(Breaking Bad – the greatest TV series ever made?)
We live in a golden age of TV. On September 29 Breaking Bad aired its final episode and, after five seasons, many critics and fans proclaimed it to be the greatest TV series ever made.
It’s a bold statement and a statement not everyone will agree with. Over the past decade there have been many great TV shows—The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, to name just a few.
But Breaking Bad was great TV, there’s no doubt about that. And part of what made it so great was the quality of the screenwriting.
According to the screenwriters who were working on Breaking Bad, the writing process was a very collaborative one. The writers were allowed to put anything on the table and priority was given to creating a wonderful story.
Many TV shows, and movies for that matter, have been crippled by external forces imposed on writers.
The Small Idea Principle
The other thing that Breaking Bad and other great TV shows do wonderfully is that they stick to the small idea principle—and without the small idea there can be no empathy.
The small idea principle states that a great movie or TV series should start with a small idea and build on that—rather than start with a big idea and and try to fit the story into that.
I remember talking to one screenwriter back when I was working for one of the major screenwriting agencies in Hollywood.
This particular screenwriter was having problems making what could be considered a “big idea” work. He had his big concept, which was about a global disease that makes the world’s population infertile.
The only problem was that he kept trying to approach the story on an epic level. Instead of reducing the story to a small idea and focusing on a small set of characters, he was trying to tell the story from the macro level.
If a screenwriter wants to turn a big idea into a story, they have to reduce the scope of the story and distill the bid idea down into a small group of characters.
Small Ideas Build Empathy
A screenwriter’s job is to write emotionally engaging and entertaining stories. A screenwriter does this by building empathy between his characters and his audience.
If a story is too epic and too grand, an audience will be unable to emotionally connect with what they are watching.
When a screenwriter sends their script to an agent, an agent will be looking for a number of things. They’ll be looking for a story that entertains, that flows well, and that leaves them feeling emotionally engaged.
One of the great things about Breaking Bad was that the screenwriters turned a small idea (a dying man decides to deal drugs) into an epic story, and, all the while, they kept us emotionally engaged.
They started with the idea of a man who was frustrated and beaten down by life, and they built empathy between this man and the audience.
This is one of the hallmarks of great entertainment. And it’s easy to remember it like this: small ideas build empathy, big ideas destroy it.
An audience has to be able to relate to a character and the story. If the character’s predicament is based on a small idea, then it’s much easier to create empathy.
If the character’s predicament is based on an epic idea, empathy often remains elusive.
A good screenplay agent will, above all other things, look for empathy in the scripts they receive. Because without empathy, a screenplay has no heart. And without heart, a screenplay is lifeless.
* Liz Fairbanks has worked as a reader, development assistant, and talent agent in Los Angeles over the last seven years. Liz loves traveling, reading and yoga. Liz also works as a freelance consultant for Script Mailer (a company that connects screenwriters with agents and producers in Hollywood).