Writing for Television
November 12th, 2011
By Karen Leabo

Three veteran TV writers give frank advice on breaking in, and what it's like once you do.

There are lots of paths to getting "staffed" (being hired as a staff writer on a TV show), but the one thing SWN's three panelists have in common is they had a strong writing sample that got them through the door. The panelists shared their knowledge at the Scriptwriters Network meeting on Nov. 13 at Universal Studios.

Jane Espenson, a twenty-year TV veteran best known for science fiction/fantasy shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones, Torchwood and Once Upon a Time, got her start by submitting a Star Trek script with no agent, which led to a Disney Fellowship. Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, a staff writer for Family Guy, started her career as an assistant at an agency, but it was her spec scripts (in particular, for the sitcom Scrubs) that led to a CBS Writers Mentoring Program.

From there did a lot of networking and got an agent, which led to landing the coveted staff writer spot. Jeff Greenstein, the Emmy-winning writer and producer of Dream On, Friends, Will & Grace, Parenthood and Desperate Housewives, started picking up freelance TV episodes, but it was a spec of Murphy Brown that led to a spot in the Dream On writers' room.

However, freelancing is no longer a good way to get hired as a staffer. The few freelance scripts out there tend to go to people already involved in the show, like assistants.

You might be wondering what the various duties are of all those titles you see on TV credits. According to Espenson, the hierarchy goes like this: You start as a staff writer, then move up the ladder to story editor, executive story editor, co-producer, producer, supervising producer, executive producer. But your duties might not change at all.

"You can get more involved in editing," she says, "but I stayed a pure writer."

Greenstein agrees, but added, "Every show I've been in has had a non-hierarchical writers' room. You were never put down because of your title."

Cherry (I am not going to type her last name every time I mention her, even though that's the proper way to do it) adds that another route is to work your way up from production assistant (PA) to staff writer. "Six to eight of our writers were assistants on Family Guy. Start on whatever rung you can start on."

Greenstein added that if you're an assistant, you get to eavesdrop on the decision-making process. You see how stories get "broken" (all of the plot points broken out) and how they get fixed through osmosis. "You have to be patient, hard-working, tireless, and type fast. You have to know when it is or isn't appropriate to contribute, but if you have the saving idea …"

The three writers agreed that those who don't survive the early days of employment at a TV show usually get fired because of a personality thing. "If you make the room a tense and uncomfortable place," Espenson says, "that's how you get fired." You need to learn to read people, notice if they shy away from you. "Bend when you need to bend."

So how does an episode get broken?

"It's still kind of a mystery," Espenson says. "Everybody stares at that board for long stretches. It's a fraught process, and it's different on every show." Some shows use a cork board, some a white board. And the process depends a lot on whether it's a drama or a comedy, adds Greenstein, who says he is known for his "boardsmanship." He has photos of his favorite boards from Will & Grace. He describes the comedy process as fluid and fast-moving,"throwing things up" on the board, tearing them down, putting up new things. "We're looking for things that are resonant, moving, change points for the character." They were searching for realizations and emotion living in each scene.

Family Guy, according to Cherry, has an enormous staff of 18-23 people. But they don't all try to work on a show at the same time. "That would be insane," she says. Usually five people will get sent to a small room to work on one thread of the show; several small rooms will be working at one time, then they'll come back and pitch to the show runner whatever they've come up with.

When asked how the writers balance comedy and drama on shows that are both, such as Desperate Housewives, the panelists had a difficult time articulating how they did it. There's a certain kind of "hard joke" that works on sitcoms that doesn't work as well for a whimsical drama. A "hard joke" is something you could put in an e-mail, Espenson says, that's not dependent on character, and that they try to "soften" jokes to keep them from feeling "bada bum bum."

"In Will & Grace," Greenstein says, "we had to cut jokes so we could focus on character." In his early days he worked on Matlock, where he knew a writer who had worked on The Monkees, which was required to have at least seven jokes per page. "We probably had that many on Will & Grace. The show was very 'liney.'" Though in later seasons the stakes became more emotional. On Desperate Housewives, he says they are very cognizant of trying to strike a balance between character comedy and jokes. "I'm always the one fighting for the jokes."

Cherry says Family Guy, and animated shows in general, are as joke-dense as possible. "We can't do a reaction shot," she says. "So the humor is more dependent on dialogue … Animators can't do it as funny as a real person, so we try to do more hard jokes." The upside is they can blow stuff up all the time.

