Writing a TV Pilot that Sells

Saturday, April 30
2:15PM – 3:45PM
Constitution Hall (Room 105)

In her class, the WRITING A TV PILOT THAT SELLS, Jen Grisanti will teach you what she believes are the pillars that will take you from ordinary to extraordinary with the writing of your TV pilot.

Jen will walk you through three key components of selling your pilot – CONCEPT, CHARACTER and STRUCTURE.

Jen says; “These tools are the foundation that have led many of my clients to success. By mastering the set up of your story, you create the possibility of making a sale and staffing.”

Concept

Jen will take you through how to come up with great concepts for your story. She will go over what is working in TV right now and why it is working.

Jen will go over three things that she believes lead to writing a pilot that sells:

  1. Take us into a world we don’t know or that we may know but you show it to us from a new perspective.
  2. Show us why we care through creating strong characters and a powerful opening.
  3. Create a strong engine for endless story.
Character

Jen will work with you on how to create complex characters who have wounds and flaws and connect with the audience in a universal way.

She will go through shows that have very strong characters and help you to see what contributes to making a character memorable and someone you can’t ignore.

There are three contributing factors to creating memorable characters:

  1. Complexity
  2. Understanding of the wound that is causing the flaw
  3. Accessibility
Structure

Through understanding how to link these three elements, you will learn how to set the foundation in your story, have an active lead and elevate the emotion to a whole new level.

Jen believes that in order to go from a non-working writer to a working writer, you have to write a pilot that hits it out of the ballpark. She will teach you the tools that will elevate your game and increase your opportunities.

SERIES TRIGGER – By creating a powerful series trigger incident and dilemma, you set up the core conflict for your series as well as the emotion that is driving your character.

PILOT TRIGGER – Your pilot trigger and dilemma are what leads your character into the pilot pursuit. Keep in mind, your pilot trigger wouldn’t happen unless your series trigger happened.

A strong pilot trigger is what carries the first episode. Linking the pilot trigger to the series trigger makes the difference between a good pilot and a great one.

Jen will go over several pilots that have done this successfully.

DILEMMA – The trigger incident should push your central character into a dilemma. The choice that is made in this dilemma is what will define the external goal.

The dilemma should be strong enough that we understand that there is not an easy choice on either side of the dilemma. This is what will create empathy and a rooting factor for your central character.

Jen will also discuss the set up of the personal dilemma and how to link it to the professional pursuit. This will elevate the emotion in your story.

PURSUIT – The clear set up of the goal is the glue that will hold your story together. By clearly setting up what your central character wants, you can link your obstacle, escalating obstacle, and ‘all is lost’ moment back to the goal. This will help you to write stronger act breaks. It is when the goal is unclear that the story doesn’t work.

In every scene, we should have a clear sense of what your central character wants and why they want it. Setting up a clear pursuit will help you to establish this.

Other tools that Jen will discuss include;

How To Write a Personal Dilemma That Links To the Professional Pursuit
How To End Your Act Breaks on a Question
How To Link the Series Trigger and Dilemma to the Climax
How To Link the Resolution to the Question Coming Out Of the Pilot Dilemma

Jen Grisanti

Jen Grisanti

Story Consultant & Writing Instructor

International speaker Jen Grisanti is an acclaimed Story/Career Consultant at Jen Grisanti Consultancy Inc., Writing Instructor for Writers on the Verge at NBC, former 12-year studio executive, including VP of Current Programming at CBS/Paramount, blogger for The Huffington Post and author of the books, Story Line: Finding Gold In Your Life Story and TV Writing Tool Kit: How To Write a Script That Sells and her new book, Change Your Story, Change Your Life: A Path To Your Success.

Grisanti started her career in 1992 as an assistant to Aaron Spelling, who served as her mentor for 12 years, and she quickly climbed the ranks and eventually ran Current Programs at Spelling Television Inc., covering all of Spelling’s shows including BEVERLY HILLS, 90210MELROSE PLACE and CHARMED. In 2004, Grisanti was promoted to Vice President of Current Programs at CBS/Paramount where she covered numerous shows, including MEDIUMNUMBERSNCIS4400 and GIRLFRIENDS. 

In January 2008, Grisanti launched Jen Grisanti Consultancy Inc., a highly successful consulting firm dedicated to helping talented writers break into the industry. Drawing on her experience as a studio executive where she gave daily notes to executive producers/showrunners, Grisanti personally guides writers to shape their material, hone their pitches and focus their careers. Since launching the consulting firm, Grisanti has worked with over 800 writers specializing in television, features and novels.  Due to her expertise and mentorship, seventy-five of her writers have staffed on television shows and forty have sold pilots, five that that went to series.

Grisanti has taught classes for the TV Writers Summit (in LA, London and Israel), The TV Writers Studio (in Australia), Story Expo, The Big Island Film Festival, Chicago Screenwriters Network, Scriptwriters Network Screenwriting Expo, the Great American Pitchfest, the Northwestern Screenwriter’s Guild in Seattle, and the Alameda’s Writer’s Group. In addition, she has served on panels for the WGA, iTVFest, UFVA, PGA and The Writer’s Bootcamp, telling her story to inspire others.

Grisanti attended USC where she received a B.A. in Communications.