The TV Showrunner's Roadmap: 21 Navigational Tips for Screenwriters to Create and Sustain a Hit TV Series

by Neil Landau

If you’ve ever dreamed of being in charge of your own network, cable, or web series, then this is the book for you. The TV Showrunner’s Roadmap provides you with the tools for creating, writing, and managing your own hit show. Combining his 20+ years as a working screenwriter and UCLA professor, Neil Landau expertly guides you through 21 essential insights to the creation of a successful show, and takes you behind the scenes with exclusive and enlightening interviews with showrunners from some of TV’s most lauded series, From conception to final rewrite, The TV Showrunner’s Roadmap is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to create a series that won’t run out of steam after the first few episodes. This groundbreaking guide features a companion website with additional interviews and bonus materials. www.focalpress.com/cw/landau So grab your laptop, dig out that stalled spec script, and buckle up. Welcome to the fast lane.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Business

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Neil Landau is a screenwriter whose TV and film credits include "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead", "Melrose Place", "Doogie Howser, M.D.", "The Magnificent Seven" and "Twice in a Lifetime". He has developed feature films for Fox, Disney, Universal and Columbia Pictures, and TV pilots for Warner Bros., Touchstone, Lifetime and CBS. He works internationally as a script consultant and teaches at UCLA's School of Film, TV and Digital Media. "101 Things I Learned in Film School" is his first book."

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not what I expected. This is primarily a collection of TV writing common sense and very geared toward people who are only just starting out writing. It's entirely about plot, story, character, narrative engine and world creation. Which makes this a highly misleading title as there's very little to do with showrunning here that doesn't apply purely to outlining or writing (for television). All other tasks or departments that fall under the purview of a showrunner go completely ignored here and I feel hoodwinked.

[Kendall Grey]

An excellent resource for TV writers and showrunners. I particularly enjoyed the interviews, which were numerous and very insightful.

[Emi_d22 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This slays

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title has it right--it's a roadmap, not a checklist. This is less a "how to" handbook than it is a resource for those interested in the broad outlines of what makes a tv story compelling and accessible to a broad audience. Of the most interest, perhaps, are the extensive interviews with successful showrunners discussing the day-in/day-out nuts and bolts of what they do in both creating and then maintaining many of the most successful tv shows of the past 20 to 30 years. For those interviews alone, this book is of great value for anyone interested in how stories are created.

[Miguel Tomassino · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid and illuminating guide for anyone interested in the craft of running a TV show. The author combines decades of industry experience with candid interviews of current top showrunners, giving real-world insights into creating, writing, and managing a series. While the book can feel a bit dense and industry-specific in places, its practical wisdom and insider stories make it highly worthwhile. Recommended especially for writers and producers stepping into the TV world.

[Annette G · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this for a class I'm in, but I actually really enjoyed it and found it useful. I think it's a really good look at the current TV landscape as well. It wasn't just about "this is how to do it, this is how it's always been done", Landau also talked quite a lot about "this is how things are changing".

[Enso · Rating 3 out of 5]

Достаточно подробный взгляд на работу над сериалами, тем не менее, иногда скучный и неприменимый в нынешней ситуации.

[Balbert Vega · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was surprisingly helpful. I didn’t know there were gonna be interviews from showrunners. That was the best part tbh

[Ashiish V Patil · Rating 3 out of 5]

The interviews with some of the best showrunners in the business who are doing some of the most current, biggest, path breaking shows across TV and OTT [Money Heist, Schitt's Creek, Succession, Insecure, more] that give us an insight into their thinking makes this very useful. Neil's writing and teaching background besides the fact that he voraciously consumes content and analyzes it deeply really helps the interviews being deeper vs the usual superficial ones. Structured into sections covering themes, story engines, cliffhangers and pitches among others is great.