Fifteen working writers name the TV spec episodes that helped start their careers

Completing my series last week on "How to write a spec episode" made me nostalgic for a Twitter thread I got going about six months ago. Lately, the practice of writing spec episodes has fallen out of favor. For the most part, they're only used for programs like the Disney ABC Writing Program and the Warner Bros Television Workshop, as more and more showrunners want to see original pilots from prospective staff writers.

It wasn't always that way. Up until recently, writers would write spec episodes for a series similar to the one they were submitting for. You never submit your spec episode to the show you've spec'd - for two basic reasons. First, they know their show WAY better than you do, so they'll be far more harsh on things that feel wrong for the show, whether it's getting a character's voice slightly wrong, getting something minute wrong about their house style or episode format, or just telling the kinds of story they have reasons for not telling. The second reason is perhaps even more obvious - if they never read a spec of their own show, they can't be accused of stealing it should the show do something similar to this spec episode.

What this means is there are several generations of TV writers who came up by writing spec episodes, perhaps of shows vastly different from the ones they are famous for. With that in mind, I tweeted out a call for writers to tell us the specs that got them hired or repped. The result was one of the more amusing threads I've been a part of.

I'm sure this'll provoke a unanimous chorus of "Nah Bitter, we're good" but if any of the writers in this post - or any other working writers for that matter - are interested in putting their spec episodes out there for people to read, I'll gladly host them. Just email me at the address you can find on the side of this webpage.

Joe Henderson (Lucifer, 11.22.63, White Collar, Almost Human)

My Smallville got me some attention. My Joan of Arcadia elevated my craft. My OC was my favorite. My Entourage got me into the WB workshop. My My Name Is Earl was lots of fun. My Dexter got me a lot of meetings. Shit I wrote a lot of specs

— Joe Henderson (@Henderson_Joe) February 16, 2018

Taylor Elmore (Blood & Treasure, Limitless, Justified)

ER, Dawson’s Creek, then Shield. I think I peaked careerwise on the Dawson’s spec

— Taylor Elmore (@TaylorElmost) February 16, 2018

Justin Marks (THE JUNGLE BOOK, Counterpart)

This isn’t the same, but once I wrote fan fiction set on the prison planet in Alien 3. It detailed the prisoners’ lives before Sigourney Weaver arrived. Unbelievably, seventeen years later someone married me.

— Justin Marks (@Justin_Marks_) February 16, 2018

Mike Royce (One Day at a Time, Men of a Certain Age, Enlisted)

Frasier. @jonlovett would be proud

— Mike Royce (@MikeRoyce) February 16, 2018

Amy Berg (Counterpart, Da Vinci's Demons, Caper, Person of Interest, Eureka)

For the Lost spec, it was during the show's first season when the episodes were told from specific character POVs. I chose the dog. People still talk about that script.

— Amy Berg (@bergopolis) February 16, 2018

Jordon Nardino (Star Trek: Discovery, Quantico, Smash, Desperate Housewives)

Oh also I got rejected from the WB writers program with the samples that got me staffed on Gilmore Girls a few months later so fuck everyone.

— Jordon Nardino (@jnardino) February 16, 2018

Benjamin Raab (Arrow, Scream, The Flash, Beauty & The Beast)

A Smallville got me & @dblackanese our 1st manager. An Alias got us our 1st agent. A CSI & a Nip/Tuck got us our 2nd agent. A Rescue Me got us into the @nbc Writers On The Verge Program, as well as our 1st staffing job on #Warehouse13.

— Benjamin Raab (@Wondermasons) February 16, 2018

Bo Yeon Kim (Star Trek: Discovery, Reign)

I also wrote a really shitty Supernatural spec which will never see the light of day.

— Bo Yeon Kim (@extspace) February 16, 2018

Robert Hewitt Wolfe, (Elementary, Andromeda, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) who probably made enemies of several people in this thread with this disclosure.

Umm... I've never written a spec. I got my invitation to pitch to #StarTrek #TNG off a feature script. But that never happens anymore either. So yeah, I'm useless.

— Robert Hewitt Wolfe (@writergeekrhw) February 16, 2018

Bryan Q. Miller (Shadowhunters, Sleepy Hollow, Defiance, Smallville)

A Smallville in grad school
A Boston Legal in grad school
A Dexter got me into the WB workshop
A House during the workshop

Latter two (plus staffing up through the workshop) helped get me repped

— Bryan Q. Miller (@bryanQmiller) February 16, 2018

Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries, The Originals, Containment, Legacies)

Buffy.

