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STRANGER THINGS - Part 2 - Writing A Pilot That Sells

By Jacob Krueger

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This podcast was taken from our vault, if you are interested in finding out more please check out our upcoming TV Comedy Class with Jerry Perzigian or our TV Drama Class with Steve Molton.

In the Part 1 of this podcast we discussed Stranger Things, the concept of the Series Engine, and how it relates to the pilot episode and the Show Bible of your series.

This week, we’re going to dive deeper into the Stranger Things pilot, to see exactly how it was constructed, and how it contains the blueprint not only of the Series Engine, but also of the Show Bible that could have been used to sell it. And then we’re going to talk about how you can apply these ideas to writing and structuring your own Series Pilot.

If you haven’t yet seen all of Stranger Things, don’t worry. We’re primarily going to be talking about the pilot episode in this podcast.  However, if you haven’t yet seen the pilot, you should be aware that there will be spoilers ahead.

Also, as you may know, October 5th through 9th we’re going to be holding our first TV Writing Retreat up in Dover, Vermont as part of the iTVFest Television Festival. It’s going to be an incredible event. We’re bringing our entire TV Writing faculty, including Jerry Perzigian (former show runner of Married with Children, The Jeffersons & The Golden Girls), Steve Molton, Karin Partin, and of course me. So if you’re interested in learning more about TV and Web Series writing & pitching in a real TV Writers Room environment, make sure to take advantage and sign up at our website.  Because the retreat happens as part of iTVFest, it also includes a special VIP Creator Pass only for our students, to get you into all the iTVFest parties, networking events and screenings.

 As we discussed in Part 1, when you write a series pilot, you have to do a lot more than just tell a great story. That’s because TV and Web series work in an almost completely different way than feature films. When you’re writing a feature film, you’re really just thinking about one story. Sure, you may have a sequel in mind, especially if you’re working on a super big-budget action movie franchise. But for the most part, you’re writing a self-contained unit, whereas a series needs to have the ability to replicate itself; it cannot exist in a vacuum.

So, when you write a pilot, you’re not just showing that you can tell a great story, you’re showing that you can tell a great story that can be replicated. You’re showing that you can tell a great story that can run for five seasons, maybe ten seasons. You’re showing a blueprint: not just for what this episode will be, but for what the entire franchise will be.

This is what we mean when we say engine. And of course, engines are an incredibly complicated concept. The engine is the foundation of series writing. When a series is working, it’s because you’ve got a great engine. And when a series is not working, it’s because you don’t.

And if you don’t have a great engine, or if you have a great engine but it’s not in your pilot in a way that your producer can see it, the truth of the matter is you’re not going to sell your series. And the reason you’re not going to sell your series is that your producer’s going to be afraid that it is going to run out of steam. So, when you create your pilot, what you’re really doing is demonstrating your engine.

We’re living in a Golden Age of Television writing, and this is one of the reasons that it is such an exciting time to be a TV or Web Series writer.