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
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
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
Week 10
Final Script Critiques
Everyone will critique all the “delightful”-pass rewrites.