Crafty TV Writing: Thinking Inside the Box by Alex Epstein opened my eyes to the whole TV structure. This isn’t talking about reality shows or news or sports. This book focuses on fictional content written into sitcoms, dramas, action shows and all of their various genre-specific formats.

For instance, early in the book Epstein makes a great point that helped me to understand the difference between TV writing and many other forms of entertainment. He says, “The one thing no television show can live without is a great cast of characters. With rare exceptions, a movie is its plot.”

Lots of sitcoms like Seinfeld, Friends, and 30 Rock all rely on the characters to set up the wacky situations that come their way. Only Liz Lemon’s skewed sense of justice would enable her to purchase every hotdog from a street vendor in order to keep a line-cutter from receiving his ill-gotten gains in 30 Rock. Not many other shows would prey upon New York City apartments suddenly available because of the death of a tenant like Seinfeld. And I certainly have not seen many romantic evenings in a paleontology museum like Friends managed.

Author Epstein acknowledges long-form shows like Lost and 24. And while these shots depended heavily on plot, they were not solely made up of plot. To tell a single, ongoing story for that many episodes, you would have to have interesting characters to help you get through the slower moments.

I found the book helpful not only in understanding TV series but also serialized storytelling. Ideas like leaving your audience anticipating the next episode are obvious, but the concept of creating a storytelling template to give your audience a sense of connection and familiarity from one episode to the next was new to me. For instance, the first season of Lost was easy to determine the template. We see our main character for this episode in the present trying to get off the island or avoid the Smoke Monster or whatever, and we intercut that with flashbacks to the character’s shady past. Every time the audience saw an episode during the first season, they knew what the template would be. The audience still didn’t know what was going to happen, though. Of course, later Lost seemed to change the template every season, but they stayed consistent throughout each season.

Crafty TV Writing also includes interesting information about how one could go about trying to become a TV writer in the Hollywood system. Learn about when Staffing Season is. Find out the ways to ingratiate yourself with producers or current writers by becoming an intern or a writing assistant. The book goes further into detail by providing tips on how to write sample scripts, writing a pilot (the beginning episode of TV series), and even writing a show bible.

Whether you’re looking to become the next J.J. Abrams, or you just want to understand why something went wrong with your favorite show, check out Crafty TV Writing.

For you writers out there, author Alex Epstein regularly updates his blog with continued writing advice and observations.

or, How Human Target Inspired My Writing

I am very excited to be working on a new writing projects, and I’m currently in the planning stages of how to lay out some stories. Obviously, there’s the chronological approach (this happened, this happened next, etc.), which is tried and true. There are many, many other approaches including the backwards storytelling of Memento, which I especially appreciate after recently viewing the film again. There’s also the scattered ideas of Pulp Fiction that a score of movies tried to copy with few results comparable to the original. And there is the idea that is so enormously popular with TV writers: start in the middle of the action, and back up to tell how we got there.

The method itself has turned out a number of great stories. Heck, Lost practically built its first few seasons on a variation of this flashback method. Speaking of flashbacks, FlashForward is another series built on a variation of this same technique. Both series are fundamentally based upon non-linear storytelling.

But for quality series like Lost, there are innumerable copies out there that just aren’t that good. Human Target is a series that frequently uses the non-linear approach, but it turns out to be more a crutch rather than a true device to advance the artistic quality of the show. I’ll be honest… Human Target is a guilty pleasure of mine, and it’s always in my Hulu queue. If it’s even remotely based on a comic book property, I’ll probably check it out at some point. In this case, the book and the show are remarkably different, but that is a discussion for another time. For now, just know that the comic book is much more layered than the quick adventure of the week we see on the television.

The main difference between Human Target and Lost – or even FlashForward – is that Human Target could very easily be told in a linear fashion, and you wouldn’t lose any information. At some point, we are going to learn more about who is chasing Christopher Chance, and we’ll probably get to know a little bit more about his shady past. But so far, we’ve already figured out a lot of his history. And all of the revelations about his past have come in the form of dialogue, so show creators missed out on one justifiable reason to jump around in time!

I’m not really sure how many of the episodes in the first season have used this approach, but at this point, it feels like well over half. Please, show writers, it’s okay to use linear storytelling. Really. This show has inspired me to stick with linear storytelling for a while in my own writing.

So, if you’re into the extraterrestrial or supernatural and you’ve ever been thinking about joining the FBI, this is the year to do it according to this fall’s TV shows. Let’s take a look at some offices around the country.

Boston – Apparently, there are plenty of positions in this office that are working on “fringe science” cases. Sure, the leaders of these investigations are holed up over at Harvard and they keep a cow in the office, but they utilize resources from the main office all the time. And, now that they’re all buddy-buddy with the higher-ups, they can pretty much get any of the resources they need any time.

Los Angeles – If you’re interested in investigating matters of quantum physics and flashforwards, check out the L.A. office. Though the higher-ups are a little less enthusiastic about the FBI running point on this investigation (did the president try to kill them?), the L.A. office still has enough pull to get overseas trips authorized and international prisoners released.

New York – This is a pretty tough gig to land, and your life will constantly be in danger if you decide to cross the V’s. Still, you’ll have a chance to work alongside an alien unknowingly for years. And, even after attempting to kill your partner/alien enemy, you’ll get to work with other embedded alien(s) without your knowledge. Not exactly a lot of job security, but it’s a tough economy.

The FBI would like to offer Stargates, but that’s the Army. They could work with vampires, but they’ve wisely chosen to steer clear of the dangerous fields of high school. Teen Drama… now that’s scary.

