TV Series Pitch Document Template

What you send depends on who asks, but most pitches draw on the same core set. The BBC's writers' glossary says a pitch document usually runs 1 to 2 pages¹ and a treatment 6 to 8. Final Draft, which sells screenwriting software, warns against a 40-page bible that buries the concept².

Final Draft says that even after a great pilot, the question every executive and producer immediately asks² is whether the concept can sustain a series. Your answer is the series engine, which Final Draft defines as "the central conflict that drives stories across episodes without being resolved until the very end (if ever)."

Sort every engine your pilot sets up into two kinds. A renewable engine makes new stories by itself, the way a procedural always has another case. A depleting engine spends a fixed stock, such as a mystery's clues, and ends when the stock runs out unless something refuels it.

Depleting engines are not a flaw, but they need counting. In a 2011 Television Academy interview, Vince Gilligan called Breaking Bad "a show about change"³: "Our main character, our hero, becomes our bad guy." A change like that happens once, so count how much story it holds before you promise seasons.

Engines often surface from what your characters want. Final Draft's bible template asks you to cover each character's wants, needs, paradox, dilemma, emotional stakes and how they feed the central conflict. Pin down four things for each regular.

• Want: what they chase, as an action. Not "ambitious" but "wants the team run the way it was."
• Need: what they must face to change, often the opposite of the want.
• Paradox: the contradiction that makes them worth watching.
• Engine: which engine their arc feeds. A want that feeds none is decoration, or a missing engine.

Then ask of each series regular: is this arc resolved by the end of the pilot? If so, the character has nothing left to do in episode two, and the pilot needs fixing.

In the treatment, tell the pilot scene by scene in prose: the opening image, the inciting incident, the midpoint turn, the act break and the ending. Close on what is still open, and make clear it is open on purpose. Then map season one from your engine count.

1. 1

   Give each episode its own story

   Use a fresh instance of a renewable engine: a new case, rescue or client.

2. 2

   Place every clue and beat

   Put each depleting beat on a specific episode; some episodes can run on the renewable engine alone.

3. 3

   Check the count

   If the outline spends more clues than the mystery holds, fix it now, before scripts exist.

4. 4

   Write down what's left

   The stock left after the finale is your answer to "what's season two?"

Write the logline as one sentence: who the show follows, what they want and what stands in the way. Script editor Joe Williams, writing for BBC Writers, calls "a comedy series set in a fictional Brooklyn Police Department" an accurate though uninspiring logline⁴ for Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He prefers "a talented but immature Brooklyn detective comes into conflict with a new serious and stern commanding officer."

The one-pager is the pitch document cut to a single page, the version people forward. Add the format and a paragraph naming your renewable engine and strongest depleting one in plain words. For comparables, pick two or three real, recent shows, name the engine each shares with yours, and say what you combine that neither does.

The BBC's glossary says a pitch deck is not a document expected from an emerging writer, so save it for last. Write the words before the design, and make every number trace back to the bible.

In the US, copyright protects how you wrote the pitch, not the idea. The U.S. Copyright Office says copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, systems, or methods⁵ of doing something, nor names or titles. And a similar show is not proof of theft: BBC Writers tells anxious writers that similarities in writers' ideas occur surprisingly often⁶.

Before a draft goes out, put an official date on it. The WGA West Registry⁷ takes treatments, outlines and scripts, and charges the general public $20 for five years. It is a dated record of your claim to authorship, grants no statutory protection, and doesn't cover titles.

Send what each reader asks for. BBC Writers' open call, for example, generally asks series writers to submit the first (pilot) episode⁶ and looks for scripts, not unscripted ideas. A script delivery format template tracks the format each contest or producer requires. Keep the pitch documents ready for when a producer asks what happens next.

When the pilot script exists, check its structure with a screenplay beat sheet and get script coverage before sending it. Or open the template at the top of this page with Edit with AI, and River will audit your engines from your concept before it drafts a page.