Espenson says you really have to study a show before writing a spec. You have to understand the show really well to know what works and what doesn't. As an example, she talked about Gilmore Girls, a show she worked on. "There was a romantic comedy between Luke and Lorelei, Luke got married and divorced over haiatus, and some people were asking why they hadn't played out that drama over the season?" But the answer was, that wasn't what the show was about. "It was about comforting stories you wanted to be a part of. 'Aspirational' stories, we call it now." The show featured mild traumas. just enough angst to pull you through the story. And if you wrote a spec Gilmore Girls, you had to understand that. Likewise, if you were writing a spec Desperate Housewives, you have to understand that every show has to feature a desperate act.

"Each show is its own little clock," she says. "You have to figure out how its cogs work."

Next, the panelists discussed trends in writing, such as pacing. Dramas used to be four acts, about 60 script pages. Now they're six acts plus a teaser, a mere 43 minutes and under 50 pages.

But in her animated sitcom, "I don't think pace has evolved that much," Cherry says. From the very beginning of Family Guy they had a lot of cutaways and a very, very fast pace.

Given the sensibilities of today's audiences, do they have the patience to watch things unfold? For example, a plot thread that evolves over an entire season?And could a more leisurely pace kill a show?

Espenson said pacing is only one element. "To make a hit show you need twenty things to go right, all of which are slightly inclined to go wrong instead of right."

When discussing trends, the real news is that comedy is back. All of the panelists were optimistic about the success of many new comedy shows.

Another trend is toward the single-camera half-hour show, as opposed to the multi-camera format, where the entire episode is filmed at the same time from multiple angles. "Single-camera half-hours is the hardest thing to do," Greenstein says, but the results are more cinematic. He laments the lack of truly funny half-hour shows. As an Emmy judge, he sees a lot of shows that are fun but don't make him laugh.

Another huge trend is web series, which have to have a break-neck speed. "Those really have to grab you fast," says Espenson, who has produced her own series, Husbands, featuring two-minute episodes. Web series, she says, have "changed how story telling is done. On the web you get bored a lot quicker."

"Anyone can do a webisode," she adds. The best long-term plan, if you go this route, is to make a sitcom where the short episodes can be cobbled into one longer, pilot episode, which gives it the greatest chance of being picked up by a network. "I made ours as TV ready as possible." Although she is quick to point out that TV doesn't have to be the ultimate goal, as web shows have their own advantages-more latitude with casting, an international audience, dirtier jokes, swearing, etc. Another good reason to put something up on the web is as a sample, so people can see what your writing looks like "on its feet."

Greenstein agrees. "You can use it as a writing sample, a creative endeavor, or just to learn. The inexpensive equipment means you can learn a lot about performance" for not very much investment.

Producing your own show used to be an impossible dream. Now you can get a Canon video camera, the equivalent of what they use on TV, for $200 on ebay. "Give yourself a film school education making something of your own," he says.

Making your own webisode is a great way to showcase your talents, but there is always the risk that you'll get ripped off if you put something out there for the whole world to see. "Ripping off does happen," Greenstein says. You have to weigh the decision carefully and decide, do you want to work on your abilities as a writer, or do you want to make something? It's hard to do it yourself and make it look good, he says. Espenson recommends doing a script, and let the powers of your prose sell it.

"With writing," Espenson says, "there's never any excuse for not doing it. You always have that recourse."

When asked about the social content of TV, and how writers handle issues, Greenstein says that TV is a great medium to address cutting issues. There's a quick turnaround, and the medium is powerful. "Will & Grace affected America's view of homosexuality in a positive way," he says. Cherry adds that even with animation's long lead time, they can still add timely content to the sound track at the last minute to keep the show current.

Espenson says, "Technology is helping with the drive to address social issues in our lefty Hollywood way a lot quicker."

So what audiences are these writers targeting? Do they find that target limiting, or a constraint?

"I don't care," Greenstein says flatly. "I'm writing for an audience of one, me, or an audience of ten, the writers of Desperate Housewives. I don't think about that stuff. I like to hit 'em where they ain't." He never thinks about demographics, and whether the audience can handle certain content. "I only think about me. Will & Grace was a force for social change, but we didn't set out to do that."Will was a gay man with dignity, he says. Before that, gay characters were the butt of a joke or figures of fun, never taken seriously.

"There are two types of gay men," he continued. "There's Jack, the flamboyant super-queen, and Will-like the No. 1 son … While you were laughing at Jack, we were sneaking Will into your living room. We had no thought to what the audience would stand or what the network would tolerate. We let them pull back the leash. You can't do a show with one hand on the controls and the other on the audience's balls." He recommends taking what you think "they" want and turn it 180 degrees.