For the sake of the article, we’re going to define “One and Done” shows as episodic programs that depend on little or no previous knowledge about the characters or situation in order to understand the show. Case in point: pretty much any sitcom on air. The Office is just people working in an office. Funny things happen. You might understand the jokes more if you watched previous episodes, but viewers can catch on pretty quickly.

“Epic” shows are those programs in which viewers must invest their time if they are to enjoy the episodes. These shows absolutely depend on prior knowledge of the show in order to make each episode relevant. Case in point: soap operas. Did Jonny really fall off the cliff? Will Betty Sue realize that she is just a clone of Suzy Q? Tune in next episode to find out.

Stargate Universe

“One and Done”

Strengths

• Easy for new viewers to jump on. If someone missed the entire first three seasons, he or she can start watching in the fourth season and catch up with the main idea quickly.
• These shows often follow a predictable pattern that allows viewers to know what to expect. A murder mystery will start with the crime, the detective will explore the crime and invariably solve the case by the end of the episode.
• Resolution. A viewer begins a situation (crime, joke, etc.) and gets to see how that situation ultimately plays out (the killer gets caught, or the joke backfires to reveal the prankster).

Weaknesses

• Boredom from repetition. By not creating a linear path that flows from episode to episode, viewers may get bored of the same routine and tune out.
• Difficult to introduce new elements. Because of a show’s establish pattern, viewers often do not appreciate big changes in the way the plotlines play.
• Changes are more likely to be undone to maintain the status quo. If the hero dies, one can almost always expect that death to be undone or explained later.

Battlestar Galactica

“The Epic”

Strengths

• Shows like Lost and Battlestar Galactica have the opportunity to create enormous, interconnected plotlines that reward the faithful fan.
• Because these shows function more like an extended movie or novel, the show does not have to follow such a clearly established pattern. Once characters knew what was inside the hatch of Lost, the writers could not make more episodes where viewers were expected to guess what was inside.
• Ideally, each episode matters. Each episode should be getting the audience closer to that big payoff of the finale.

Weaknesses

• These shows can feel too complicated to the casual observer.
• After a few seasons, these shows can seem unapproachable to any new viewers who might be interested.
• Delayed resolutions. These shows frequently choose not to wrap up single story threads in order to entice the viewer back to the next episode.

Very rarely do shows completely fall in one category or the other. For example, Fringe has many episodes that fit the “one and done” style, but they have a few overarching plotlines that seem exactly like the epics. However, Fringe does not depend on viewer loyalty nearly as much as shows like FlashForward or Lost.

So, which do you prefer?

Okay. We get it. The show is about fate and free will. We understand that now. Please show us something else.

This week’s episode “Playing Cards with Coyote” gave audiences a healthy dose of discussion about predestination in nearly all of its storylines. Events did happen to advance the overall plotline of the show, but the themes were so heavy that they nearly drowned out what was actually happening.

Speaking of what did happen, here’s a quick summary. Aaron’s daughter Tracy showed up at the end of the last episode, and this week she confirmed that she was indeed in a gunfight while deployed. However, she was not killed (obviously), she merely lost a leg in the explosion. Mark shot and killed an ex-military man that was on the wrong side of the law in a somewhat suspicious shooting. Meanwhile, Lloyd, in a mounting crisis of conscience, played Simon in a game of cards with the stakes being whether or not the group of scientists should go public with their little experiment that caused the blackout and killed twenty million people. Lloyd won the game through cheating. At the very end of the episode, we met a new character that had sent a military group to kill someone in order to retrieve a set of rings. The rings apparently enabled people to avoid blacking out while the rest of the world had visions.

The biggest piece of new information to the show is the addition of the seven rings. There are so many “Lord of the Rings” and “Green Lantern” jokes that could spin out of this discussion, but we’ll try to be mature here. But, as much as FlashForward has distanced itself from traditional science fiction and fantasy stories, the “rings” feel like they could fit with any one of those tales. Perhaps someone will find a magic sword, too

The rings do make for an interesting plot twist. Case in point, we know that both Lloyd and Simon had flash forwards. They were obviously not wearing the rings during the blackout. The guy on tape at the football stadium had a ring on, but we still don’t know if he’s tied into the same group with Simon and Lloyd. In fact, in the midst of all of his charades, Simon wanted to investigate their experiment to make sure that their teams was actually the group who triggered the blackout. Others could have been involved.

FlashForward is strongest when it sticks to advancing the action and when it reveals new aspects of characters. This week had two character moments that stood out. When Mark shot the soldier, he took the next step into something more sinister. He isn’t necessarily a selfish character, but his need to prevent the predicted future goes far beyond professional curiosity. He is an obsessed man, and his mission is overtaking him.

The other character moment came when Lloyd revealed that he had cheated at the card game. After a tedious discussion on the science of predetermined chances, Lloyd introduced a new variable into Simon’s scenario: man’s desire to win no matter the cost. At the beginning of the episode, Lloyd was shown as a man with a strong conscience, ready to share his guilt with the world. But he is not a completely moral man; he still cheats to get what he wants. If he is partly responsible for the blackout, his history should show that cheating (in physics and in cards) does not always end well. Simon is also not likely to receive Lloyd’s cheating gracefully.

Tracy’s arrival signaled some interesting news for Aaron. Since she is alive and only missing a limb, then that means that Mike is either lying or has been brainwashed. Mike was a fellow soldier that served with Tracy, and in the last episode he told Aaron (and we saw through his flashback) that Tracy had been literally torn in half by the blast. It’s more likely that Mike was simply lying, and Aaron will have to be careful not to let Mike in on the secret that Tracy is home.

There you have it: some humor, some great character moments, and too much theme. Recently, one of the executive producers was released from the show, so we may see more consistent advancement of the plot in future episodes. We’re certainly hoping so.

Originally published at Sci-Fi Select