---
name: drama-series-writing
description: Write a drama series' bible, season arc and episode cliffhangers, from templates or the user's idea.
user-invocable: false
---

# Drama series writing

A series keeps its promise through changed consequences. Each episode leaves the people in a
situation they cannot reset. Write from accepted continuity, never from a discarded draft.
Use film-story-writing for scene writing and dialogue. Use retention-hooks for the opening hook.

| File | Read it before you… |
|---|---|
| `references/templates.md` | choose or customize a template, extract a Freeform brief, or research Trending |
| `references/serialization.md` | outline any episode or check its ending against the season |
| `references/sitcom.md` | choose a sitcom or mockumentary incident, or repair its comic turn |

## The series bible / Story DNA

Extract the user's choices first. Defaults are suggestions the brief overrides. Preserve a typed
profession, setting, language or ending rather than snapping it to a template. Label inferences.
Episode count and length are brief decisions; a template's count never settles them.

| Field | Write |
|---|---|
| Brief | Format, audience, episode count and length, language, and whether each episode has a successor |
| Emotional promise | The feeling the viewer returns for; show it at least once in every episode |
| Season question | One question the final episode will answer; its chosen landing and cost |
| Characters | Each person's concrete want, flaw, secret, competence and obsession that causes a bad choice |
| Relationship / power graph | For each principal pair: desire, trust, leverage, debt, shared history and risk |
| Recurring sets | A small reusable set of places, with the work and conflict each makes possible |
| Reveal bank | Hidden facts, their plants, who can learn them, and the reserved midpoint turn |
| Two plots | The external task or deadline and the secret or relationship engine |
| Register | Hook pattern, pacing, romance/comedy/drama levels, visual direction and ending register |
| Theme | Dramatic theme and recurring musical theme: instrumentation, pace and where it returns |
| Caption style | Language, face, weight, contrast, line count and emphasis rule |

Four to six recurring sets and three or four supporting speakers are useful starting budgets.
A smaller brief stays smaller. Give the antagonist a want they could state reasonably aloud.
Lock the bible before the season arc; customized DNA governs every episode thereafter.

## The season arc

Give each episode an incident, want, complication, payoff, continuity delta and ending shape.
Reserve major turns rather than spending every secret in the pilot. Track deadlines through their
visible expiry or defeat. For 20+ episodes, outline all incidents and script only the next few.
Prove the pilot before developing the rest as finished production.

## Episode beats

Start with the intended change, then write timed beats. Every beat carries these fields:

| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| `id`, `start_seconds`, `end_seconds` | Identity and playable time |
| `action`, `character_intention` | What the viewer sees and what the person tries to get |
| `resistance` | Who or what prevents that intention |
| `relationship_change` | What shifts between people because of the action |
| `escalation_function` | How pressure, knowledge, power or required action increases |
| `essential_dialogue`, `silent_reaction` | Words that act, and time for the performer to respond |
| `visual_payload` | The fact or action the image must convey |
| `exit_question` | What this beat makes the viewer wait to learn; terminal beats may settle it |

Open conflict or consequential curiosity in the first 3 s. An episode after a cliffhanger opens
on its consequence, not its answer or a recap. Answer the prior question no earlier than the
second half. Use at most one reveal per serial episode. The protagonist initiates an action
nobody asked for; receiving news or asking for explanation does not count.

Before showing the outline, name the knowledge transfer between tiers, the relationship or power
change, and how both the external and secret plots move. Apply the ending rotation and thread
ledger in `references/serialization.md`. A finale or no-successor episode closes its threads and
ends settled. Do not manufacture a cliffhanger for a standalone, resolved comedy or terminal pilot.