know, check to see if they are in our Scriptwriting 101 Glossary!

So, you’re gonna write a TV script. Excellent! If you’ve flipped on the tube recently, you know that television needs more good writers. Somebody’s gotta tell the little people that live in that box what to say and when to say it, and that, my friends, is where you come in!

There’s not a person writing television today who didn’t start off sitting at their desk, wondering who the heck they were trying to fool. What makes them special is that they started. They gave it a go. And they finished. Turns out, the best-kept secret in television is to keep writing. Remember that, and you’ll be sipping milkshakes with Hannah Montana before you can say “you get the best of both worlds.”

If you’ve never written a TV script before, fear not—as you move through the pointers below, you’ll probably realize that you already know what to do. Like the titles of all the Harry Potter books or the spectrum of colors in a bag of M&Ms, there’s a good chance TV script structure is already ingrained in your mind. All those Saturday mornings spent indoors on the couch in front of the television are no longer hours wasted. Oh, no. You were doing research, and all that hard work is about to pay off!

Writing for TV in Nine Easy Steps

1) Watch More TV

Before getting started, you might want to grab yourself a notebook and couple of pens. Then slip into your sweats, plop yourself down onto the couch, and get to work. Watch everything. Watch anything. This is your opportunity to catch up on that TIVO list, or convince your parents to upgrade to the five-a-month Netflix plan. Try to watch as many episodes of your favorite shows as possible, and even sit through a few that you don’t like. But don’t let yourself drift into that magical, mushy, sunken-eye coma that we’ve all experienced after a couple of hours in front of the TV. If you’re seeing stars, or having trouble remembering the names of your family members and household pets, then it’s time to turn it off. Remember—this is your homework, and your job number-one is to pay attention!

As you watch, write down interesting plot twists or dialogue that seems especially funny or interesting. Ask yourself questions, such as: Why did I laugh at that joke? Why did I break a sweat just before that commercial break? Why did I get bored and flip the channel? Write down your thoughts. This will be a great reference as you start writing your own TV script! By writing down all your thoughts, you’ll also get know what kind of TV you like and dislike; this will be especially useful when choosing what kind of script you are going to write in April. So get to it! Grab that popcorn, flip open your notebook, and get ready to indulge in hours-upon-hours of guilt-free TV!

2) To Spec Or Not To Spec

Ten years ago, if you wanted to be a TV writer, there was just one way to get into the ’biz. You had to start by writing two or more fake episodes for existing shows. (These fake episodes are written on what is called “speculation” of purchase, or “on spec,” and are often referred to as “spec scripts” or “specs.”) Then you would try to get these fake scripts into the hands of a show’s head writers, and hope they liked them enough to hire you on as a staff writer for the show. After years of proving yourself, you might break out on your own by “penning” an original “pilot script” for an new TV series, and if this got picked up, you stood a chance of becoming a “showrunner” of your own show.

That was then. This is now! Today, agents and TV executives are just as likely to ask a new writer for a pilot script as they are for a spec script. Some television folk like pilots better than spec scripts because pilot scripts show off a scriptwriter’s unique style, rather than his or her ability to copy someone else’s writing style.

Spec scripts still have their place, though, and many new writers still use them to show that they can write as well as the professionals, or to prove that they can write all different kinds of TV shows. Writing a spec can also be easier than writing an original show, since you don’t need to set up the characters, conflicts, or their world. If you were to write a spec for Wizards of Waverly Place, for instance, you could start right out with Justin picking up after another one of Max’s magical practical jokes because you already know that a) Max is the magical trouble maker of the family b) Justin is the more responsible older brother and c) Max loves practical jokes! In a spec, you can assume your readers already know the show, so you can jump right in and get to the good stuff!

So, the first decision you must make is whether to write a spec or an original pilot. We are sure that you will be good at both, so the question really comes down to you. Have you thought up the perfect scenario for Jimmy Neutron, or do you want to pitch the next great show to compete with High School Musical?

3) Know Your Show

If you’re thinking about writing a spec, start by watching the newest, freshest, most popular shows within the “genre” that you love. A sitcom today is much different than a sitcom in 2000. No one wants to read a brand-new episode of Alf. Your spec must be of a current television show still in production, and hopefully one that will be on the air three years from now, so that your script will continue to feel up to date as time goes on. A program like The Simpsons is a popular spec because that show will be in production well after Hannah Montana has moved into a retirement home.

