Desk of Amy Suto

TV writer who eats danger for breakfast

How to Write a Series Bible for Your TV Show

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It’s the top of the New Year and I hope you’re as ready for this year as I am! Every year after Christmas I let my OCD tendencies take over and deep clean my apartment and get my projects in order by making a project calendar. I also get started on new scripts, so I thought I’d write this post about how to write a killer series bible for your TV show.

Let’s write stacks on stacks of final drafts this year guys, OK?

add some red string and I’m at serial-killer level of preparedness for this year

What is a Series Bible?

If you’re writing a TV show at the top of the year, I wanted to talk a little about writing a series bible. For those of you new to the world of TV writing, a series bible is the document that is like hey guys if we made a TV show about Wonder Woman saving us from the horrors of 2017 HERE’S WHAT IT WOULD LOOK LIKE

 

spoiler alert: it would look like AWESOME

So what would you include in a series bible? [Read more…]

How to Work with a Writing Partner (and not murder each other!)

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It’s a Friday and I’m going to meet up with another writer at his office like I do almost every Friday, mainly because I want to steal all of the butterscotch from the reception candy bowl (I’m not twelve, I promise you). I’m carrying a container of the very real, very ridiculous pizza flavored nuts brand Dee’s Nuts — I kid you not — that is integral to our plot. Okay, maybe not integral but like there is a sophisticated, layered inside joke throughout the script about this container of nuts and our main character just happens to be nicknamed Dee (like I said, I’m not twelve.)

We’re working on a pilot that, if you’ve had drinks with me in the past three months, you’ve probably heard me pitch to you in the same breathless tone of voice that I get when I describe why I love Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. (But don’t talk to me about any of the sequels. Just don’t.)

I’ve written some of my favorite projects with others: Jen Enfield-Kane and I wrote and were co-showrunners on CON at USC. Noah Suarez-Sikes and I have had a litany of never-produced yet incredibly lovely writing projects that we’ve worked on together (and hopefully will have another soon!) I’m working with Sandy Valles (an actress known for her role in CON oh and also QUEEN OF THE SOUTH) on a pitch based on an awesome idea her and her brother came up with.

I love television writing in part because of how collaborative it is: you get to play make-believe with other talented creatives. Together, you make something cool that people will hopefully turn into GIFs and needlessly complex Fanfiction for years to come.

However, this doesn’t mean that the writing process is a dream. Writing with a partner or in a television room means there are a lot of different perspectives and approaches to story — which can be great at certain times and a roadblocks at others!

So if you’re starting in a television writers’ room or are about to embark on writing a script with a writing partner, here are some things you should keep in mind so that you get along with other creatives and homicide stays on the page:  [Read more…]

3 Tips for Getting Organized and Motivated after a Setback (Writing in Hollywood)

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welcome to amy’s blog, a phrase which here means “pretty photos of organized desks”

I have a quote on my wall that reads “fall seven, rise eight.” It’s a Japanese proverb I love because it’s the best advice on how to survive in this industry. It doesn’t matter how many times you fail as long as you keep going.

We can’t control a lot of aspects of writing in television, but what we can control is our own mindset and how we approach our work. By investing in a sense of humor, a positive perspective, and some organizational habits, we can re-route ourselves and get back on track no matter the setback.

So, here are three ways I reset myself and my goals after a setback: 

1. Track Habits, Gratitude, and Goals in a Journal

I keep two journals, one in which I reflect about my day, and a second where I track habits, write down what I’m grateful for, and check in on my goals. Because life can get hectic, I need a space to record my progress and to plan what’s next. Here’s what I keep track of:  [Read more…]

Writing the Half-Hour TV Drama

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I hate the phrase “dramedy.”

Every half-hour TV show that isn’t quite a comedy has been given that title. NURSE JACKIE? WEEDS? TRANSPARENT? GIRLS? Dramedies, despite the fact that the spine of these shows are unequivocally dramatic. If you added a meaty B and C storyline to NURSE JACKIE, the show would become HOUSE, something that has never been called a dramedy despite its moments of humor and lightness. Classics like GUNSMOKE and THE TWILIGHT ZONE were half-hours, so by the definition of run-time shouldn’t it be classified as a comedy, or worse, a dramedy? (The correct answer, as I hope you know, is definitely not.)

