TV Procedurals (PT40) - Paper Team

Alex and Nick discuss television procedural shows and how they work, from writing them to reinventing the genre itself. What kind of procedurals are there on TV? How do you juggle between the characters, the overall story, and the case-of-the-week? What are some common tips for writing a procedural? How does the structure evolve between episodic and serialized procedurals? The Paper Team solves the case... SHOWNOTES Content 1 - Defining TV procedurals (00:46) 2 - Writing TV procedurals: structure, case of the week, and reinventing the genre (03:22) Takeaways and Resources (28:29) Links Carol Mendelsohn "How Joss Whedon and the Buffy writers’ room broke episodes" - TV Calling "My Overkill" (2x01 - Scrubs) Colin Hay "The Art of the TV Episode" (PT20) "Subway" (6x07 - Homicide: Life on the Street) Andre Braugher Dancing Baby "Tracking the long career of half-forgotten TV auteur David E. Kelley" - Stephen Bowie/The A.V. Club Ann Donahue Steven Bochco Century City (TV Series) "When every Fox show becomes a procedural, it gets very boring" - Daniel Fienberg/THR Michelle King Robert King "Common Descent" (2x17 - Stargate Universe) "Should You Pay for TV Writing Education?" (PT19) Resources "How The Good Wife broke the rules for legal dramas, and then broke itself" - Noel Murray/The A.V. Club This episode brought to you by Tracking Board's Launch Pad Writing Competitions Use code PAPERTEAM to get $15 OFF when you enter a Launch Pad Competition Special thanks to Jason J. Cohn 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