How to Write a TV Pilot, pt. 5: Writing the Script
Now that you’ve put in all the necessary groundwork, you’re ready to start writing your script. Like I said in the last section, this part of the process is the easiest and most enjoyable for me. It can take me several weeks to outline and work out all the various story problems. But I can write a thirty page television script in a couple of days. I don’t get stuck because I’ve worked out the difficult parts already.
I’m assuming pretty much everyone reading this is vaguely familiar with how a script is put together. But let’s go through this anyway because I think there are a few things you might not know. Or even if you do, it’s helpful to touch on them again before you sit down and write.
Scriptwriting Software
You could probably write your script in Microsoft Word using macros and custom indents, but I wouldn’t recommend it. There are several different solutions for scriptwriting software — some good, some bad, some free:
Final Draft is the industry standard for screenwriting software. It’s also a horrible buggy mess that I would not recommend buying unless you can’t avoid it (if this is true for you, congratulations on your writing job). I hate Final Draft. Don’t give them money.
Movie Magic Screenwriter was my personal favorite back in the day and a much better and less frustrating experience than Final Draft. But I’ve never heard of anyone else in the industry using it in my five years as a working writer. And if you’re gonna spend two hundred dollars on a screenwriting word processor (don’t), it might as well be the one everyone uses.
CeltX is a free program a lot of people use because it’s free. I haven’t used it at all myself, but from reading scripts written with the program, it does seem to lack a lot of functionality and sometimes it formats scripts weird. So I would beware. But a lot of people talk up its collaborative and cloud functionalities. So I could be completely in the wrong here.
Amazon has an in-browser screenwriting app called Storywriter that was totally barebones in terms of functionality last time I played around with it. But it’s another possible free solution worth checking out.
Fade In is a program I’ve started using recently since I got fed up with Final Draft for the last time. A lot of professionals and industry people have been talking it up as the new industry standard. Apparently, Rian Johnson used it to write The Last Jedi. It can do everything Final Draft can do and more (including importing and exporting in the Final Draft format). Plus it apparently won’t crash on you at critical moments. I’m happy with my experience so far, though I have not done much work with the program yet. The best thing about it is it’s only fifty dollars as opposed to two hundred. Final Draft wants to charge me $79.95 to upgrade from Final Draft 9 to Final Draft 10.
General Tips for Screenwriting
Every rule for how you write a script generally centers around the notion that you make it as easy as possible to read. Because if you get that far, your script will be read by agents, managers, assistants, and executives — people who hate reading and are bad at it. That being said, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Because television and film are primarily visual, action will be more effective at communicating what you want to say to the audience than dialogue will be. And in a fraction of the time. The adages “show, don’t tell” and “a picture is worth a thousand words” are both things to keep in mind.
- Every action and line of dialogue should move the story forward, reveal something about character, or (in a comedy) be funny. Preferably some combination of the three. Moving the story ahead always takes precedence.
- Multicam scenes are generally longer and stagier, so this doesn’t apply to them, but you don’t want too many scenes going longer than three pages. Two pages is about the average scene length you should be shooting for. You don’t want to be too hard and fast about this rule because sometimes, especially in a big important scene, you’re gonna need to go five pages or so. Perhaps even longer. Just use this as a general guideline to keep your script moving.
- Write visually. Only use scene directions to write what the viewer can see, not what is in the character’s head. There are slight exceptions. Like if you wrote “Helen has a secret she’s not telling Ted” in the scene directions, that would be fine because the actor can play that moment.
- Write beat by beat and moment by moment. You can’t write a minute’s worth of action in a single sentence. You don’t have to write every single blow thrown in an action scene (though it’s great if you can), but the point of a screenplay is to be a guideline for everything that happens on screen. Don’t summarize.
- You also shouldn’t spend too much time describing details of the set or the actor’s physical attributes unless they are details that the plot absolutely depends on. The actor will inevitably not look like how you describe them and how to decorate a set is the set designer’s job. Writing “the apartment is a complete disgusting mess” will be just as effective as painstakingly describing every detail. If it’s crucial to the plot that a character has red hair, then describe it. Otherwise, just give us a general feel for what we need to know.
- Dialogue should generally be pretty short as well. A monologue should seldom go more than five lines. If you do need a character to talk for a long time, it’s good to break it up with action to keep things moving forward.
