Writing an Original TV Pilot

How ‘family of characters’ drives series television.

A guest post from Tom Benedek about his exciting Original TV Pilot Script Workshop, a 10 week online course.

What happened?

Important.

Who was involved and how did that person (or persons) respond?

This is where story must inevitably goes.

Looking over a pitch outline for a TV series I wrote a while back, one awful thing was clear — how confusing the plot was. Discouraging. No wonder it didn’t go anywhere.

BUT the characters and their situations were intriguing. I had channeled some good stuff into their worlds. So DAMN. There is still hope for that one. I can’t let it go. I just have to smooth out a few things. I had knocked out the hardest part — my family of characters.

Because TV shows are character-driven. Breaking Bad wasn’t just about Walter White and his drug-making career. It was about his wife, his son, his in-laws and his partner in crime/surrogate son, Jesse.

Breaking Bad mined White’s extended family and, of course, the intrigues of Walt’s “business” over many, many episodes. Why? How? What was this magic Vince Gilligan judiciously dispensed with his creative team through the life span of the show? A 58 page pilot.

That script’s inner workings offers a lot of information about how a solid pilot needs to be structured. The DNA of great television is all about a strong protagonist with multiple practical and emotional goals, a workplace/family situation with emotional and visual appeal all spun together with consistent and relentlessly fervent creative juice on every page.

That can’t happen unless there is a vibrantly drawn set of characters — each with their own particular world view. This family of characters is primal to most TV viewing. Breaking Bad stayed meticulously contained within its family milieu.

In TV, as in film, character drives plot. In TV shows, there may be a protagonist, a star on top of a show. However, that protagonist is generally surrounded by a rich and varied ensemble — that family of characters which drives the plot and sub-plots on and on.

And, that TV outline I wrote with a decent family of characters — it’s in my queue again. Can’t abandon family!

I’m going to be bringing that pitch into the TV pilot workshop I will be running at Screenwritingmasterclass.com. Starts next week. Hope to see you there to work on YOUR original TV pilot script.

About Tom:

Tom Benedek has written screenplays for Robert Zemeckis, Lawerence Kasdan, Lili Fini Zanuck and Richard Zanuck, David Brown, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Sydney Pollack, Richard Rush, Harold Ramis, Lauren Schuler Donner and Richard Donner, Ray Stark, Brian Grazer, Working Title, Jersey Film, Chris Blackwell and many others. He wrote the screenplay for Cocoon and other films.

For more information on Tom’s TV pilot script workshop, go here.