— Julie Plec (@julieplec) February 16, 2018

Who else wants to read a Buffy spec from the co-creator of The Vampire Diaries?

Chris Luccy (Undateable, Melissa & Joey, Better With You)

The readers will be happy not to have to read their 50th Modern Family or whatever that years popular spec is and it’ll make you stand out from the beginning.

— Chris Luccy (@boynamedluccy) February 16, 2018

Dan Steele (Faking It, Hart of Dixie, Gossip Girl)

I like this game. My LOST taught me structure & won my first contest. My How I Met Your Mother won a trophy & opened the door to @WBTVWorkshop. My Dexter got me hired on Gossip Girl. Specs were a great training ground.

— Dan Steele (@dansteele) February 16, 2018

Lynn Renee Maxcy (The Handmaid's Tale, Covert Affairs)

Eli Stone taught me how to format scripts, Modern Family let me try comedy (once), and Chuck & Castle made me fall in love with TV writing - but I’ve only used original pilots for reps/staffing. The writing practice was invaluable for me, though.

— Lynn Renee Maxcy (@lynnreneemaxcy) February 16, 2018

Daniel Thomsen (Westworld, Time After Time, Once Upon a Time,

My first spec was a Malcolm in the Middle, but then I learned more about comedy rooms... and my second spec was The Shield. Got me an agent at Endeavor.

— Daniel Thomsen (@danielthomsen) February 16, 2018

Jorge A. Reyes (Kevin Hill, Queen of the South)

Ally McBeal.

— The Coolest (@jorgereyes) February 16, 2018

Quite an interesting mix of writers and shows, no?

Related posts:
Writing a spec episode - a 10 part series.
Anatomy of a TV spec - Don't Trust the B---- In Apartment 23

That time Jane Espenson answered my letter

I spent some of the holiday break cleaning out my office and in doing so, came across some material that has survived several moves with me. I had completely forgotten about this letter, which was a reply sent to me by writer Jane Espenson in March of 2003. At the time, she was just wrapping up work on the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Since then she's worked on Battlestar Galactic, Dollhouse, Caprica, Once Upon a Time and co-created Husbands.

I had moved to LA a few months earlier and wrote just under a dozen letters to a number of my favorite TV writers. Longtime readers of this blog might remember my story about writing a letter to Ronald D. Moore (Star Trek, BSG, Roswell) a few years earlier and getting a phone call from Ron in response. I figured I'd had little to lose by trying again, and Jane was the only one who wrote back, which was VERY cool of her.

As it's full of some good advice for people wanting to know how to get started in TV, I've decided to put a picture of the letter up here. Consider this essential advice from someone on the inside.

Because I'm sure people will ask, I don't remember exactly who else I wrote to. I know Joss Whedon was one of them. I'm pretty sure Greg Berlanti was another, along with Tim Minear. Possibly Kevin Williamson. For most of them, I used the Hollywood Creative Directory at the office where I was interning in order to get the address of either their agents or the shows they worked on. Using the address of the agent or the network is always a risk because who knows if it'll get forwarded on. By the time I got around to sending Jane's letter, I think I'd gotten the address for the Mutant Enemy production offices, and so it went more directly to her than to some of my other targets.

When I posted this on Twitter, someone asked if I think I'd have as much luck trying this today. I'm not sure. I think if I was just some dude on Twitter, despite the ease of access there, I'd probably still try the snail mail approach. There's something about a personal letter that seems likely to provoke a response in a way that a tweet or email won't. I don't think writers get much fan mail sent to them personally so a physical letter probably stands out among all the electronic feedback they get on their work.

TV Writing Resource Week - my interviews and other blogs

For the final day of TV Writing Resource Week, I thought I'd compile several resources from around the web.

Let's start with our old friend, Jeffrey Lieber, who's currently a showrunner over on the successful NCIS: New Orleans. I'd never watched an NCIS before, but I gave this one a shot to support Jeff and I'm really enjoying it. It's a fun show and it's always great to have Scott Bakula on TV.  Lieber is also the creator of Miami Medical and has worked on The Whole Truth, Chase, Pan Am and Necessary Roughness.

If you've followed Jeff on Twitter (and there's no excuse not to be), you've probably seen his on-going series of Showrunner Rules, handily archived by Go into the Story. There's 200 here and in recent months, Jeff has been tweeting more rules that have yet to be added to the archive.