We’re in an era where dramatic storytelling no longer needs to be relegated to an hour, and the streamlined, nimble storytelling of the half-hour format can be just as dramatic as its 60-minute companion.

So what makes a show a drama? 

  • Tone.
  • Subject matter.
  • Approach to subject matter.
  • Scene composition.

Let’s compare VEEP and HOUSE OF CARDS. Both are about Washington D.C. and politics, sure, but more specifically VEEP is about the powerlessness of the Vice Presidency and the incompetence of Selena and her staff, whereas HOUSE OF CARDS is about the power struggles in D.C. and the viciously cunning Frank Underwood and his power maneuvers.

The tone of these two shows are continents apart: HOUSE OF CARDS is brooding and stylishly dark, and VEEP is a cynical farce. Their approach to subjects like power (and lack thereof) are what sets them apart on genre lines.

In a typical VEEP scene, you can expect sharp witticism and barb-filled dialog, with an undercurrent of comedic suspense as we watch something fall apart thanks to the incompetencies of the characters.

In a typical HOUSE OF CARDS scene, we expect chilling hints at Frank Underwood’s latest scheme for power, and an undercurrent of suspense as we wait for dark dealings to bubble to the surface.

Structure of a Half-Hour Drama

The nimble, fluid structure of a half-hour drama gives writers a lot of room for flexibility. However, even as these half-hours seem to be able to buck the norms of structure, they still do follow patterns of structure similar to their hour companions.

  • Half-hours have one or two major plot movements. Whereas hours have several big movements that culminate in end-of-act cliffhangers four or five times an episodes, half-hours usually only have two major plot movements at most, one of which turns the story to the other.
  • Three acts and a teaser is the structure, but there’s room to mix it up. Hours usually fall along the lines of four or five acts plus a teaser. Half hours can fall along three acts and a teaser, but you’ll rarely see act breaks in the script. Struture is more fluid in half-hours.
  • Scenes often run shorter because they no longer have to service multiple plotlines, with scene lengths running on average 1.77 pages. There are also a scarcity of exterior shots, and exteriors are mostly only used for establishing. In terms of scene length, if a scene is longer than two pages, it’s usually a central plot point (usually a pivotal dinner or party scene.)
  • Rather than juggling A, B, C storylines with a D runner that hours have the time to tackle, most half hours focus on an A-Story (like NURSE JACKIE, ENLIGHTENED, I LOVE DICK), or have equally-weighted A and B and C storylines that track an ensemble cast that have a culminating plot movement that ties them together (TRANSPARENT, TOGETHERNESS). Overall, there’s more flexibility with the form, as long as the focus of each individual episode is made clear (in thematic or character terms.)
  • Dinner is the most dramatic meal. In almost every half hour I read, the major plot points revolved around a dinner (or two dinners, like GIRLS and CATASTROPHE). If you want to break the form, have a set piece revolve around brunch which never has any drama. 

The Stats

I broke down a handful of half-hour dramas to make the below infographic to give you an idea of what the average half-hour drama looks like:

Now go, reinvent short form television and make some great dramatic television!

Assistant Life: Surviving Vs. Thriving, Strategies to Keep Writing

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I’ve been writing a lot recently about creatives in the industry and posting images of aesthetically pleasing and meticulously organized writing spaces (aka: my therapy) so this blog post is continuing the trend.

At holiday parties this past month, I’ve been meeting other writers who are holding down jobs in the industry, from showrunner’s assistants to writer’s PA’s to researchers. The first question I ask pretty much all of them is how do you do it? How do you be good enough at your day job and somehow retain the energy and time to write outside of our 11+ hour days? 

Some are honest: they aren’t able to make it work a lot of the time. Understandably, we’re all human and it’s tough.

[You guys should also check out: a day in the life of an agency assistant working in Hollywood]

However, we work in an industry that doesn’t care about our busy schedules — everyone is busy all of the time, and that’s not an excuse. If we don’t write, if we don’t commit that great idea to the page and then rewrite it until its brilliant, then others will just surpass us and we’ll never be able to escape the assistant life. As one writer who had been staffed on several shows told me, you have to grind and hustle to get your writing to where it needs to be: you can’t escape it, so might as well put in the mind-numbing hard work now.

With that in mind, here are some strategies I’ve put together that seem to work pretty well for myself and other writers out there. [Read more…]