Take full advantage of courses designed specifically for teaching television writing techniques, if your school offers them. Even if you think you want to focus on a specific genre of television writing, make sure you enroll in as many different kinds of television writing courses as possible, including drama and comedy, to expand your abilities. Television script writing classes will teach you the format and structure of good television scripts and help you learn how to create engaging plots and dynamic dialog. In most courses you will write your own "spec script," which is a sample script for a television show already on the air.
Screenwriting classes generally focus on writing full-length screenplays for films, but still benefit budding television script writers. Working on a full-length screenplay helps develop the concentration you need to pursue any kind of script writing. In addition to analyzing the technical and stylistic qualities of a strong screenplay, you will also gain insight into the business of writing for the screen. Your screenwriting course will likely teach you how to pitch your screenplay to agents and producers and give you tips for marketing your writing skills.
Learn more about the business of show business by taking a course on entertainment marketing or public relations. Marketing courses teach you about the process of selling a project--from a script to a finished film or television show. As a writer, marketing courses will help you learn to sell projects to the public and how the industry works behind the scenes. The more inside knowledge you have about the workings of the television industry, the better you'll be able to sell your scripts and help your shows succeed.
While writing for the stage differs from writing for the screen, playwriting helps you develop your storytelling skills. Like television screenplays, play scripts consist almost entirely of dialog and the mechanical techniques you use for one can easily transfer to the other. Enrolling in a playwriting class can be a worthy alternative or complement to television writing or screenplay courses. If you take playwriting as an alternative to a television writing class, supplement your education with a book about television script writing like Lee Goldber's "Successful Television Writing" to help you adapt your writing for television.
Both classes in television production and film production can benefit aspiring television script writers.
Taking a media production class will help you learn the "language" of television. Studying the process of bringing a concept and script to life on screen helps you understand the limits of the form. While you have the freedom to write whatever you want when you're working on a spec script, understanding the producer's perspective teaches you what kinds of scripts you will sell.