I'm writing a pilot (and outlines for the following 11 episodes). for a contest The main characters are a wife, husband and their two preteen kids. The wife has a sister and a widowed dad, while the husband has both parents, ten siblings, nine in-laws, and 30 nieces and nephews. In the pilot episode there's a party where all the characters are present, though only a handful (beside the principals) have any dialogue. I've been advised by a trusted fellow writer that this might be prohibitive cost-wise, and may present contest judges with financial concerns that would keep them from voting for my idea. I'm a quality-matter-most kind of writer. I'm not ignorant of the potential production issues, but is this something I should concern myself with at this point? Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Screenwriting : Too Many Characters? by Pablo A. Rajczyk
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Is the contest you're entering, different to the usual screenwriting contests out there? I don't see why the contest judges would care about budget and in fact, I've never heard of such a thing. Contest judges are all about story, even if your story involves blowing up office buildings or ocean liners. It's not the responsibility of a contest judge to work out if the budget for your story is attainable or not. If the first prize of the contest is the making of your pilot then that may have some impact but if not, then don't worry about it.
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Yeah, the "rule" is usually no more than 8 speaking characters in a drama pilot (6 in a comedy). It just gets way too hard to keep track. I would cut the 10 siblings, 9 in-laws and 30 nieces/nephews out of the pilot and just mention it.
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I agree with you Danny, regarding confusion, you don't want too many characters because it's hard to keep track of who is who but with regard to character budget, surely that has nothing to do with your chances in a competition?
Thanks for the advice! This helps considerably.
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Also, you do not have to do full outlines for the 11 episodes. A paragraph for each should be fine
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It might have an effect on contests if producibility is one of the requirements. and if readers are confused by 34 character names then its not going to do well in a contest. its not about budget per se, but it does play a role.
first of all -- you shouldn't write a pilot "for a contest". you should write a pilot because you want to work in television one day. 2nd of all -- there's nothing wrong with having a party scene with a bunch of EXTRAS. extras, not characters. the only people who get NAMED are those who speak OR do something significant to the story. everybody else can be slumped together as kid party-goers or whatever you call them. OPPOSING VIEW: brand new tv show THE SLAP -- had a party scene in the pilot. there were a lot of characters to be introduced... and there were a few kid characters playing. however, the actions that these kids were making were significant to the story. and while i haven't read the script i'm sure they were all named.
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Thanks to everyone for all the feedback. Allow me to clarify. As I wrote in my original post, there are two principal characters and their two kids. The show revolves around this central family. There's a party scene in the pilot, but only five of the non-principal characters have dialogue. It's significant to the story that one character has a very large family. Even though there are 23 additional adults (plus 30 kids) "in the cast," only four of them have dialogue in the pilot, and most of them will play little to no part in the show. By "outlines" I didn't mean fully fleshed-out episodes, but rather a short paragraph describing each episode. Perhaps I should have been clearer - I'm not writing it "for a contest." I'm entering my work in a contest. Thanks again for commenting. Everyone has given me a lot to to think about, helping me considerably with rewrites.
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Yeah, Pablo, that's what I read from your original post. Too many people here just skim the op then type out a lengthy reply without even knowing they've missed the mark. We're writers, people, get the details right.