- Don’t overuse parentheticals in dialogue. They’re helpful if it’s not clear how a line should be delivered, but are mostly unnecessary and generally annoy actors. Most people will probably get that a sarcastic line should be said sarcastically.
- It’s the generally accepted rule to use underlines for emphasis rather than bold or italics. I think the reason for this is that it’s more difficult to read bold/italic in the Courier New font. Also, I think you want your script to look like it was written on an old typewriter. But I have seen people use italics and bold type in screenplays so I don’t actually think this is a huge deal anymore. Just something to keep in mind.
- If you’re not sure how to convey something in screenwriting terms, like an intercut telephone conversation or a montage, the first thing you should do is google it because it is extremely likely that someone’s had the same question and someone else who knows more of what they’re talking about than me will have explained it in clear terms. But if you’re still not sure, just spell it out in the script. Just explain on the page what you’re trying to accomplish. That’s what a screenplay is for — you’re telling someone making your hypothetical television pilot what they need to do to make it happen. When in doubt, explain it to them.
- Just like with pretty much all writing, write in the active voice. Leave out connector words like “then.” Don’t have characters “begin” to do an action, just have them do it (unless beginning the action is all they’re doing). Anything that gets in the way of the story moving forward or pauses the reader, leave it out.
The Screenplay Format
I imagine if you’ve read this far, you’re at least vaguely familiar with the screenplay format. I’ll lay it out for you, but a scan of a few script pages is really enough to get the gist of it.
The best way to learn the format and to learn how to write scripts is by reading scripts. That’s how you learn the language of film and how a screenplay moves. You can’t be a writer if you don’t read.
A “FADE IN:” is the traditional way to mark that the script has started, but has fallen out of use because it’s pretty much assumed by the fact that you’re reading the first page of a script. Plus, it takes up precious lines of script space that you’ll need to get your script down to the correct page length (the #1 struggle of a working writer). FADE IN is pretty unnecessary, especially in a television script.
Every scene begins with the scene heading, whether INT. (interior) or EXT. (you know what). Give us the location of the scene and the time of day it takes place. Other than time of day (i.e. MORNING, DAY, EVENING, NIGHT, etc.), you can also specify CONTINUOUS, MOMENTS LATER, AT THE SAME TIME, THE NEXT DAY, and more, depending on how it follows the previous scene. A lot of those slugs will be available in the auto-fill in your screenwriting program. But also feel free to make up a new one if you feel like it will help you convey what is going on.
The first time a character is introduced, you put their name in all-caps. But this can be true for any time you introduce a new element into the script that demands the audience’s attention. The character’s approximate age as well as a quick description of her so you get her general essence is all I included here. What she looks like is not especially important for this particular character and I feel like the reader can infer how she dresses and carries herself based on this description.
I also described the set in broad strokes, as I advised above. I’m assuming everyone should be familiar with how dialogue is formatted in a script. I also included descriptors for the character’s action that inform how the character would perform it.
Because Beth last spoke before the above line of action, your script program will automatically include a “cont’d” tag. Even though this particular line of dialogue is pretty clear, I included a parenthetical to instruct how the actor should read the dialogue just to show how it’s done. You can also give characters physical action in parentheticals rather than in scene directions for actions they perform while speaking.
Tom speaks from off-screen so we give him an (O.S.) tag. I used an underline for word emphasis as I explained before. As with Beth, I described Tom very quick and generally so you get his type without getting hung up on needless specifics.
Beth’s last line is a voiceover so we give her a (V.O.) tag.
If you have a specific gesture you want the actor to play, spell it out in a quotation like I did with “hey, watch it!”
I move to a new scene without using a “CUT TO:.” Similar to “FADE IN:,” it’s implied that we cut when we go to a new scene and it just takes up space to describe something that is instantaneous. You should only specify a scene transition if it’s important to the script. For instance, if you want to go from a scene right to a very important visual with lots of impact, “SMASH CUT TO:” is an effective tool. Or if you want to show time has passed with cuts, you use “JUMP CUT TO:.”
The first line of dialogue in this section features a parenthetical in the middle of the dialogue. There’s a playable action for Beth as well as how the line should be delivered. Other helpful mid-dialogue parentheticals to use are “beat” to indicate a short pause (“beat” is used all over scripts including in scene directions for that purpose) and “then” to denote a change in the character’s tone or a pause that is even quicker than a beat.
