Following the general guidelines of setup, development and resolution. How does this play into a one hour tv pilot? The goal is to set up a larger story arc, and not answer all questions within the first episode. What are some examples of “resolutions” or how is this tailored when writing pilots? Thanks in advance!
Screenwriting : Resolution in a one hour pilot script by James Greasley
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Resolutions are tricky business. I would say the best and most available resolutions come from Grey's Anatomy, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead (all scripts you can find at screencraft-blog-type sites, btw) and the worst are Game of Thrones, Sopranos and Lost. What's interesting is they are mostly formatted in a similar manner but with Sopranos, Lost and Game of Thrones, the resolutions are tiny and you are really coming back because of a third act set-up that just spills into forever. The "lowest" points for the characters are not going to be resolved in this episode and you know that from the outset because the lows are super lows. With the better setups, you are dealing with simple conflicts/situations-at-hands that could potentially lead to something interesting. I will say that The Walking Dead pilot sort of crosses between the two as you read. It is setting up the zombie apocalypse being permanent and long-reaching but the simpler task is for Rick to find his family. His lowest of lows arc is not that he's in the zombie end-of-the-world scenario or stuck on an island or whatever way you want to look at it. It's that he can't find his family. Most all of these examples "stair step" the resolution by allowing you a simple goal towards a more complicated goal. By the end of the episode, you need to solve the "first" step. But you have to make the audience want to see the characters get all the way up the ladder, which is only the season ahead of you. Not the whole series arc. That has to be pinched in like salt along the way. With the apocalyptic scenario, it's a given. With a Lost or GOT situation, it's set up more specifically. Is the goal to get off the island? Or to kill the villain? The goals and conflict resolutions become either one in the same or juxtaposed against one another in order to create high drama. But the "tags" and fifth acts become important in some of these stories because they give you that "one more thing" that makes you tune in next week. You don't want the audience to realize they need it. You want them to come back just to watch the stair-stepping take place. Each episode raises the stakes but doesn't knock the characters back down the ladder as much as it makes the next step harder to get to. Make sense?
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Advice from Jeff Lieber. He daily tweets writing tips for Television
1st 1/3 of pilot is BIG WORLD+BIG CHARACTER (and incident)2nd 1/3 is BIG INCIDENT (and character and more world)
3rd 1/3 is a window in what's going to happen over the next 5 seasons.
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I concur with Dan and Kay.
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TV pilot structure is pretty well established. I know several writers staffing some big shows and they all follow the same episode structures (the pilot should feel like any episode in the show). The B, C and D lines all come in and go out at very particular points in the pilot (or episode) ... you have some fudge room, but basically which acts (of the 5 act structure which most 1hr dramas are... with a teaser) contain which lines and where they all converge is pretty standard. The norm these days is for everything to pretty much resolve at the end of act 4 and act five is more about character windows and emotional moments. That wasn't always the case, but this is kind of the norm these days ... I'm sure it will change. Check out Script Anatomy's TV writing program or the new Writers Room 5050 program ... they both offer very professional mentoring and instruction by working writers in the industry. That's who you have to learn this stuff from ... not just somebody with a formatting book and some story structure knowledge. You need real TV writers teaching you ... you can't wing this stuff ... trust me. :)
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It does also depend somewhat on what kind of TV show you're writing. Yes, you have your big American shows that stick to a well-worn rigid path when it comes to plotting, but certainly here in the UK we have dramas that possess a less formulaic structure than mentioned directly above. And I am sure there are US shows that veer from this too. This has to exist otherwise TV programming would be all too similar across the board.
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One of my favorite ways that it was described was this. All main characters and all characters in general, have what's known as a core wound. In a feature film, your main character has to have their core wound healed by the end of it.
For a TV series, the character has to keep bleeding. While there usually has to be a single issue per episode that is setup, developed and then resolved by the end of the episode, the main character(s) must keep having their core wound continue to bleed.
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Phil ... yes for sure. UK TV has historically been better than US TV :) You guys got it right a long time ago... we're still catching up...