I interviewed Jeff Lieber a while back on my video channel. You can check out all six parts below:



And while you're there, check out my massive 13-part interview with Liz Tigelaar. Liz got her start as a writer's assistant on Dawson's Creek, she went on to join the staffs of several successful TV shows, including American Dreams, Kyle XY, What About Brian, Brothers & Sisters, Dirty Sexy Money, Once Upon a Time and Revenge. She was also the creator and show-runner of the CW's Life Unexpected.

My interview with her covers a lot of ground, including how she got an agent, how she landed her first jobs in TV, the development of Life Unexpected and working on the staff of several other shows.

As we're reaching into the wayback files, don't miss my Robert Levine interview. I interviewed Levine waaaaay back in early 2010 when he was a mere staff writer on Human Target, coming off of stints on Jericho and Harper's Island. These days you might know him as the creator of Starz's Black Sails, which recently got picked up for a third season.

Ken Levine's blog - Probably one of the more prolific bloggers among the professional writer set. On any given day, Ken could tell old war stories from FRASER and CHEERS, or drift into writing anecdotes in general. And then for variety, he'll throw in a few stories from his radio days or wax about his time as a sports announcer. This is a daily must read.

Jane Espenson blog archive - This is no longer active, but newcomers to the archive will find no shortage of great advice from the woman who made a name for herself on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and who more recently has created Husbands and been a writer on Once Upon a Time.

And for you twitter types, Indiewire just put together a fantastic article on the best writers rooms to follow on Twitter.

TV Writing Resource Week - Books about writing for TV

I just confirmed via an Amazon search that there is no shortage of books offering advice on TV writing. Much like with screenwriting books, it's really easy to get lost in the weeds with these. It's important to never take any book's advice as total gospel and to run as fast as possible from any book whose sales pitch is primarily "Here's how you get rich in TV!"

So in this post, I'm not looking to spotlight any books that a focused on the mechanics of writing for TV. I know they're out there, but a dozen different books can tell you the format, or you could just track down a script from one of the shows you really like. I'm much more interested in pointing you towards books that pass on some practical experience, war stories, if you will. If you want to work in TV, it's probably a good idea that you understand the kind of environment you're crawling into.

I'm fortunate enough to live near a very good library. I've almost never paid for a screenwriting book and I've almost as rarely paid for a "how to write for TV book." My first advice would be to see what tomes your local library has in stock. I don't have time to read them all, so likely there are some really good books that I won't reference below.

For a first-person look at breaking in and working on staff: Billion-Dollar Kiss: The Kiss That Saved Dawson's Creek.  Jeffrey Stepakoff traces his career in television, starting with breaking in in the '80s, up to the time he was on staff during a critical season of Dawson's Creek. He's retired now, so don't expect much insight that's specific to the current TV landscape, but there's a lot of knowledge to be gleaned from his war stories.

A memoir from a man who co-created one of the most successful sitcoms of the modern era: You're Lucky You're Funny: How Life Becomes a Sitcom. This is Phil Rosenthal's account of the creation and maintenance of Everybody Loves Raymond. It's been a while since I read this one, but I remember it being an interesting look at modern TV production through the eyes of a showrunner.  I didn't even watch Everybody Loves Raymond and this one kept me in.

Another memoir about becoming a working writer when your first gig was on one of the most successful shows in TV: Conversations With My Agent. Rob Long got his start on Cheers. After that, it was a fight to make sure it wasn't all downhill. As the book copy says: Getting from pitch to pilot is a tricky path to navigate successfully, from making non-negotiable changes and deal-breaking edits, combined with accommodating the whims of studios, networks and agents, often the finished product ends up a long way from where the script-writer started. With the help of his agent, her constant demands, monstrous salesmanship, brutal irony and unswerving loyalty, Long's career fluctuates from wannabe to player, from award-winning script-writer to burnt out has-been.

To better understand the business of TV: Season Finale: The Unexpected Rise and Fall of The WB and UPN. I've raved about this one before, and I consider it a remarkable look at the sorts of pressures faced by a fledgling pair of networks and how that comes to bear creatively on their shows. Network executives are often demonized as soulless "suits" out to maliciously destroy a show's uniqueness for the sake of the bottom-line, but co-author Susanne Daniels is not one of those. For my money, Daniels is one of the sharper execs out there and this book is a total steal at $.99 on Kindle.

