TV Writers Room

Write an Entire Season of a New TV Show as part of a TV Writers Room

Participants will create, map out, and write a season of a new TV show from scratch. Open to TV Writing Class and Screenwriting Master Class alumni only.

What’s Included

TV Writers Room Simulation

Experience what it’s like in a TV writers room. Students will pitch TV series ideas, and collectively, the class will write an entire season of the TV show idea that is chosen.

25 Hours of Workshop Time

Ten 2 1/2 hour class sessions, each one filled with Jill Chamberlain’s unique lectures, skill-building exercises, group discussions, and individual story consultation.

Script Notes and Feedback

Experience writing a teleplay on assignment plus gain experience rewriting another writer’s script. Get feedback on your episode “nutshell,” your beat sheet, your assigned episode script, and on the script you are assigned to revise.

Worksheets

Handouts of key story concepts and professional teleplay examples make convenient references in and outside the workshop.

Syllabus

TV Writers Room is an unique class for The Screenplay Workshop alumni to experience what it’s like to be in a television writers room. Alumni will take their existing knowledge of screenwriting and the Nutshell Technique and use it to write “on assignment”: that is, to write for something they aren’t necessarily the creator of. Everyone will write one episode plus each student will also do a rewrite on a different episode that they didn’t originate.

Prerequisite: open only to full participant alumni of the TV Writing or Screenwriting Master Class. Permission of the instructor is also required.

Week 1

Pitches & Blue Sky Period

Participants will present their new TV series pitches, and the room will vote and select one to be the series all participants will be writing for. Jill will then lead the group through “blue skying” potential directions for the season.

Week 2

Mapping the Season

Jill will lead the group in breaking story and mapping out the entire first season. Episodes will be assigned (one per writer), and we’ll begin Nutshelling the episodes.

Week 3

Episode Nutshells & Plot Development

Writers will present their individual episodes’ Nutshells to the class. Jill will go through episodic structure and beat sheet best practices.

Week 4

Character Profiles

The group will determine each character’s defining characteristics and personal vocabulary. Due: all episode beat sheets.

Week 5

Beat Sheet Critiques

Everyone will critique all the beat sheets via the two-way mirror method.

Week 6

Writing Action & Dialogue

The principles behind writing action and dialogue will be reviewed. Advanced topics (such as minislugs, tone, theme, and subtext) may be addressed this week if there is time.

Week 7

Discovering Your Voice

Jill will go through how to discover your voice as a writer and the principle of “be delightful.” Due: all episode first drafts.

Week 8

Episode Critiques

Everyone will critique all the episodes via the two-way mirror method.

Week 9

The TV Writing Business

Jill will talk about the business side of teleplay writing. Due: everyone will turn in their “delightful”-pass rewrites of another writer’s first draft.

Week 10

Final Script Critiques

Everyone will critique all the “delightful”-pass rewrites.