K-drama

In practice

A K-drama is a South Korean television series, and to a screenwriter it is also a format with its own rules. The best-known kind, the miniseries, tells one complete story in a fixed number of hour-long episodes, usually airing two a week, and then ends. For years the standard length was 16 episodes; recent seasons often run 12, 10 or even 8. Most K-dramas have no second season planned, so the ending is written as an ending.

What sets the form apart for writers is who holds the pen. A Korean series is usually written by one screenwriter, not a writers room, and the best-known writers are as famous as the stars. Viewers follow a writer such as Kim Eun-sook (Goblin, Mr. Sunshine) or Park Ji-eun (Crash Landing on You) the way American audiences follow a showrunner. That puts the whole season's structure, from the meet-cute in episode one to the final reunion, in a single writer's hands.

The form also carries its genres with it. Romantic comedies, revenge melodramas, legal and medical dramas, sageuk (historical dramas) and the outrageous makjang dramas each have conventions their audience knows by heart, and writers play with those expectations. Since Netflix and other streaming services began commissioning Korean series around 2018, those conventions have reached a worldwide audience, and the hit that proved it was Squid Game in 2021.

The episode ending

K-drama episodes end on a hook, and the hook is usually emotional rather than physical: a confession, a recognition, a hand that finally reaches out. Here the line reverses everything the audience believed about Seo-yeon, and the freeze frame holds them until the next episode. In a 16-episode season, episode 8 is the midpoint, and a reversal this large belongs exactly there.

What a K-drama is

K-drama is short for Korean drama, the scripted series made for South Korean broadcasters, cable channels and streaming services. In English the word usually means the miniseries: a self-contained story of roughly hour-long episodes that runs for a few months and ends. Korean television also makes daily dramas, which air every weeknight evening and can run for over a hundred episodes, and weekend family dramas that run for many months.

The international popularity of these shows is part of what Koreans call hallyu, the Korean Wave. The term was coined in the late 1990s, when Korean dramas and pop music began to find big audiences in China and across Asia. Streaming took the wave worldwide: Netflix began seeking Korean productions around 2018, and Squid Game was watched by more than 111 million viewers within 17 days of its release in 2021.

Fans often call a K-drama a story with an ending. Because most series are planned as a single season, the writer knows from the start where every relationship lands. That certainty is a large part of the appeal: viewers can commit to sixteen episodes knowing the story will be finished, not canceled or stretched.

How a K-drama is structured

For many years a miniseries ran 16 episodes of about an hour each, two episodes a week, for eight weeks. Earlier eras used 20 and 24. By the mid-2020s, seasons of 12 or 10 episodes have become common, and some streaming series run 8, because audiences want tighter stories with less filler. Whatever the count, writers plan the season as one arc divided into episodes, and each episode as a story with its own turn.

In a 16-episode romance, a common shape is that the leads meet in the first two episodes, the relationship becomes possible around episode 4, the first big reversal or confession lands near episode 8, an obstacle tears them apart in the back half, and the last two episodes resolve it. Writers often place a misunderstanding or a separation around episodes 12 to 14, so the finale earns its reunion. These are habits, not rules, and good writers bend them.

The episode ending matters more than in most television. Because episodes air in pairs, the end of the first episode of the week often teases something the second will pay off, and the end of the second must carry viewers through a five-day wait. Many writers end on a freeze frame of a face at the moment of a confession or a discovery, so the audience leaves with a feeling, not just a question.

The writer and the live shoot

Korean series are usually led by a single director and written by a single screenwriter. Scriptwriters there often become as famous as the actors, and broadcasters build seasons around a writer's name. The industry is also unusual in that women write most of its dramas. A writer typically works with assistant writers who research and help draft, but the writer is the author of every episode.

For decades many dramas were made on a live-shoot schedule. Only the first few episodes were filmed before the premiere, and the rest were shot while the series aired, sometimes days before broadcast. Scripts could change in response to ratings and viewer reaction. Korean has a word for the result: jjokdaebon, the script pages actors receive a few at a time, sometimes on the day of shooting, because the writer is still writing.

The live shoot is known for burning out casts and crews and for weakening second halves, and Korean critics have long blamed the system rather than individual writers. Pre-production, where every episode is filmed before the first one airs, has grown with streaming, which needs complete seasons in advance. Signal, written by Kim Eun-hee, is often cited as a series whose writer finished all sixteen scripts before shooting ended.

K-drama genres and conventions

Romantic comedy is the genre most international viewers meet first, and its conventions are famous: the contract relationship, the chaebol heir and the ordinary heroine, the childhood connection neither lead remembers, the first kiss saved for a carefully chosen episode. Melodrama runs alongside it, with terminal illnesses, secret parentage and noble sacrifices, and at its most extreme becomes makjang, the genre built on outrageous twists.

Sageuk, or historical drama, is the other great tradition, from palace politics in the Joseon dynasty to fusion sageuk that mixes history with romance, fantasy and horror, as Kingdom mixed it with zombies. Professional dramas set in hospitals, law firms and police stations; thrillers and revenge stories; and school and coming-of-age dramas fill out the schedule, and many series combine several of these at once.

Running through all of them are habits of storytelling: long, slow-building romances; strong family and class pressures; second leads the audience falls for even though they will lose; and endings that tie up every thread. Writers who know these conventions can use them deliberately, playing to an expectation or reversing it at the moment the audience is surest.

How to write a K-drama

Start with the ending. Because the series will end, decide where the central relationship lands before you plan episode one, then map the season backward: the midpoint reversal, the separation, the last obstacle. A season outline that names each episode's final image is worth more than a long bible, because those images are what carry viewers from one week to the next.

Let emotion drive the plot. K-drama audiences forgive coincidences and contrivances that Western drama would avoid, but they do not forgive characters whose feelings change without reason. Give each lead a wound from the past that explains how they love, and reveal it slowly. A good episode moves the relationship a step, even when the plot stands still.

Write to the format you are pitching. A 16-episode broadcast series, a 12-episode cable series and an 8-episode streaming series need different pacing, and international producers will ask how your story would play at each length. Keep a short logline, a one-page synopsis, character descriptions and a per-episode outline ready; those are what Korean producers and streaming buyers ask for first.