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The key difference between TV shows and movies is that TV shows go on for multiple episodes, hopefully spanning many seasons! Each of those episodes requires a fresh story. You may have a great idea for the story in the pilot episode of your show, but if it's not clear how that initial story will continue to generate new stories moving forward then it's failed as a pilot. In this article we're going to explore how you you can develop your idea for a TV show in such a way to easily create new stories for future episodes.

Chronic Conflict

The first ingredient in the recipe for a great TV show idea is conflict. Conflict doesn’t have to be bloody or loud. Conflict simply means that somebody wants something, but there are obstacles keeping them from getting it.

Dramatic conflict: A character wants something, but obstacles are in the way.

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In storytelling conflict is essential, because conflict is where stories come from. The kind of conflict you need for a TV show is a chronic conflict or an unresolvable conflict. It’s the kind of problem that doesn’t just get solved once. For instance, in The West Wing the main characters are idealists who want to make the world a better place, but they have to operate in the real world where politics are murky and they have to make compromises. And that doesn’t just happen once. It happens every time they try to do something. It’s a chronic conflict that keeps going, keeps creating stories for multiple seasons.

Let’s tie this into your idea. What’s the chronic conflict at the heart of your idea? What’s the unresolvable issue that’s going to keep causing problems?

As a hint, often times in TV the chronic comes from your protagonists, or main characters. What they want doesn’t quite fit with the world that they live in. For instance, in The Simpsons Homer Simpson wants to eat donuts, drink beer, and watch TV. But he’s also a husband and father who has to support his family.

What about your main character or characters is going to keep causing conflicts?

Story Engines

If the chronic conflict is still feeling a little too abstract, let’s look at it another way through story engines.

Story engines are the aspects of your show that are going to keep generating new stories.

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The most obvious examples of story engines are on procedurals, or "case-of-the-week" shows like legal dramas, cop shows, and medical dramas. The story engine is the case of the week. Every episode is a new case, and you can basically keep coming up with those forever. It’s why Law & Order has been going for over 20 years.

Sitcoms are the comedy version of a procedural. They usually have simple story engines, often based on the main characters flaws or problems, that can create new problems and stories every week.

Some shows are procedurals, some shows are a hybrid where you have a case of the week and ongoing storylines (like Suits), and some shows are not procedurals at all. So how do you come up with the story engines for those?

This takes us back to the chronic conflict. In Suits, we have the story engine from whatever the legal case is that week, but we also have other chronic conflicts. One of the main lawyers, Mike Ross, isn’t a real lawyer. He’s constantly in danger of being discovered. That keeps creating new problems and new stories. They also have the story engine about the power struggles in the law firm. The lawyers constantly jockey for position, and someone is always trying to take it over or stage a coup. Finally, you have the relational story engines, like will-they-or-won't-they love stories and friendship drama.

Think about your idea. What kind of story engines do you have? What is going to be generating new stories every episode?

It’s always helpful to look at your main characters. What do they want? And what’s stopping them from getting it?

Stakes

How do you know if the audience is going to find the conflicts in your show interesting? It’s time to talk about stakes.

Imagine you’re watching a cooking competition show. The chefs are all competing to make the best dish in a limited amount of time. They’re running around the kitchen, dropping things, burning things, and yelling at each other. At the end, the judges choose the chef with the best dish and the worst dish and then say, “All right. That’s it. No one wins anything and no one has to leave. See you next week.”

You’d probably be asking yourself, "What was the point of this?? There were no consequences!" The show was missing stakes.

Stakes are what the character will gain if they achieve their goal, and what they’ll lose if they fail.

Stakes: What a character can gain or lose by achieving or failing to achieve their goal.

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One of the great things about stakes is that they keep your story moving. Once your character is on their journey toward their they can’t stop an go back to their old boring life, because if they stop, it means they fail to achieve their goal, and if they fail to achieve their goal, they lose something. If there are no stakes, they can just give up and your story doesn’t need to exist.

