Film Courage: What does it mean to break a story?
Niceole R. Levy, Screenwriter/Author: Breaking a story is how you figure out what all the actual
scenes are in an episode whether it's your own pilot you're writing at home or whether it's an
episode of a show that you're working on and there are different methodologies about how to do it
I can tell you my favorite methodology of doing it which is I and this is a combination of ways i've
seen it done in multiple rooms that like now this is the system that I like so first of all I think
it's just a question of what did we think our main characters would be doing in this episode
right and if you're doing a pilot it's like what is the story I want to tell about my main
characters and you can on note cards or on a whiteboard lit as simply as I need Niceole
to figure this out I need Adam to go here I need we need conflict between the mother and daughter
to get us to the place we need to be in the next episode big ideas like that they don't
have to be super specific it's just like here are things we think our characters need to do
and especially if you're working on staff right you're in a writer's room the next part of that is
do we owe anything from the last episode was there stuff that we thought we were going to include in
that script that we didn't do we still need it does it go here so you have that conversation
and then you look at the episode coming up and like have we set up everything we need to for that
or do we owe something in this episode to make sure that we get to episode six clean and nobody's
like what where'd that come from so to me those are all the starting conversations and once you do
that you kind of have a loose shape of the episode right you you have say five things that your
leading man has to to deal with like five scenes with your leading man three scenes that are about
his relationship with his leading lady maybe two scenes of the leading ladies story on her own and
then oh we have to set up this plot point that's going to pay off in episode 6. oh we want to do a
b story about this set of secondary characters and you're just talking it through what is it
once you have that you can start to really talk about what's happening in those actual scenes
so it's like okay in the scene where Niceole's going to get the document and she's going to be
super pissed off about it like what is she doing where do we find her is she in her morning routine
is she on the phone like you're really talking that through because if she's on the phone maybe
she's saying something that's going to set up one of those b stories we need later right you
can see if you can make connective tissue between that scene and a scene that needs to happen later
and then what does that paperwork mean why is she so angry about it is she screaming at someone
is she throwing a fit in the room by herself like what is it so you really sort of nail down what's
happening in that scene and you do that for every one of those moments that you've already talked
about and then once you have them all fleshed out and how many scenes are in an episode will
vary between what show you're on I would say it has been my experience that if you have more than
35 scenes your script's probably going to be too long because you want to be able to write
the description that the art department needs to figure out what they're decorating and you need to
if there's a specific costume thing you need costumes to do you got to describe it
and that kind of stuff so you need some room to play with those descriptions or with a long
exchange of dialogue and so say now you have your 35 scenes well now you got to figure out
what order they go so that's the next stage of the break is to say okay well I think that one
we have here is the perfect act out for act two so you move it to the bottom of act two
and then it's like okay well we know this is the end of the episode so we're gonna move this here
and we know this is the first scene that we wanna do and you just literally start moving the cards
or writing on the board to put the things in order and then you end up with an episode of television
and then that doesn't necessarily mean your work is done right especially if you're staffed
you're going to pitch stuff along the way like the day you do that big overview conversation
your showrunner comes in if they were off doing other things and you the room will pitch in the
stuff on the board or her and they'll be like oh I love all that I'm not so sure about this maybe
come up with some alts for that so you keep doing the work in each process until you get to that
we have 35 scenes in order that feels like an episode and then the writer of the episode or
the number two in the room will pitch through the whole episode for the showrunner
and the showrunner will sometimes just love it and like great go write an outline and
sometimes the showrunner is making adjustments as you're pitching and being like no no I love
that can you do me a favor though and make sure we don't do x because actor a has a problem with
that so just find an alt for that end of the the scene great make yourself a note keep pitching
and you'll take all that information with you and then go write the outline so it's really the
building blocks breaking a story is coming up with the building blocks of the episode
when you're breaking a tv show story what are the first few things you're trying to figure out
if it's if it's for a thing that you're writing yourself. You have the idea of what you think
the show is so where it starts I think is always like an important thing to nail down