The best behind-the-scenes episode and production guide there is: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion. I'm cheating a bit because this one is out of print, and as you can see, used and new copies command a pretty high price. Still, you might find these in second-hand bookstores. This is nearly 800 pages of information about the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Each episode is covered in-depth, with plenty of quotes and insights from the writing staff. It really gives you a sense of how a story takes shape and might go through multiple iterations before finally making it to screen.  Most episode guides focus mostly on synopsis and trivia, but this is a book that really digs into the creation of each episode and the evolution of longer arcs. I wish every TV show was dissected as in-depth as this book does for DS9.

If you have any suggestions, please add them in the comments. Please try to keep the suggestions in the spirit of books that are either written by people who've worked in TV, or books that focus strongly on the craft of writing, not the mechanics.

TV Writing Resource Week - The Nerdist Writer's Panel

Let's continue TV Writing Resource Week with another free resource - The Nerdist Writers Panel podcast.

Like Children of Tendu and Showrunners, this is another forum to get the straight shooting on TV writing straight from the horse's mouth.

The Nerdist Writers Panel series is an informal chat moderated by Ben Blacker (co-creator of the Thrilling Adventure Hour; writer for Supah Ninjas, Supernatural, among others) with professional writers about the process and business of writing. Covering TV, film, comic books, music, novels, and any other kind of writing about which you'd care to hear. Proceeds from the live panels benefit 826LA, the national non-profit tutoring program. 

You'll recognize several guests on the show as people who've appeared in the earlier podcast and documentary I pushed this week. Episodes generally run a little over an hour, with a panel of three guests in most cases. There's a lot of "how did you break in" talk as well as plenty of behind-the-scenes tidbits from writers as varied as Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan and Enlisted's Kevin Biegel and Mike Royce. 

Rather than blather on, I'll just give links to a host of my favorite episodes:

Dana Gould (The Simpsons); Liz Tigelaar (creator, Life Unexpected); Robert Hewitt Wolfe (Alphas).  

Vince Gilligan (creator, Breaking Bad); Julie Plec (developer, Vampire Diaries); the return of Josh Friedman (developer, Sarah Connor Chronicles) and Jeff Greenstein (Desperate Housewives; Will and Grace).

Jane Espenson (Once Upon a Time; Husbands; Buffy; Caprica) and Douglas Petrie (Charlie’s Angels; Buffy; Pushing Daisies) 

Sesame Street

The Colbert Report


Children of Tendu hosts Javier Grillo-Marxuatch (Helix; creator, The Middleman) and Jose Molina (Sleepy Hollow; Terra Nova) and their mentors Rene Echevarria (Star Trek: TNG/DS9; Dark Angel; Medium; Terra Nova) and Naren Shankar (Star Trek: TNG/DS9; CSI; Almost Human)

Rina Mimoun, showrunner of Red Band Society and Mistresses

TV Writing Resource Week - Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show

We continue with TV Writing Resource Week by moving on to the perfect follow-up to Children of Tendu: Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show.

Showrunners is both a documentary film and a companion book to the documentary, written by Tara Bennett. This week I was trying to highlight resources that were largely free, but Showrunners in either form is so essential that I'm bending that rule a bit.  The book is available on Kindle, with a list price of $9.99, or in paperback with a list price of $14.95, though can you can often get cheaper prices on either thanks to Amazon discounts.  The movie is available for purchase and rental on iTunes. HD purchase runs you $12.99, but it can be rented for $4.99. (SD downloads of each are about a buck cheaper.) Access to both could cost you less than $15, so that's pretty much next to nothing.

In either form, Showrunners is a very frank, in-depth look at the art and business of running a TV show. It really drives home what a demanding job it is. Many participants speak wearily of the long hours and the heavy workflow, but most also display an awareness of how careful one must be when complaining about a job that pays so heavily. Still, we're reminded at the start that 85% of new shows fail, and an interview with a TNT & TBS executive points out that being a great writer doesn't always make one a great showrunner.

If nothing else, both references will convey just how all-encompassing the job is. I might actually favor the book, which is in the format of an oral history that has been culled from many of the same interviews that appear in the documentary. The book has room to expound on several of the interviews, though the documentary sets itself apart by taking us into several writers' rooms, along with showing us some of the showrunners working on set and meeting fans at Comic-Con.

