Writing the Pilot by William Rabkin

Writing the Pilot by William Rabkin

Writing the Pilot is a simple guide on how to write a television pilot. What makes this book good is not just what it covers, but what it doesn’t.

Writing the Pilot doesn’t tell you how many days to write in. It doesn’t tell you about screenplay format. It doesn’t tell you what subjects are good. It doesn’t tell you what genres are good. It doesn’t tell you about agents or managers. It doesn’t tell you about act structure and commercial breaks. It doesn’t tell you about revision. It doesn’t tell you about pitching. It doesn’t tell you about networks. It doesn’t tell you about studios.

Writing the Pilot doesn’t get bogged down in all of this stuff because, I believe, it’s a book for writers. If you’ve written very little, if you’ve never read a pilot before, if you don’t know how one gets an agent, I think you might not be ready for this book.

Writing the Pilot teaches it’s readers to think about the pilot as more than a good idea. Ideas are one episode. Franchises are what keeps the show going. The Franchise of a television show is why people keep coming back. It let’s the viewer know what they’re going to consistently get as the television series continues.

Writing the Pilot covers a few key ingredients for what needs to go into a pilot. Conflict, characters, supporting characters, the world, the tone, and the fun.

This book also covers a few important other things like, “Why This Show, Why Now?”, Reasons to write a pilot, and a brief thought on the business.

The value in this book is it’s laser focus. I wish I had read it before I had written the however many pilots I’ve written.