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How To Write a TV Bible

By Jacob Krueger

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As we discussed in Part 1 of this podcast, when TV producers ask you to write a TV Bible with your pilot script, they usually request it in a pretty strange form. And a lot of writers get confused about what producers are actually looking for when they ask for a TV Bible and what’s supposed to go in it.

Most TV Bibles include a series logline, character bios for all the main characters, episode summaries for the first season, and often summaries of the future seasons as well.  But the truth is, if that’s all you deliver, your TV Bible’s not going to take you very far.

Because producers are never really asking for a bunch of boring information about your TV series. What they’re really asking is proof that you know what you’re doing, and that your series pilot not only has a fabulous premise and collection of castable characters we’d want to spend our time binge watching, but also has the kind of ENGINE required to run for at least 5 years.

They don’t want you to tell them it’s going to run for 5 years. They want you to show them. By putting together your loglines, characters, and episodes into a short sweet document that they can’t say no to!

So what should that document contain? And how exactly do you write it?

Well, you're going to start off with a killer logline. But how do you know if your logline is actually killer?

On the simplest level, the best loglines start with a character who’s got a very specific dominant trait, and then simply put that character in an ironic situation that would be very difficult for a character with that trait to handle.

This helps anyone who reads your logline see exactly what your series about, how big your character’s journey could potentially be, and that there are enough complications there to sustain a series.

So, for example, if you're writing a logline for a TV Drama like Breaking Bad, you might say something like this:

Logline: A law abiding chemistry teacher  finds out he is dying and teams up with his own worst student, to start a crystal meth business that can provide for his family after his death.

And you can see that that’s a big ol’ ironic situation right there. But it matters because of the character. If you just said “a guy creates a crystal meth empire” you don't have a logline.  The story matters because of the dominant trait of the main character, and the exceedingly difficult and ironic situation his desires lead him to in light of that dominant trait.

If you’ve studied with me in my Write Your Screenplay classes, you’ve probably realized by now that these are the same underlying elements we build upon as we build the structure of our screenplays. What’s it about? Who's the main character? What’s their dominant trait? What do they want? What’s the best, worst or most ironic thing that could happen to someone with a dominant trait like this.

In a logline, it’s dominant trait plus ironic hook that leads a producer to “get it” right away, to say to themselves “I see how this can generate episodes forever.”

If you're going to pitch Arrested Development. You might use a logline like this:

Logline: When the patriarch of a wealthy family ends up in prison for illegally building houses in Iraq, his morally upright son must wrangle the rest of his ridiculously self involved family to save the family business and for vie mom and dad's love.

And you can see from the pitch that there is enough there, a character with a clear want and  dominant trait, an ironic situation, and enough complications in his attempts to get it...