ABSTRACT
I often see new writers work at story structure, get frustrated, and give up. They say, “I couldn’t figure it out and it was taking too much time, so I just did it my way.” This is a colossal mistake. The television industry isn’t Burger King. You can’t have it your way. Structure exists because it works. Those in the industry understand story structure because they live it every day. If your story is structured incorrectly — or worse still not at all — they will hear it in your pitch or read it in your script and they will automatically think of you as a pedestrian writer because you haven’t conquered one of the most fundamental elements of TV writing.
