A big difference between plays and pilots

Readers ask “what’s the difference between writing plays and TV pilots?” In both cases you create the world and characters.

A big difference is this: The world and characters of a play ends when the play ends. Different actors and directors may have various interpretations, but the text is the vision of the playwright and will forever remain so.

When you write a TV pilot, if you are lucky enough to get picked up for series, most of the time (unless you’re David E. Kelley or Aaron Sorkin) you’re now going to need a writing staff. As someone who has co-created three series I can tell you it’s WEIRD. Especially at the start. Other writers naturally don’t know these characters the way you do. Their first scripts tend to be wrong – at least to your eyes.

And of course, it’s not their fault. They can’t get into your head. At the start of a series YOU don’t even have the characters rock solid in your mind. You learn over the first few episodes what works and what doesn’t, what pluses and minuses actors bring, etc. So to expect another writer to hit the bullseye is unrealistic at best.

Still, it’s a little strange to read someone else’s interpretation of characters that came out of you.

I have also been on the other side. An example is CHEERS. David Isaacs and I were there right at the beginning and when we wrote our first script, the show hadn’t gone into production yet. We had the pilot to go by and a few other early drafts. Plus, we had never worked with the Charles Brothers before.

The script turned out well, but we were lucky. What got us over the hump was this: Your natural inclination is to always think “What would the Charles Brothers (i.e showrunner) do”? And that’s a huge trap. You’re never going to really know that they’re thinking. And the result is you second-guess yourself on every line. What you need to do is say “fuck it,” this is how I see it based on what examples I have to go on, and I need to bring what I can bring to the script. If it’s wrong, and a lot of it will be, they’ll change it. And we’ll learn more from that.

The way I locked into the characters on CHEERS was seeing what we did right and what we did wrong. And eventually you do lock in.

And when I was in the showrunner position for my own show, I would start to relax when it was clear the staff was starting to get it.

Then a wonderful thing happens. Other writers bring new dimensions to your characters that improve them over what you had created. And that’s when you know if your series has legs. But it takes time. It’s not like a play where you know opening night.