I'm going to make this first installment short and sweet - which is precisely what your first webisode should be.

First, a caveat: if you don't have a talented artist on board yet to help you visualize your concept, then stop reading and go out and find one.  Now.  I mean it.

Without a sense of style - without a look - no one will bother checking out your webisode.

If you want reasons, here are two: short attention spans and our collective love for eye candy.  There are others… but I don't want to bore you.

So, hook up with an artist.  Shouldn't be too hard, really.  If you have a killer concept, you'll find a lot of people willing to help you with the look and feel of it.

*** TANGENT ALERT ***

Ask any artists you know or meet if they have any ideas to develop.  They often do; better yet, the ideas are usually quite good.  There's a good chance they'll need your help, as a writer, to shape and articulate the idea.

That's not a knock on artists - people who excel both with the written word and the visual arts are a rare breed, and they're most likely already enormously successful and wealthy and adored, so you don't need to worry about them.

Anyhoo, ask the artists about their ideas - they'll love that you want to help them with their stuff.  And, quid pro quo, you help them with their projects, they'll help you with yours.

*** END TANGENT ***

So… short and sweet. The latter is more important, so we'll start there.

Sweet

You have less than ten seconds to hook your average webisode viewer.

An exaggeration?  Not really.  But moments after deciding if the art is cool, a viewer will want to know - and understand - what your webisode is about.

That's why you see webisodes for known commodities like "Superman" and "Xena."  Or projects like Tim Burton's "Stainboy."  They're brands, with built in audiences.

With a new idea, you don't have that luxury.  You've got to win over a jaded, cynical audience which has no attention span - so you have to think high concept.

In other words, it's got to be sweet.

Take one of my all-time favorite web-series "Zombie College."  It had a brilliant, stupid-funny concept (and a catchy theme-song, which, while not a prerequisite for success, helps immensely): "Guy follows girlfriend to college.  College is full of zombies.  Disgusting hilarity ensues."

Now, that's a hook.

***

Short

Two words for you: Music video.

Simply stated, if your webisode is longer than what grabs your attention on MTV, you're in trouble.

Making matters even more difficult, you've got to tell a story - beginning, middle and end - in that three minutes.

Now, if you're going to end your webisode before your story's dénouement, you need to make sure you accomplish two objectives:

1) Your audience knows your protagonists (the good guys) and antagonists (bad guys) by the time your first webisode wraps.

2) You need a compelling cliffhanger.

As the cliché says, you have but one opportunity to make a first impression.  If your webisode doesn't tell a whole story… or is in any way confusing or confounding… or doesn't end with a cool reason for a viewer to return, no one is ever going to tune into the second episode of your series.

So, to sum up, your story has to be simple, but not simplistic.  It's got to be broad, but not infantile (okay, infantile works sometimes, but less often than you may think).  It's got to have mass appeal, but you can't pander.

And it has to be less than three minutes.

***

As always, rules are meant to be broken, so ignore everything I've said if you have an idea which is both complex and requires extended screen time.  If it's a powerful and well-executed idea, you'll find an audience.

That said, keep your audience in mind.  Acknowledge, and try to replicate, what captivates you when you're surfing the web.

***

Looks like I fibbed when I said this article would be short and sweet.  My apologies.  I'll end with a request:  Email me with what you want to know about webisode writing, and I'll address your questions in future articles.

More later.

AB