Once you’ve picked the show you want to write a script for, try to get your hands on a written copy of the episode. Try using Google to find it, as will websites like dailyscript.com and hollywoodbookcity.com. If you have an aunt working nights at Nickelodeon, now would also be the time to give her a call! Do whatever you can to track down an episode of your favorite show. And unlike movie scripts, all TV shows are formatted differently, and you want your spec to look like a real episode as much as you want it to read like one (see HOW TO FORMAT A TV SCRIPT).

If, on the other hand, you plan to write your very own pilot, start by watching every show within your genre currently making waves. Make note of how they’re structured, when the commercial breaks arrive in a half-hour versus one-hour show, and what types of themes and situations make up the main plot and subplots.

4) Know Your Audience

One huge difference between writing movies and writing for TV is that when writing for the small screen, you need to constantly consider the attention span of your audience. Think about it—a movie audience has bought their $10 ticket and is practically stuck in their seats for the next two hours. They can’t switch channels. They can’t wander off into kitchen for a snack or answer the phone. Not so when watching TV! As a matter of fact, many people seem to be looking for a reason to switch the channel. There are just so many other choices—surely there must be something on more entertaining than this.

To make sure you’re keeping your audience’s attention you need to first know who your audience is. And how do you do that? Watch the commercials! Advertising firms are spending millions of dollars as we speak making sure the right ads are matched to right shows. If you’re writing a spec, watch the show you are going to write for and ask yourself the following questions: What types of actors appear in the commercials? Are they young or old, hip or nerdy? What are they selling? Toys, cell phones, or retirement plans? If you’re writing a pilot, watch the commercials of shows that are similar to yours. You can learn a lot about a show by knowing who's watching it!

5) Get On Pitch

Alright—you’ve chosen your spec show, or have come up with a brilliant idea for the next great family sitcom. You’ve annoyed your family to all ends by staying up all night catching reruns, and now you’re ready for the fun part#151;writing!

Hmmm. Maybe just one more Mountain Dew, and then the writing… If you’re having trouble starting, you may need to take a big step back, and ask yourself what your episode is really about. In fact, if you can’t explain your script in just one or two sentences, then you’re probably not ready to start writing. In Hollywoodland, they call this the “pitch,” and it’s what Hollywood big wigs will ask you for in the fifteen-second elevator ride after you’ve introduced yourself as a TV writer. “What’s the pitch,” the kind ones will say—and you better get it all out before that bell rings for the lobby!

A good pitch should tell the entire plot of your pilot or spec (and include all your important characters) in less time that it takes to eat a mini-cupcake. It should have a clear beginning, middle, and end, and will usually start by introducing the main character like so:

A rebellious teenager whose life revolves around video games . . .

Then describing the character’s journey:

finds himself sent into the future by the government . . .

And finishes by summarizing with a surprising outcome:

in order to defeat an invading alien race using his amazing game-playing skills.

This is not just an exercise to get you prepared for Hollywood, practicing your pitch will help you better understand your script, and you’ll ultimately end up with a better script because of it!

6) What A Character!

One of the ways television writers keep their audiences hooked is through the creation of very strong characters. When deciding upon your cast for a new pilot, try to make each character as radically different from one another as you possibly can. A great example of this is the show Spongebob Squarepants. Think about the characters that are in the show: A happy, disaster-prone sea-sponge who lives in a pineapple, an underachieving starfish who lives next door, an underwater squirrel who knows karate, a crabby crab, a whiny squid, and an evil little plankton. Just in naming these characters, you can see the potential for humor when these different personalities hang out together in an underwater city!

So how do you come up with a cast of well-defined characters that’ll carry your show through several seasons? Here are two tricks in particular that are used by experienced writers. First—write who you know, but without the boring stuff. Drop your dad, or your strange neighbor, or your sixth-grade math teacher into the mix, and see how he or she does when put next to your alien or your talking weasel. Second—take characters from other TV shows and put them into your own. If you like Spongebob as a character, create a character like Spongebob and throw him into the mix! Don’t worry—as you write your script, these copycat characters will take on their own personalities and become your own. So have fun! Pick and choose as you please—these two tricks will make coming up with awesome characters easy!

For those of you writing the next great episode of The Suite Life of Zach & Cody, writing a spec script demands its own homework. Sure, a good amount of the work has been done for you, as any show worth writing a spec for should already have a great cast of characters. Your job now is to get to know them better than the writers who thought ‘em up. A great exercise might be to write a page from the point-of-view of each character discussing their lives and their conflicts with the other people on the show. You can also fill out Character Worksheets in our Young Scriptwriters Workbooks for each character in your cast! Knowing your characters inside and out is essential to writing a good story and strong dialogue. So do the work now! You’ll thank us in April when you charge headlong into your script.

