How To Write Stories That Compel

Breaking Bad Showrunner Spills The Beans

Breaking Bad was arguably one of the best TV shows ever broadcast on television. It heralded the beginning of the Golden Age of TV in 2008, and the gap between television show and movie narrowed to the width of a thread and has since more or less disappeared. The show won dozens of awards, including 16 Emmys and 2 Peabodys, and was nominated for many more. At the core of these achievements was the simple but complex act of writing, one word at a time.

Creator, head writer, and producer Vince Gilligan opened up in the Breaking Bad Insider podcast about the detail-oriented process of writing that went on in he Breaking Bad writer’s room, which involved piecing together each moment of each scene in each episode, brick by brick. Even though this process is specific to writing a television show, it is applicable to any type of dramatic writing, including movie scripts, novels, short stories, even comedy. Writing is the lifeblood of all the shows and movies we love, and learning the craft from a master can help us jumpstart our ability to write the greatest television show of all time.