Screenwriting : Differences between writing a film screen play and a television screenplay by David N. Thomas

One major difference is TV shows have more plotlines than movie scripts. There's more time in TV to explore plotlines than in a movie. Teleplays take a lot more outlining than movie scripts because shows contain episodes, seasons, more characters, and of course more plotlines. Another difference is teleplays sometimes have breaks in them for commercials.

TV has broken into two camps. There is the series, like the Walking Dead that has no end (Yes I know it was based on a graphic novel), it can be stretched out for as long as people are willing to make it. This is more of a universe that stories are told within.

Then there is the Limited Series - like Chernobyl, a set number of episodes telling a long form single story.

I think of limited series as a huge film broken into parts.

Both need to have a cliffhanger of a kind at the end of each episode to compel viewers to return or keep watching.

For serialised writing I have heard this advice from Jos Weddon. Each episode needs a story that is setup and resolved in that episode. There needs to be a longer story which runs over three or four episodes. This needs to be setup and occasionally refreshed in the viewers mind. There can be a number of these multi episode stories, they can overlap. Then there is season story. This takes the entire season to resolve and should be impacted by the events in the other stories.

That serialized writing explanation makes a lot of sense. I can actually see the four novels I have written fitting into that definition..

thank you, I will check it out!