You’ve cracked your TV show, from logline to outline to finished pilot script. And you’ve got the goods, because the powers that be want to hear a pitch. Congratulations! Now, you may not be religious, but it’s time to write your bible.
The TV show bible is an efficient, entertaining, and helpful document to show everyone—from the executives buying your project to the writing team who will help bring it to life—your grand vision. If you’re feeling intimidated, read on for the recipe to what makes an undeniable pitch bible.
The TV pitch bible is a thorough document that sells every aspect of your show—with a heavy emphasis on “your.”
It’s not a place to nullify or water down your project into what you think people want to buy. It’s where you communicate what you want to make. It’s all the juicy details that excited you enough to write the dang thing—every daydream you’ve had put into accessible, digestible materials.
Beyond being a proof of concept, it’s a proof of confidence. If you’re at the place where people want to hear your pitch, it means you are already a writer to be trusted. The pitch bible demonstrates that you’re the master of this world and intimately know its ins and outs—and all the story potential that can come from them. The end goal is maximum excitement about your idea. At the end of your pitch bible, only a fool would pass on your show.
It’s important to note: A TV bible can be a key tool in selling your show, but it also remains invaluable during the production process itself. Most TV series are penned by committee in a writers’ room, and the bible is the North Star that ensures everyone is aligned under one vision. As Paul Feig described it in the intro to the “Freaks and Geeks” bible, it’s “what every respectable TV show creator writes up for his series, so that the writers you hire can get inside your head without you having to tell them everything.”
The facts
Obviously we need the essentials up top. That means the title, the name of the writer (hey, that’s you!), any pertinent contact info for you or your representation, and the show’s format and genre (e.g. half-hour animated dramedy or hour-long live-action crime procedural).
The logline
This is your show drilled down to just one or two sentences. If it’s a plot-driven, serialized show, you’ll want to incorporate the main character, the inciting incident, the actions they take as a result, and a hint at an element of poetic change the protagonist will go through.
How to Write a Logline for Your ScreenplayA logline for “Breaking Bad,” for example, could read: “After being diagnosed with cancer, a mild-mannered chemistry teacher must enter the criminal underworld and cook crystal meth to find money and, more importantly, power.”
If it’s an episodic show or a hangout comedy that hinges more on ensemble vibes than big plot moves, present the status quo in a way that sounds endearing to return to, plus a pleasing bit of irony or tension that’ll fuel every episode.
A logline for “The Simpsons,” for example, could read: “A dysfunctional yet loving family of five gets into misadventures big and small as they live the life of a suburban, working-class American family.”
The one-pager
Here you expand the logline into a one-page summary. You can (and should) move beyond just the pertinent, necessary facts. This is where you start to excite the reader with personal appeals to emotion, musings on the show’s relationship to the real world, and descriptions of major set pieces and plot turns you’re most excited to play with.
How to Write a Killer Film SynopsisCharacter biographies
Think of these as loglines for each main character in your show. Tell us a bit about their base reality, their unusual flaw, and how they exist in the world around them.
A character bio for Joey Tribbiani from “Friends” might read: “Joey Tribbiani is a sweet but simple aspiring actor who loves women just as much as he loves being loyal to his friends—if not more so.”
Episode concepts
Here you’re crafting intriguing loglines for each episode of your first season. (Food for thought: The bible for “Grey’s Anatomy” also lists a specific theme with each episode.) If it’s a serialized show, you may already have a number in mind; if you’re crafting an episodic show, try to hit 10 episodes to give the reader a thorough flavor of how malleable your world is.
A logline for the “Walkabout” episode of “Lost” might read: “John Locke helps the rest of the castaways hunt a wild boar on the island, while flashbacks reveal that before the plane crash, he was paralyzed from the waist down.”
The future
Producers want to know they can make as much TV as possible from your idea, so it’s important to show them that the core concept has legs. You don’t need to write five full seasons of television, but you should present an idea of how the story continues (and ideally expands) after Season 1. The bible for “Stranger Things”—created back when it was titled “Montauk”—laid out the framework for a high-concept follow-up:
“The hypothetical sequel will take place in the same town, only 10 years later, in the summer 1990. Our kids will now be young adults with new lives, new problems; many of them will have moved out of Montauk, spread out across the country for school and work. But the re-emergence of horror in Montauk will bring them back to their hometown, where they will have no choice but to join forces again. This will allow us to explore many of the same characters, themes, and horrors from the original series, but with a new ensemble of actors and a fresh period.”
The pitch for “New Girl,” a much less plot-driven show, kept it simpler and explained the evergreen comedic core of the series: “This is mostly a show about awkward kids who give each other mostly terrible advice on their slow path to adulthood.”
The tone and the world
This is both a dedicated section and something to sprinkle in throughout. You need to act as a worldbuilder, making the reader understand exactly what it’s like to exist in your world. What’s the overarching aesthetic? (The aforementioned “Stranger Things” bible famously used images from 1980s genre films such as “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “Stand By Me.”) How is the viewer going to feel—laughing until they cry or crying until they hurt? Wincing in relatable anguish or awestruck in mythical bombast?
What are the rules, mythologies, and pieces of lore that make this reality different from our own? Don’t be shy. Get nerdy, granular, and excited about your own creation! The 53-page bible for “Battlestar Galactica” has its own table of contents, breaking down the histories, religions, and cultural differences of various alien colonies, as well as detailed specs of the titular spaceship.
“SpongeBob SquarePants”
Since “SpongeBob” is an animated show, creator Stephen Hillenburg included visuals to sell his vision. But even for live-action shows, using images—whether custom-made or preexisting lookbook elements—can say more than 1,000 words.
“Adventure Time”
The “Adventure Time” pitch bible uses creator Pendleton Ward’s unique voice at every turn, turning what could be prosaic descriptions into delightful jolts of energy and verve.
“Star Trek”
Many of the specifics laid out here by Gene Roddenberry have obviously changed since this first draft pitch bible, but it’s still helpful to see how he organizes and communicates story engines, world-building, and (literal) alien ideas.