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Television Writing Advice From Showrunner of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS and RISE

by Ken Miyamoto - updated on August 24, 2020

Writing for television is a much different beast compared to writing for film. It's a different medium, a different audience, a different industry, with different rules, setbacks, and hurdles to overcome. Yet despite those differences, when you get down to it, both television and film are about stories and characters. They are told in different ways, sure, but the lessons you learn can be applied to both mediums. Here we turn to writer, producer, and showrunner Jason Katims for words of wisdom and insight, and offer some elaboration of our own.

Jason Katims is best known as the writer, creator, and showrunner of several television series, including Relativity, Roswell, Friday Night Lights, Parenthood, and his new show Rise.

He recently appeared on Off Camera with Sam Jones, which has proven to be one of the most amazing, informative, and inspiring shows for anyone wanting to work in film or television. The series features intimate conversations with actors, producers, directors, artists, and writers — conversations that are clearly unrehearsed and often delve into enthralling stories behind the guest's failures, successes, inspirations, projects, and their own creative processes.

If you're looking for some different venues for your own education, Off Camera with Sam Jones is the place to go. The series is featured on DirecTV's Audience channel, and all episodes can also be found online HERE.

Do you have a TV Pilot ready to go? Enter the ScreenCraft TV Pilot Screenwriting Competition!

On Developing Stories and Characters

Throughout the interview, Katims shared some amazing chunks of wisdom that television and feature writers can learn from.

He and Sam Jones were discussing the question of how to identify with worlds and types of characters that the writer may not have direct experience in or knowledge of.

"One way is to find my way in. What makes this personal to me," Katims said.

Katims is well known for one of the most groundbreaking and critically acclaimed television series of all time — Friday Night Lights. He didn't come onto the show until after the pilot was produced and shot by director Peter Berg, who had previously directed the feature version of the book the franchise was based on.

Katims knew little to nothing about football, but he obviously had to find a way to connect as the showrunner. He shared that he related to Coach Taylor coming into town to coach a team with high expectations from the community — much like Katims himself was coming into the situation of being an outsider coming into a show that had outstanding buzz from the pilot that Peter Berg shot.

That's how Katims found his way into the world of Friday Night Lights. "If you find your way in, you can make it personal." 

He went on to further explain the process of writing and developing characters. "It's an act of falling in love. You fall in love with your characters. That's what happens. Whether you mean it to or not. You love them. You care about them."

When you love your characters and are invested in them that way, it drives the way you approach their stories.

"You have to honor what you think would really happen [to them]."

He goes onto to explain that notion further. "People say, 'Have flawed characters.' They're not flawed characters. They're people. That's what people are." 

Friday Night Lights, as well as his follow-up series Parenthood, managed to offer audiences the experience of viewing characters that felt more real. Most screenwriting gurus and books tell you to create flawed characters, but the result of that is often cliched protagonists that simply have these attributed flaws to deal with, rather than them feeling like real people with real problems.

"I feel like most people are striving to be the best version of themselves. That's how I approach characters."

His final wisdom on the specifics of developing stories and characters offered some sound advice for writers that are wary of tackling any world or character that is too specific.

"Sometimes the thing that you think is going to be too narrow or too specific for an audience... that it's going to exclude too many people... the opposite happens. People get pulled in."

On the Strength of Writing Ensemble Shows

Katims describes the earlier days of developing and writing one-hour dramas, where you have an A Story, B Story, C Story, and a Runner.

The A Story is the main story audiences would follow. The B Story would be followed somewhat less, secondary to the A Story. The C Story was followed even less, while the Runner would just be a subtle touch throughout the whole thing.

On Friday Night Lights, that never occurred to him at all. They just told all of the stories with no specific hierarchy. "I see them all as pretty equal."

This new approach is now evident in so many drama series since the debut of Friday Night Lights and Parenthood. We see it in other successful shows like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.

"What is the story that pulls you in right away. What's the one that's sort of like arresting... and pulls you into the story. I find that when you have that, then it weirdly takes the pressure off of the other stories. And you can tell more nuanced stories," Katims states.

On the Collaboration Within Television

Television writing is more collaborative than any other writing medium — even compared to working in features.

Yes, with features, you have the screenwriters, the producers, the director, the actors, and the crew. However, the writing process within the television realm is more collaborative than any experience in film — with multiple levels of character and story development. The executive producers, the showrunner, the head writer, and then, of course, the writers' room.

"The beauty of doing television is it's this collaborative form... embrace that. Embrace the collaborative nature of it."

And that collaboration doesn't just happen in front of the laptop. It happens during production. Katims pointed out that even the camera operators and the choices that they make on set — as far as where their camera goes and what they focus on — can have an eye-opening effect on the stories and characters. And then when the editors get their hands on the footage, working with the director, that collaboration continues to extend.

Katims points out, "When I'm watching the episode in the editing room, my hope is that what I see exceeds what I could have imagined myself, the episode to be."

The job of the screenwriter is to begin that process — to offer the core of each story and each character and then allow them to further come alive through the collaboration process of television.

Watch Jason Katims full episode HERE or on DirecTV.

For more on television writing, read ScreenCraft's 7 Things Screenwriters NEED to Know About Writing for Television!


Ken Miyamoto has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades, most notably as a studio liaison for Sony Studios and then as a script reader and story analyst for Sony Pictures.

He has many studio meetings under his belt as a produced screenwriter, meeting with the likes of Sony, Dreamworks, Universal, Disney, Warner Brothers, as well as many production and management companies. He has had a previous development deal with Lionsgate, as well as multiple writing assignments, including the produced miniseries Blackout, starring Anne Heche, Sean Patrick Flanery, Billy Zane, James Brolin, Haylie Duff, Brian Bloom, Eric La Salle, and Bruce Boxleitner. Follow Ken on Twitter @KenMovies

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