where what moment is the first moment of this show for you what is the way you want to introduce your
main character or characters what's the the way that you want the audience to interpret
them based on their movement where they live where how they dress whatever the
key elements are to you so I think figuring those things out right away is really important
and I would say in pilot writing if you I always know how my pilot ends in terms of the broad sense
of I know the ending is going to be that we're going to realize that character a is actually
the one who committed the murder and nobody else knows it right that's going to be the reveal at
the end of the pilot so everything I'm writing is writing towards that and that'll help you sort of
know like oh I don't have enough twists or turns or that kind of thing so I feel like knowing how
you start knowing how you want to introduce your characters and knowing where the pilot
is ending to me are the most important things when you're trying to then go break the story
when you're breaking it in a room with other writers I think having tent poles of the episode
are what what we refer to it as of like you cannot necessarily know how the episode's supposed to end
other than I know we're supposed to get to the point where he admits he loves her
at the end of the episode I'm not quite sure how to get there but I know that's how we're ending
and I know at the midpoint we need to have something go wrong where everybody's at each
other's throats and they're going to have to recover from that for the rest of the episode
and then my idea for how to start the episode is x and then your team can help you fill in all the
other stuff in between that's the joy of having a writer's room is you don't need to have all the
answers like you do when you're writing your pilot you can say here's what I have and then everybody
else joins together to help you fill in the parts that you don't have and you don't have to
take every idea that comes unless it's from your showrunner and then you kind of do but if someone
pitches something that you don't love it's okay to be like can we try and beat that like I’m not
sure I like I really want to go down that road and if your showrunner likes it and may make you do it
but it's fine to be like can we come up with some alts for that and then you pitch the version you
like best to your showrunner and sometimes they're like oh I love that and that conversation's over
and sometimes they're like not sure about that act out fact three though and then you can be
like well we had some other ideas in the room and you can pitch the thing you didn't love
but that someone in the room pitched and maybe the showrunner's going to be like yes do that
okay because it's not your show so you do it when it's your pilot you get to make all the choices
until you're doing it for a studio or a network and then they can say to you I don't like the act
out factor or I don't do notes yes but that sounds like that's what the beauty of the
of the cards is or doing it with a board is it's movable parts and so you can show them if you say
okay we can try it even though maybe in your mind you're like this is never going to work
but we'll we'll go with it we'll try it so you move it here and then you show okay if I move that
then I have to move this here and then it's kind of there for you to see yes and that's the best
part of it is like you try it and then everyone can see like oh wait that means that like now
all the action's shifted to the middle of the episode and we don't have anything up here so
how do we fix that and it's maybe it's moving back the thing that you just moved and we find
a different solution for here so it allows you to see it and then have the conversation
and I think the story that I love about why I'm still a note card girl like I have boards like
in my house that I just pull out and like stick note cards to them and I have one up on the wall
and part of the reason that I am a note card girl is because of the legendary story of Steven Bochco
and The Hill Street Blues Pilot which when they first screened it was kind of a disaster
and he was like give me a chance to fix it and he went back to his office and he laid the entire
episode and note cards out on the floor and he reassembled the pilot moving the cards around
and pulling cards out and then that became the pilot that changed television so being able to put
all the cards out and be like okay there's just too much in act two that's the problem because
now that all the cards are lined up I can just tell act two is too long so what do I do or just
saying like nope I need this to happen sooner and moving the physical card now on a board you can do
that because you're crossing stuff out or whatever but to me it's easier with cards there's also now
the electronic software that we've all had to use during zoom rooms like writer's room pro or mirror
and for people who prefer to do it that way and I think final draft even has a board function now
and so even for yourself you can use those programs if you want to because you don't
want to actually write on physical note cards or you don't have room to have a whiteboard
you can use those programs to do the same thing just as a side note do did they have to shoot new
scenes for Hill Street Blues or did they just do it in post I believe it was just a recut I feel
like I read Bochco's book and I feel like it was just a recut I could be wrong because I haven't
read the book since 2016. but yeah it was just like it's too long it's kind of all over the place
and so they went in and they they reassembled it they reimagined it with those cards.