Espenson agreed wholeheartedly. "You have to cook for your own taste buds. If you cook for others' taste buds, you can't taste the food." Write what you want, she says, and if you trust you have good taste, people are going to like it.

Cherry says Family Guy is also written for the writers. "There's a huge range of things we like. Some jokes are so over most of the audience's head." Like obscure Star Trek references. "But we do it anyway, even though only a small percentage of people will get it." She also says that sometimes, even if it's not funny, "wait four seconds."

The writers walk a fine line between funny and objectionable; it's something they debate all the time, weighing whether a certain bit is funny enough to be worth offending or simply not connecting with some parts of the audience.

"Sometimes the censors say no," Cherry says. "We debate all the time."

There was much discussion about what constitutes a drama or a comedy. If it's a half-hour, does it have to be a comedy? Greenstein says the Emmy identification is off; and shows like Nurse Jackie and Weeds should really be judged as dramas. "Hour-long comedies and half-hour dramas fall between the cracks."

Espenson says some of the conventional wisdom is being proved wrong. Network execs once told her that the single-camera half-hour had a ceiling on the audience. She has also heard before that "drama is dead." But things change.

Discussion turned to how to write an original spec. What gets someone's attention?"

Espenson says what you want to do is write a spec script that gets people talking. "Write the thing you can't get made."
"It's gotta be different," Greenstein says. "Don't worry about whether it's makeable.

He used an example of a spec show called "Let's Rob Mick Jagger," which of course could never get made, but it got people's attention and ultimately got the writer work. "Write the thing that's who you are. Mad Men was just a sample. No one was going to do that show, an expensive period piece. Write what you're uniquely qualified to write. You are the only person who could do it."

You can also try submitting short stories or plays, because readers are often sick to death of scripts. Don't do a Modern Family; it's been done a million times. "Do a spec of something weird," Cherry says.

And the first five pages better be amazing. If it doesn't grab the reader, they'll put your project aside for something they haven't seen before.

Regarding fellowship/mentorship programs, the writers recommended befriending everyone else in the program. Also ask questions, stay after, be a little pushy. Stick your chin out, don't fade into the wallpaper.

When asked what the biggest obstacle or challenge was in her career, Espenson said she doesn't like being in a comedy room. She doesn't like the chaos, the misogyny, the loudness, which is why she got out of comedy. "That's how I handled it … Sometimes the answer is to ask if it's the best place or best fit." If your talent isn't shining, make a move, solve the problem geographically.

When following up with someone who has your script, one audience member asked, how do you draw the line between persistent vs. nuisance? The agreed-upon answer was, one e-mail per month is plenty. "Beyond that is too much," says Espenson. "Gauge their reaction; you can tell when someone is cooling off."

The things that influenced the panelists to get into the business are a mixed bag. For Greenstein, it was the Peanuts comic strip and Woody Allen. "Schultz redefined our comedic sensibility,' he says. For Cherry, it was Saturday Night Live, which her parents didn't allow her to watch so she had to sneak. "I was obsessed with it," she says. But the idea of working in Hollywood seemed out of reach at first. "I'm Asian, I'm supposed to go to med school." She went to law school, but instead of taking the bar, drove to Hollywood.

Espenson's influences were The Odd Couple, Barney Miller, and M*A*S*H. "I saw women writers on M*A*S*H," she says. To this day she can recite their names. "That was hugely influential. There was something about Jewish people in New York City, something about that kind of humor, the pace and energy and grit. The city called to my soul and I said, 'I'm gonna be a Jewish comedy writer.'"
What were the best decisions each of the panelists made early in their careers?

Greenstein says it was making friends with his fellow "freshmen," because people bubble up together. The friends you make now, he said, are infinitely more important than the bigwigs in your address book. "Maintain that network. stay in touch with friends. get a group of people to read your work and give feedback. Those people will be most important to you."

Cherry, also, was glad she befriended lower-level executives when she was at Disney. "Fifteen years later they are at the top of their game, and I'm glad I was kind to them."

Greenstein says it's important that your agent or manager is excited about you. "Don't call the agent and ask what's happening; tell the agent what's happening."

"Find the agent that fits you, if you have a choice," Espenson says. "Often you don't have a choice."

Regarding how to get a job as an assistant, the most important qualification seems to be to type fast. Cherry says she faxed her resume many, many times, ended up at a temp agency that sent her to CAA. "You'll learn on the job," she says. You just have to have basic office skills and be personable."

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