If Children of Tendu demystifies the process of working on a TV writing staff, Showrunners pulls back the curtain on the top job. We get a few writers talking about how they got their start. Several of them discuss how they sold shows and dealt with the network and actors as part of the creative process. It's a look at the top job in TV, straight from the horse's mouth. The stable of interviewees includes:

J.J. Abrams (Alias, Felicity)
Matthew Carnahan (House of Lies)
Steven S. DeKnight (Spartacus)
Jane Espenson (Husbands)
Hart Hanson (Bones)
Mike Kelley (Swingtown, Revenge)
Robert King & Michelle King  (The Good Wife)
Damon Lindelof (Lost)
Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica)
Bill Prady (The Big Bang Theory)
Ray Romano & Mike Royce (Men of a Certain Age)
Shawn Ryan (The Shield)
Kurt Sutter (Sons of Anarchy)
Janet Tamaro (Rizzoli & Isles)
Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse)

And many more!

Buy the book on Amazon here.

Purchase the film on iTunes here.

TV Writing Resource week: Children of Tendu podcast

This week is free TV resource week on the blog. I'm pulling together a comprehensive guide of all the things that any aspiring TV writers should be taking advantage of. The cost of anything I cite will be nothing or "next-to-nothing."

First up is a podcast I discovered about two months ago called Children of Tendu. If you want to work as a TV writer, this podcast is utterly essential. There's no other way to put it. If you haven't started listening to it, you're already behind the curve.

The show is hosted by Javier Grillo-Marxuach (creator of THE MIDDLEMAN, writer/producer LOST, HELIX, MEDIUM) and Jose Molina (AGENT CARTER, THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT, THE X-FILES). What they have put together is possibly the most detailed, piece-by-piece breakdown of what it means to be on a writing staff, what the day-to-day work is like, how to be the kind of staff writer your showrunner wants, what to do and what not to do.

A running theme of the podcast is "don't be an asshole." There's a great deal of emphasis on how one "serves at the pleasure of the showrunner" and that there's no way around the necessity of being collaborative and easy to work with. Both men are candid about how they themselves have broken this rule early in their careers when the didn't know any better. Jose recounts a cringe-inducing moment when he responded to a showrunner's story pitch with, "Doesn't that seem a little desperate?"

I don't see too many places where the politics of being on a writing staff are laid out so thoroughly and not only should this podcast be a wake-up call to every writer who shoots me an email pleading that they think TV writing is the place for them despite their total introversion or dislike of having to compromise their singular vision. I'll put it this way, if the mere thought of taking general meetings fills you with paralyzing fear, working on staff isn't the place for you and this podcast will make it abundantly clear.

Among the other topics discussed are dealing with your agents, staffing season, your first script, what all those producer titles mean, how to accept notes, and dealing with actors. They also bring in former showrunner bosses from time to time, such as Naren Shankar (CSI), Rene Echevarria (DARK ANGEL, MEDIUM) and Michele Fazekas & Tara Butters.

Like me, Javi and Jose worship at the altar of the great (and sadly departed) Michael Pillar, showrunner of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION and co-creator of STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE and STAR TREK: VOYAGER, and one of my professional idols. Pillar gave a great many writers their first shot, and the writing staffs of his TREKS were filled with first-time writers who now are among the most successful showrunners in TV, including Ronald D. Moore (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA), Brannon Braga (SALEM, TERRA NOVA), Bryan Fuller (PUSHING DAISIES) and the aforementioned Naren Shankar and Rene Echevarria. Piller's name is invoked a lot, and this'll have you often rushing to rewatch TNG episodes, which is never a bad thing.

The podcast currently consists of 13 episodes, plus one "Christmas Special" and a crossover with the Nerdist Writer's Panel. If you're motivated, it shouldn't take much to catch up. Javi and Jose say there'll be more episodes once they go on hiatus from their current staffing gigs, so there's no time like the present to catch up!

Children of Tendu website -

On Twitter

Javi Grillo-Marxuach on Twitter

Jose Molina on Twitter

Want to be a writer? Learn to hit deadlines and learn to be collaborative

Hopefully today will mark the start of a more active stretch on this blog. I've spent the better part of the last two months occupied with side projects, but as work on those is drawing to a close, I should be able to devote more attention to this blog.

Back in July, I attended San Diego Comic-Con and was lucky enough to attend a panel with a murderer's row of TV writers.  Speakers included Ashley Edward Miller (who was kind enough to praise my puppet videos when I introduced myself to him,) Jose Molina, Sarah Watson, Christine Boyan, and a number of other writers whom I regret I cannot recall at this moment. As these gatherings often do, the subject turned to the topic of breaking into TV writing and working on staff. Unsurprisingly, many people had varying stories, though just about all of them agreed it wasn't easy.

