What can SERIAL teach us about screenwriting?

Unless you've been living under a rock these past few weeks there's an incredible podcast sweeping the world called SERIAL. It tells the story of a murder in 1999, slowly breaking down the facts of the case to possibly exonerate the man in jail.

While this logline is enticing enough to get you to listen there are other lessons of storytelling that can be learned.

Serial focuses each episode on a character or set of clues. It takes its time, allowing us, the audience, to meet the story halfway.  It allows us to develop affections, suspicions, and our own theories before revealing information that sends us back to the drawing board.  Its twists come from a place of careful pacing and deliberate decisions (after all, it is based on a true story).

So how does this apply to your own storytelling? While you might not be writing a "whodunit,"each and every great script is built on clues about character, situations and big reveals that keep us intrigued. Without tough situations and good backstory we'd never really understand what makes Harry and Sally the perfect couple, why Dr. Grant is amazed by dinosaurs, and how important Chinatown is to Jake Gittes' personality.

For those of us writing "whodunits," the podcast and lots of other true crime stories give great insight into what clues look like in real life, how police procedure works, and what truly motivates people.

While recording SERIAL, Sarah Koenig (the creator) travels to the crime scenes, interviews the suspects, and steeps herself in the world of the story. She makes it palpable. Even people thousands of miles away know what it's like to walk through Leakin Park, the shape of the Best Buy Parking lot, and the recording message that plays before you get a collect call from someone in prison. By providing certain specific details, we're able to imagine the world completely.

So the next time you sit in front of your screenplay, ask yourself if you're hitting the salient details, if you're creating worlds we intimately understand, scenes that matter, and characters who reveal themselves and the depth of their souls along with the pacing of the story.

What has SERIAL taught you about storytelling?  Let us know in the comments or on Twitter and Facebook, and let's share some inspiration.