To develop “Masterpiece,” the Rai 3 channel collaborated with FremantleMedia, a company that has produced and distributed reality franchises around the globe, from “American Idol” to “China’s Got Talent” to “X Factor Indonesia.” The challenge was to create captivating television while avoiding farce — like the Monty Python sketch in which sports announcers call the play-by-play while Thomas Hardy writes “The Return of the Native.”

During the shooting of an episode last month, the expert panel — the novelists Andrea De Carlo, Giancarlo De Cataldo and Taiye Selasi — sat behind a desk while makeup artists darted about blotting foreheads and touching up lipstick. Facing the judges, four contestants perched behind their keyboards, with every typed word projected on screens for all to see, as a timer above their heads counted down and cameras swooped in for close-ups.

Afterward, Maria Isabella Piana, a 66-year-old retired schoolteacher from Sicily, stood backstage awaiting the verdict on her assignment: a diary entry from the perspective of someone who has gone blind. Ms. Piana applied to be on the show after failing to find a publisher for a novel she wrote tracing the lives of a group of Italians from the 1960s to the present. “Not being known was the impetus that pushed me here,” she said. “Maybe with a tiny bit of visibility, there’s hope.” Minutes later the judges voted her off the show.

Alessandro Ligi, a 49-year-old Roman lawyer with an unpublished novel about failed love, found it a struggle to work before the cameras. “There’s nothing more intimate than writing,” he said. “It’s something I do alone and I don’t tolerate anyone even peeking at my computer.” His assignment was a one-page story from the perspective of a man who must watch his lover marry someone else.

Soon Mr. Ligi was summoned to read his work aloud. He entered the darkened studio and took his place on a red carpet under hot spotlights in front of the judges. He clutched a sheet of paper and attempted to give his reading a little oomph. The delivery was stiff; a bead of spittle trembled on his lip.