Whether you’re piloting or specking, one final thing to keep in mind about great television characters is that they never change. This isn’t a movie—your characters can learn, but they should not be allowed to change in any significant way. What they figure out in one episode should usually be forgotten by the next. If Spongebob Squarepants became a more cautious individual, then the show would get really boring, really fast. Getting into trouble is what Spongebob does best, and it is also the reason the show is so funny and fun to watch!

7) Structure

If you’ve pulled together a short outline of your show and mapped out each of your central characters, you may be thinking “now what?” How do I make all these cool characters and my super-awesome plot fit within a half-hour script? Structuring a script can seem overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. In just a little bit, this will all seem about as easy as finding the prize in a box of breakfast cereal.

Whatever type of script you’re writing, it’s helpful to think about your story in terms of the numbers of “acts” stuck between a series of commercial breaks. Most programs also begin with a short “teaser,” which is the really short scene that starts the show off with a bang right before the first commercial break. The teaser sets up the main storyline or theme of the show and is often really funny or really suspenseful. Many shows also end with a similarly short scene after the final commercial break that plays off a joke or an important plot point. This is called a tag.

Half-hour sitcoms or cartoons tend to follow this format:

teaser—commercial—Act I—commercial—Act II—commercial—tag

Whereas hour-long shows usually look like this:

teaser—com—Act I—com—Act II—com—Act III—com—Act IVcom—tag

The first act in a TV show tends to be longer than the final acts, and in half-hour programs there are usually 15-18 scenes in the overall show. In hour-long programs that number raises to around 25. The teaser and the tag usually have 1-3 scenes each.

The rule of thumb is that one page of writing generally equals just under one minute of air time, so hour-long dramas tend to be about 60-70 pages long, and half-hour network shows tend to be about 40-50 pages. If that math seems crazy, check the section How to Format a TV Script to learn about the strange spacing rules of certain kinds of scripts.

Shows that are written for cable (and don’t need to be timed out with commercial breaks) tend to be longer, but the act-break structure is usually the same because many cable shows will end up showing on stations with commercials at some point.

8) Talk the Talk

Before worrying about how to make your characters talk like they’re in a TV show, you’ll need to give them something to talk about. Honestly—this is the best advise on dialogue writing you’ll ever hear (thank you Script Frenzy!). It is not a good idea to try to come up with clever dialogue without first knowing what each of your characters really wants, whether it is to ask a cute girl out at his or her school or to outsmart the evil villain. If you know your characters inside and out (see #6) and know what their goals are in every scene, your dialogue will begin to write itself. Seriously—you can just sit on your couch and watch it roll out on the screen!

Okay, maybe not. But if you know what each of your characters is trying to get before heading into every scene, you’ll find that writing dialogue is easier than it seems!

Now sprinkle in some conflict, and you’re done! The smartest drama and the funniest comedy always come from situations with lots of conflict, and you need to make sure you’ve got a healthy dose of this in every single scene. The best way to increase your conflict is to set up each of your characters’ wants or desires in direct conflict to the wants or desires of every other character. So if Joey wants to ask Amy to the dance, and Amy wants to ask Jim, and Jim wants to watch his favorite TV show the night of the dance, you will have automatic conflict. Now they have a reason to talk to one another, and with their conflicting motivations, they’ll push and pull at each other as each one tries to have it his or her way. Add in a couple jokes, and you’ve got television!

Almost. As it is with all scriptwriting, dialogue should never be, well… boring. There is a real difference between "dialogue" and "everyday conversation," especially when writing television. Your characters should be just a little smarter, funnier, and quicker than most of us are in real life. To read more about how to write dialogue that is not boring, check out Week Three of the scriptwriting Boot Camps!

Lastly, always be sure to read your lines out loud. You’re not writing a novel or short story—scripts are meant to be performed by actors, and you may be surprised by how different dialogue sounds when read out loud. If you’re brave, invite a friend to read your script out loud for you, and listen to how your script sounds. You may love it, or you may want to throw it out the window and move to another country. Either way, you’ll end up with stronger dialogue!

9) Scriptwriting Is Fun Because…

Writing should be fun! Sure, there’s the hard times, the boring times, the frustrating times, and the times you want to use your script as kindling for a fire, but somewhere deep inside of you is the reason you decided to do this in the first place—because you get to make up a whole world of characters, settings, jokes, and situations. Because you’re funny, and you want the world to know it. Because you want to see what it's like to make something that you've spent so much time enjoying. Whatever your reasons for writing a script this April, you’re awesome for wanting to be a writer. So no more procrastination! Back at it, my friend!