I'm hoping to write a book heavily inspired by the monster-of-the-week TV shows of the late 90s and early 2000s, stuff like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Smallville. Basically the book would be a collection of short stories that each function like episodes of such a TV show, with their own self-contained plot and an overarching "season" arc being developed within them to come to a head at the end. However, and this is something I'm acutely aware of but may not fully understand the implications of: this is a book, not a TV show. One of my major concerns is that I'll try to emulate something that's a staple of these sorts of shows, because it's a staple of these sorts of shows, and only realize too late (if I ever realize it at all) that it's a death sentence for a book to attempt to work that way. I have my main characters fairly well fleshed out, and various ideas for the sorts of things they might have to deal with, but I don't want to get ahead of myself and lose sight of what is absolutely most important to make sure that my homage to one of my favorite styles of TV show still fundamentally works as a book. Anyone have any advice for what I should prioritize or try to stay away from?
No. Just write. There are 'general' things about written stories that are different than stories for film and television. But in general the written word gives you more freedom than film and television, you can describe things based on all 5 senses, you can go into a characters thoughts, etc. etc. I would say the biggest challenge would be (and this is just a tv writing over all other writing challenge), would be pacing. TV shows, especially monster of the week shows, followed certain structure, they had standard beats they had to hit by a certain minute mark. I wouldn't say you HAVE to follow that, but if you want the same feel that's something to consider. Other than that, just write it.
