Home » Archives » March 2008 » Bubble, Bubble...
[Previous entry: "Hodgepodge"] [Next entry: "Protag, You're It!"]

03/27/2008: Bubble, Bubble...


Oh, such a wonderful letter today, from Cristobal in Puerto Rico! Isn't that cool? He's absolutely fired with determination to be a television writer. Well, that's an excellent first step and I'm wishing you all the luck in the world.

Cristobal asks about the amount of latitude that a writer on the staff of a show gets… "when assigned to plot out the beats of a certain story arc. [As in…] how much of what happens is theirs and how much is the showrunner's?"

A great question without a great answer. It depends a great deal on the culture and methods of the particular show.

On most shows this is the work that is usually done as a group by the whole staff. On some shows it's done on a more individual basis, but even then the writer isn't entirely on their own. They work with the showrunner and can ask for help from other writers on the staff.

As to how much of the story that results from this process is "theirs," well anywhere from all to none. Some shows, for a variety of reasons, are made up of episodes that fall from the brains of their creators and the staff finds itself having the job of helping midwife the ideas. Other shows are more collaborative, a great meeting of cooks around a cauldron. Interestingly, there need be no difference in quality between these two approaches. And even more interestingly, you may discover you don't even have a preference as to which kind of show you find yourself on. Both have their joys.

I think you're getting the message that TV is a really collaborative medium. Every now and then some writer on a staff may pitch their own story that is so perfectly crafted that they get to write it exactly as they imagined it, but that would be rare. And then, of course, in both features and television, there are more voices, generally from executives, that have influence over the story.

I think you'll find that the collaboration is a good thing. Being surrounded by experience and talent doesn't dim your own star, it actually makes it brighter.

Lunch: some kind of chopped salad. Remarkably slippery, wouldn't stay on the utensil.