Categories: Paper Team TV Business TV Writing

Writing Episodic vs. Serialized TV (PT95)

Alex and Nick discuss the advantages and disadvantages of writing episodic and serialized television.

Which format is better suited to your story? How does breaking a season change based on serialization? Why do serialized stories provide more developed character arcs? When is an episodic script more accessible to an audience? How is TV production impacted by the level of serialization?

Plus, a major announcement and two more Paper Tease entries.

The Paper Team connects the dots…

SHOWNOTES

Content

Paper Tease Session (01:58)
1 – Characters (10:40)
2 – Story and Plot (23:44)
3 – Finding the middle ground (40:40)
4 – Production (47:43)

Paper Tease Entries

“How Grace Got to Run the World” by Reeve Segal & Kaela Crawford
“Reunion Tour” by Paul Sprangers

Links

“The TV Writers’ Room” – TV Calling Facebook Group
The Art of the TV Episode (PT20)
TV Viewing Habits: Writing for the Binge (PT42)
“Day 478 ” (2×11 – The Good Fight)
“The Inner Light” (5×25 – Star Trek: The Next Generation)
“Git Gone” (1×04 – American Gods)
“The Sincerest Form of Flattery” (1×07 – Counterpart)
“Kiksuya” (2×08 – Westworld)

This episode brought to you by Roadmap Writers’ JumpStart Writing Competition

Special thanks to Alex Switzky for helping us edit this episode.

If you enjoyed this episode (and others), please consider leaving us an iTunes review at paperteam.co/itunes! :)

You can find Paper Team on Twitter:
Alex@TVCalling
Nick@_njwatson
If you have any questions, comments or feedback, you can e-mail us: ask@paperteam.co

Paper Team
Alex Freedman & Nick Watson

Paper Team is a podcast about television writing and becoming a TV writer.

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