Sitcom Terminology

[hatgirl]

Bill Prady is an executive producer on one of My Favourite Things, the sitcom The Big Bang Theory. We have a deep and meaningful relationship (i.e. I follow him on Twitter). Yesterday, he tweeted a series of TV Writers' Room vocab lessons:

• A story, the main story of the episode; B story, the secondary story; runner, smaller than a story, it "runs

Comments

[peadarog]

Cool! I had no idea they were so technical about it, but it makes sense. When you write by yourself, you don't need terminology for what you do, although it does exist. In fact, we could create a dictionary for writers moving from one area of expertise to the other:
Infodump=Pipe
"Hey, tell me again..."="As you know, professor..." etc.
I particularly like 'A' story and 'B' story.

[hatgirl]

Hmm... I wonder if literature students have equivalent terms? I must go catch one and ask.