Developing your TV Series & Other Story Ideas
Workshop overview
All the elements you need to know (and decide) before you write “We open on a…”
This 90-minute virtual course, with a Q&A afterwards, is designed both for the beginner with a strong interest and the seasoned professional who’s already written screenplays, TV, or scripted fictional narrative podcasts. Playwrights and novelists are also welcome.
Through the primary lens of how to develop the overall story for a half-hour comedy, you will discover how to create a viable idea for an episodic arena. This includes character development (leads and supporting characters), worldbuilding, tone, arcs, and how to figure out what the heck your theme is about.
If you need to make a show bible or craft pitch, this has some tools for you. This is the very first step in building the village that is your new TV show (or screenplay). This class shows you how to make the neighborhood. This will give you a solid foundation and passion for moving into your next step: breaking your pilot or story.
NOTE: This is an online workshop.
About the teacher
Tamara Federici
As the only child of two theater people, Tamara grew up watching rehearsals in the back rows next to the lighting booth, learning how you create a show. She thought everyone grew up this way! She figured every kid did this with their nights and weekends! (They didn’t.) Today, she creates compelling tales for the stage, page, and screen. Tamara believes stories and humor help us grasp the funny, complex, dumb, awesome way the world works and the people who live within it. Since 2009, she’s taught classes from improv stages to University settings to Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Business.
Tamara is a mentor at Cinestory, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit focusing on nurturing up-and-coming film and TV writers in the US and abroad. She’s been invited back ten times.
Her most formative TV experience remains working directly for co-creators Dave Chappelle and Neal Brennon for 3 years on the critically acclaimed Chappelle’s Show as Associate Producer.
Other TV writing credits include The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (co-wrote/co-created recurring “I on News” segment for Jon Stewart), Important Things with Demetri Martin, HBO’s This Just In, and Blue’s Room, a spinoff of the popular kids show Blue’s Clues.
In March of 2024, Tamara accepted an invitation to Mentor for the new Stanford Doctoral Humanities Fellowship program She’s also a Professor at Pace University in New York City, Dyson Department of Film and Screen Studies for the last five years. She teaches writing in Film, TV, Comedy and Media.
In October 2022, Oni: Thunder God’s Tale (Netflix) premiered. Tamara was hired to develop the animated pilot script and series with Academy Award nominee Dice Tsutsumi for Tonko House.
Tamara created, wrote and directed her animated pilot Antourage for Executive Producer Dan Powell (Life with Beth) then at Comedy Central.
Her published work includes the prestigious New Yorker’s Daily Shouts (‘A Few Notes About My Play’) and the iconic Mad Magazine. Tamara was one of five students accepted into the New School’s MFA in Playwriting program in 2009.