TV Writing I is a 10-week workshop, which includes lectures, exercises, and the critiquing of student projects. It’s for beginners or anyone who wants to brush up on the fundamentals. Farther down, you can view a syllabus for this course.
The best TV shows are addictive, beckoning us to bring the characters into our homes or devices, episode after episode. The people might be cops, teachers, monsters, geeks, doctors, lawyers, fixers, or just ordinary people with everyday problems. The format might be network, streaming, or a web series. As long as it hooks us.
Each TV show is a unique story-machine, with its own rules and formulas. Here you’ll learn how to write for TV and how to market your work.
Whether you seek to write comedy, drama, or something in between, we’ll show you how to write TV episodes that might, someday, get everybody buzzing.
Notes
- TV writers either work on the staff of an existing series or they create an original show. To break into the business, you need samples of your work—either episodes of existing shows or original scripts, the latter more desirable these days.
- TV Writing I focuses on writing “spec” scripts for existing shows, which is the best way to learn how TV episodes work. TV Writing II Pilot focuses on creating an original series and “pilot” episode.
- These courses cover “scripted” shows, as opposed to reality TV.
This course gives you a firm grounding in the basics of TV writing craft and gets you writing a TV script for an existing show. Course components:
- Lectures
- Writing exercises
- Workshopping of student projects (each student presenting work two times)
New York City/Zoom classes
- The syllabus varies from teacher to teacher, term to term. Many topics will be similar to those covered in the Online classes.
About
- Zoom classes happen in real time.
- The Zoom classes unite students from all over the world at Gotham—New York City’s most well-established writing school.
- The Zoom classes happen on videoconference, in “real time.” Very much like an in-person class except everyone is on a computer or device in their own space. The Zoom software is free and simple to use.
- You can take a Zoom writing class from anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection. The majority of our Zoom students are located in the U.S. but we also draw students from practically every country in the world.
- Tech support will be available. Out of respect for everyone’s privacy, the Zoom sessions are not recorded.