Stakes are also important because they help make your story meaningful. The audience is emotionally invested because your character has something to lose. The more the characters have to lose, and the more they care about what it is that’s at stake, the more invested the audience will be. This doesn’t mean that every story has to be about someone’s family or life being in danger. It really comes down to the character. What is important to that character specifically? It could be something material or it could be something emotional or psychological.

What do the characters in your show have at stake? What will they gain if they accomplish their goal? What will they lose if they fail?

Once you've answered those questions, try to push it further. Give them more to gain and more to lose!

Theme

Wrestling with the theme of your show can feel scary and abstract, but it doing so will help you reach your audience at an emotional level. Without a strong theme, your show is at risk of feeling hollow and forgettable

So what is theme? Theme is just what your story is about really about underneath the surface.

Theme is just what your story is about really about underneath the surface.

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Coming up with your theme

To determine what the theme of your show is, start by considering what you want to say about the world, or what you think the show is saying about the world. If you’re having trouble identifying this for your show, think about whatever the big problem is at the heart of your idea, and then how that problem is overcome.

For instance, if your show is about humanity fighting off an alien invasion, you might be trying to say that humanity needs to unite to overcome our common problems. If it’s about an odd detective who solves crimes through whatever makes them odd, maybe you’re trying to say, “Being different doesn’t make you weird, it makes you special.”

Putting your desired theme in you show

The easiest way to put the theme into your show goes back to our old friend “conflict.” Take whatever the idea your trying to express is and make it an argument. Have one character or group of characters argue for one side of the issue, and another character or group of characters argue for the other side. This is sometimes called “philosophical conflict.” It’s a conflict between two sides of a belief, or two ways of living.

An example of this is The Walking Dead where you have a conflict over how people should live in the face of a horrible disaster. Do we come together and maintain our humanity and morality? Or do we give into our base instincts and do whatever is necessary to survive?

Your theme is whichever side ends up winning the argument. It’s generally shown by the decisions that your protagonist ends up making. I say “ends up making” because when it comes to theme, the endings of stories are really important. That’s where the theme is hammered home. In a movie, it’s the end of the movie. But on a TV show it’s something that can happen at the end of an episode and the end of a season and the end of an entire series.

The Fun

The Fun is the thing that about your show that people are going to be tuning in for every week. Think about your favorite shows, and think about what it is that you love about them. Is it the messy relationship drama? The twists and turn of a mystery? Thrills? Laughs? There’s probably something. One way to think about the Fun is what would be shown in the trailer for your show.

What's the Fun of your idea? What is the aspect of the show that audiences are going to love and want to come back for week after week?

Whatever it is, make the Fun front and center by ensuring the conflicts in your story generate more of it. If the fun of your show is zany shenanigans, you want the conflicts to be creating zany shenanigans. If the fun is juicy gossip, make sure the conflicts are creating juicy gossip.

Recap

The most important thing is your TV show idea needs to be capable of generating stories on an ongoing basis. To do this, you need a chronic or unresolvable conflict at the heart of your show that is going to keep creating problems for your characters to deal with. Those problems should be about the characters trying to get what they want. If they succeed, they gain something important, and if they fail they lose something important.

These endings also determine your theme. Which side of the argument won? And finally, make sure your idea is going to be creating problems that include the Fun of your show.

Story Development Worksheet

I've put together a Story Development Worksheet to help Arc Studio users through this process. (If you're not an Arc Studio user, don't worry, you can download it for free here.)

You may not know, but Arc Studio has a built-in notes app. This means that all your notes for a script can live side-by-side with that script. You can easily reference the notes while you write without having to click to another tab or another app.

Even better, you can save these notes as templates and open them in other scripts. I've already created the Story Development Worksheet note template for you. All you have to do is add it to your account and you'll be able to open it with any of your scripts.

To add it to your account, click here and then select Copy to my templates.

You can now add it to your script by clicking the down arrow at the top of your notes list and selecting TV Pilot Development Worksheet.