I’ve also included one way to write a montage in a script. This particular montage doesn’t include scene headings because it would take up so much space to set every individual scene up. I employed the use of caps to direct the reader’s attention to all the new scenes and elements introduced quickly and visually within the montage. If you want a particular piece of music (or style of music) to play during the montage, indicate it at the beginning of the montage. You can do it right before or in the first bullet point.
Above all else, the rule is explain this stuff in a way that the reader can understand it. If you go into production and you need scene headings for each beat of your montage, you can come back and add them. Also, if you’re that far, this is a very minor problem to have.
I included a “DISSOLVE TO:” scene transition because a dissolve is specifically used to indicate passage of time between two scenes. Use it if you want to call attention to something.
I also demonstrate how to write an intercut phone conversation between two different characters in different settings. This is so you don’t have to keep writing scene headings every time you want to show the other character speaking.
At the end of the script, I include a “FADE OUT.” transition. I think this is still standard in movie scripts, but unnecessary in television scripts. I’ll tell you why in a second.
There’s stuff I didn’t cover. If a character is talking from a television broadcast you can put an (ON TV) tag beside the name like you would (V.O.). Same for (SUBTITLE). For sound effects, write in something like “SFX: Loud boom!”
If you want to set a scene in a car driving down the road and want to describe what’s going on inside and outside simultaneously, use the scene heading “INT./EXT.” For example, “INT./EXT. BETH’S CAR / COUNTRY ROAD — DAY.”
If you want to do something tricky that you’re not fully sure how to convey, Google will probably have an answer for you.
Formatting for Television (Single Cam)
The single camera television format is really just the standard screenplay format. There are a couple things you need to know. If you’re writing a twenty-two minute pilot, you should aim for you page count to be about thirty. You can go a little longer or a little shorter, but try to keep it at around thirty. One of my sample pilots is thirty-five pages and I always feel like I’m really pushing it.
The loose rule is that one page equals about one minute of screentime. That’s not exactly true and a lot depends on the style of show, how much action there on a page versus how much dialogue is on a page, and other factors. I find that a page is usually a little bit shorter than a minute. But it’s another good general guideline to keep in your head.
Where a single cam script differs from a film script is it needs center-aligned titles for the beginning and end of each act, like so:
Like I said in previous sections, your acts will be roughly ten pages each. Your third act will usually be the shortest, but I wouldn’t worry about sticking to specific page counts. Do what feels right.
You can put “FADE IN:” and “FADE OUT.” at the beginning and end of your acts. But like I said, it’s already implied by the act headings, so you can leave them out. Also, at the end of each act, insert a page break so you can start the next act at the top of the next page.
Depending on how many acts you have, at the end of your final act, rather than writing “END OF ACT THREE” for instance, you would write “END OF SHOW.” Similarly, for a cold open, your headings would read “COLD OPEN” and “END OF COLD OPEN.” For a tag, if you have one, it would be “TAG” and then “END OF SHOW.”
Formatting for Television (Multicam)
A multicam script looks a bit different from a standard television or movie script. It’s mostly the same with a few key differences. Your scriptwriting program should have a built-in setting for multicam scripts and will do a lot of this for you. I’ll sum some of the differences up here, but again, the best way to learn is by reading multicam scripts.
- Scene directions are in ALL CAPS. When you would caps a character’s name at their first appearance in a normal script, instead you underline.
- Dialogue is double-spaced. I think this is for purposes of being able to easily scribble in the margins to make changes, but I’m honestly not sure.
- In addition to the act break headings, each scene will have an additional heading of a letter. So you would start with “ACT ONE” and an underlined heading directly below it reading “SCENE A.” You insert a page break at the end of every scene to start the next scene at the top of a page.
- Parentheticals are in all caps and go in-line with the dialogue rather than getting their own separate lines.
- Because of all the page breaks and double-spacing, a multicam script will run somewhere around forty-five pages.
Here’s a real script page from The Big Bang Theory to illustrate what I mean:
If you’ve read scripts, familiarized yourself with the format, know dramatic structure in and out, thought hard about what you want to communicate and what you want your show to be, and written down a detailed outline — congratulations, you’re ready to write your television pilot.
But when you finish your script, that doesn’t mean your work is done — oh no. Some of your most important, crucial work is just about to begin. How you transform the word vomit you hastily got down on the page in your first draft into something great. Or at least something that works.
