Successful Television Writing

221 Pages·2003·0.614 MB·English

by  Lee Goldberg, William Rabkin

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Successful
Television Writing
Lee Goldberg
William Rabkin
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Successful
Television Writing
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Successful
Television Writing
Lee Goldberg
William Rabkin
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Copyright © 2003 by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
Design and production by Navta Associates, Inc.
Martial LawBeat Sheet courtesy of CBS Broadcasting Inc.
“Depths of Deceit” copyright © 2003 by Universal Studios. Courtesy of Universal
Studios Publishing Rights, a Division of Universal Studios Licensing, Inc. All rights
reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmit-
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Goldberg, Lee, date.
Successful television writing / Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin.
p. cm. — (Wiley books for writers)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-471-43168-0 (pbk.)
1. Television authorship. I. Rabkin, William, 1959– II. Title. III. Wiley books
for writers series.
PN1992.7 .G625 2003
808.2'25—dc21
2002191054
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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To Bill Yates for opening the door,
and to Michael Gleason
and Ernie Wallengren,
who showed us what to do
once we got through . . .
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: So You Want to Write
for Television 1
1. Basic Preparation 7
2. What Is a TV Series? 13
3. The Four-Act Structure 19
4. Telling a TV Story 23
5. The Spec Script 31
6. What to Spec? 35
7. The Name Is Morris, William Morris 41
8. The Pitch 49
9. How to Read the Producer’s Mind 57
10. What to Pitch 65
11. You’ve Got the Assignment, Now What? 73
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Contents
12. Your First Assignment 81
13. We’ve Got a Few Notes 89
14. Am I There Yet? 99
15. Becoming Rob Petrie 107
16. Rewrites 115
17. Your Really Great Idea for a Show 125
18. I’m a Professional Writer, and
I’ve Got the Card to Prove It 129
Afterword 133
Appendices
A Plotting a Mystery: How We Wrote
Diagnosis Murder 137
B Diagnosis Murder Writers’ Guidelines 143
C Martial Law Writers’ Guidelines 147
D Martial Law Pitch/Leave-Behind
(“Sammo Blammo”) 157
E Martial Law Beat Sheet (“Sammo Blammo”) 159
F seaQuest 2032 Pitch/Leave-Behind
(“Depths of Deceit”) 175
G seaQuest 2032 Beat Sheet
(“Depths of Deceit”) 177
H Diagnosis Murder Beat Sheet
(“A Passion for Murder”) 183
I Diagnosis Murder Beat Sheet
(“The Last Laugh”) 193
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