TV Structure Made Easy For Beginning Writers - Niceole R. Levy

After growing up near China Lake Naval Weapons Center in the middle of the Mojave Desert, Niceole escaped to the bright lights of Los Angeles. While studying acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, she realized her true love was writing stories, not playing them out. She worked as a police dispatcher to pay her way through USC undergrad and then completed the Master of Professional Writing program, also at USC. An alum of the CBS Writers Mentoring Program, NBC's Writers on the Verge, and the WGAW Showrunner Training Program, Niceole has written on “Ironside,” “Allegiance,” “The Mysteries of Laura,” “Shades of Blue,” "Cloak & Dagger," “Fate: the Winx Saga,” “S.W.A.T,” and “Graymail.” She also co-wrote a feature, "The Banker," with former “Allegiance” showrunner and director George Nolfi, available on AppleTV+, and is now writing “Spark,” a film inspired by the life of Claudette Colvin. Niceole is currently a co-executive producer on an upcoming Netflix series and has several TV and feature projects in development. Her first book, “The Writers’ Room Survival Guide,” will be released in October of this year.

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[gopro_audio]

Can you imagine how much the interviewer knows after 12 years of videos on this channel? <3

[wesleywade]

Can you all cover sitcoms for like Nickelodeon and Disney.

[MrHunterseeker]

First minute of this video is the reason why we don't have any good TV shows anymore. The first thing that should be done is figure out if the show is going to be a situational show or a show that has an ongoing story. Once that is established, draw up an outline, and then figure out who your main characters are. Use the first season to introduce the whole cast to the audience. Sure figure out the technical structure of the show and how you implement commercials, but you want the most people watching those commercials as possible, so don't alienate anyone that might be interested in the show with your real world politics, religion or social awareness campaigns. Keep that stuff out of your show, or have the characters in the show deal with it, and show how they would react to it. Instead of preaching to the audience. The best structure of shows I have seen with shows with huge casts of main characters (like Star Trek TNG and all the old 90s star treks) was to have 3 different story line arcs/plots going on at once in each show, with 3 different locations, with 3 different main characters all dealing with a different dilemma, with 3 or 4 "acts" between commercials, cliff hanging hard at each commercial break. About halfway through the show, the characters story lines all end up merging together into one main plot that no one could see was going to be connected and by the end of the show, all characters end up together resolving their plot lines, which also progresses the main seasonal story line in some way. This keeps everyone interested because it has more of a chance to keep people watching their favorite characters.

Tip to writers: Enough with the sarcasm and cynicism.