Speaking of The Warner Bros. Television Writers Workshop Guide, I should add that this book is a very straightforward introduction to TV writing by Abby Finer and Deborah Pearlman.
Aside from explaining sitcom and one-hour drama writing basics, this book also offers some nuggets of wisdom I have not read elsewhere.
The authors suggest a television spec script should NOT revolve around a holiday or deal with life-changing events. They also suggest avoiding stories that feature long-lost relatives, or natural disasters (including blackouts).
And while they stress the importance of not writing a “special” episode that deals with “addictions, amnesia, or dream sequences”, which I have heard before, I was surprised to learn that some producers dislike it when you show off your knowledge of a show by throwing in little-known facts or back story.
They also offer some good advice to help you determine just how important a particular scene is to your story:
“Each scene must advance the story, so new and relevant facts need to emerge, giving the character something to talk and joke about. A good way to test the sequence of the story by scene is to remove a scene that might not be fitting in with the rest of the story. If you remove a scene and the story still makes sense, then you didn’t need that scene in the first place.”
Finer and Pearlman also stress that you need to track “characters as they enter a scene thinking or feeling one way and wind up with a slightly different attitude by the end of that scene.”
They also suggest exposition “can be inserted into dialogue through conflict, particularly when tempers flare and angry words are spoken”.
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