Writing a pitch for a TV show can be a daunting task for many writers who may feel more comfortable creating characters than compressing their creations into a succinct story to pitch to potential buyers. A large number of television writers underestimate the importance of selling or promoting their story. Writing the speech is often the first step for many successful screenwriters.
Start your presentation with a tagline. Regardless of the type of TV show you have created or plan to create, your speech should include a tagline. The logline is a one sentence description of your concept, which fully explains what your program is about. If you have a clear idea of what you have written, you will be able to write the logline. It is recommended that you write the log line before you even start writing your TV show script because it will help you focus on the core of your characters instead of veering off in directions that don’t meet the overall story or worse, that are inconsistent. with the emotions, motives and impulses of your characters.
A good logline will instantly tell people what you’re trying to do or what you’ve already done; the order varies depending on your stage in the writing process. In the artistic but competitive business of writing TV shows, first impressions can be the difference between going back to a traditional job versus earning enough money to work on more episodes of that TV series.
Here are some sample loglines to help you get started writing a speech for a TV show:
an amazing race: “Couples from all over the world race around the world to compete for a million dollars.”
The Simpsons: “The hilarious misadventures of a dysfunctional but lovable suburban family.”
Nikita: “A secret agent rebels against her evil trainers, trying to stop them from wreaking havoc around the world.”
If you’re having trouble writing a speech for a TV show, the logline might help too. Write a few variations of the motto until you think you’ve got the gist of the show. The logline forces you to think deeply about what your program is really about. If you can’t think of a good tagline, that’s a good indication that you need to stop writing a speech for a TV show and rethink the show’s concept. Once you know what you want to write, the logline will be more natural.
After the logline, one way to proceed is to write a one-page summary of the show, and then the more detailed treatment of the TV show, and finally the draft script…then another draft…and usually a few more before. It really stands out from the sea of mediocrity. The film treatment is a summary in paragraph form, using the present tense, and is much shorter than the full script, but longer than the 1-page summary. Think of it as a quick start guide for your TV show to show potential producers who may commission you to write the script based on the strength of the treatment. Whether you present the treatment to potential buyers before you write the script, it can be beneficial to get feedback on the treatment before you draft the script. In fact, it may be a good idea to get feedback on the 1-page summary above.
Once you have at least your signup line and at least a summary and ideally a treatment, you should be able to pitch and hopefully have a chance of getting hired to write the TV script and do your own TV show. But without a previous successful track record or connections, producers and filmmakers will prefer to buy an already solid and complete script. That’s not to say they won’t go ahead and send it through another round of rewrite. It’s a collaborative process and it goes back and forth until the final editing of the film.