One point stressed again and again was the need to be the kind of person whom other people want to spend 12 hours a day with. You're spending five days a week in a writers' room with maybe a dozen other people. No matter how good a writer you are, if you make that an unpleasant experience, you won't last long. For a number of showrunners, a key question they ask themselves when considering a new hire is "Can I stand being with this person constantly?"

Ashley Edward Miller had some of the best advice though. He related the story of how one of his earliest assignments with his partner Zack Stentz was on the syndicated sci-fi series Andromeda, run at the time by Robert Hewitt Wolfe. The two "broke" the story over several days with Wolfe and the writing staff. (For those not in the know, "breaking a story" is the process by which a script is worked out beat-by-beat, scene-by-scene, usually on white dry erase boards in the writers' room.)

It's important to know that these two were freelancers and not part of the writing staff. This script was essentially a "job interview," or at the very least, that's how they were choosing to look at it. Every night, after spending the day gradually shape the outline in the writers' room, Miller and Stentz would go home and write the scenes that had been worked out. This meant that 13 hours after the story was completely broken, Miller and Stentz turned in a completed first draft.

Time is money in television and where you lose the most time is waiting for new scripts. A show may start the season with plenty of lead time, but it's an inevitability that come November, that lead time is gone and scripts are being turned in uncomfortably close to production time.  This means less time for production to prep, less time for rewriting that can sharpen the script, less time for casting to get the actors you need, less time for wardrobe to clothe those actors, less time for the script coming up next in the rotation.... you get the picture.

It's my understanding that on most shows, a writer gets a week, perhaps two, to turn in a first draft. By being diligent, Miller and Stentz just gave the show at least seven extra days. In production terms, that's huge. If you're able to save time, you will rise through the ranks. (Obviously, this also assumes that your work is of a certain standard. Turn in a shitty script and the time spent trying to make it production-ready will murder any days you save them.)

Miller and Stentz were quickly welcomed onto staff and went on to write for the shows Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Fringe, and have written the screenplays for Thor, X-Men: First Class and are currently working on the Power Rangers reboot. When guys who've been that successful tell you what they did to get started, you should listen.

TV writing is probably not a career for you if you are the kind of person who was writing all your college final papers the night before they were due. You have to be a writing machine, so as you work on your own scripts, set strict deadlines for yourself and hold yourself accountable. Be brilliant, but also try to be early.

This doesn't stop when you become the executive producer. You might be the top dog on the show, but you're still accountable to your studio and network, and believe me, they are far more comfortable working with someone who is hitting their deadlines, making their days on set and staying within budget.

A friend of mine worked on a perpetual "bubble show" a few years ago. This was one of those series whose fate always seemed like it could go either way come renewal time. Ratings were decent, but not huge, buzz was light, quality ranged from decent to mediocre. It was not the sort of show that people were breathlessly recapping the next day, talking about on Twitter, or writing about in publications. If it died, you probably wouldn't be shocked and if it came back long enough, you'd like wonder, "Whoa, that show's still on?"

The show went on for several seasons longer than common sense would seem to have dictated and do you know what a huge factor in that was? The showrunner's collaborative nature with his network and studio. He'd come in the first week of the season with a roadmap for the first 13 episodes, including the main characters' storylines and the new characters they intended to introduce. "Here it is," he'd say. "This is the season, I'm open to your feedback."

And he was. Better still, because he was a good manager of his writing staff and his production team, that show was a well-oiled machine. Scripts were delivered on time, his directors made their days, and he spent his budget wisely.  The show rarely, if ever, had overages, and he knew how to rob Peter to pay Paul if there was something on the show he felt was worth the extra expense.

The number one rule of film or TV is "do not cost them extra money or time." If you can pull that off, a network or studio will generally be far more inclined to loosen the leash creatively.  And when you do have creative differences, pick your battles. You cannot fight a network on every point.  More significantly, if tensions get to the point where such discussions more frequently resemble a battle as opposed to a creative discussion between two parties who both want the show to succeed, you've already kind of lost.

They have the money so they get to set the rules. The smart showrunner accepts this as a reality and by being a team player who's not causing trouble for them elsewhere, can make disputes into a negotiation rather than a standoff.

Network executives are covering several shows, all of which become the standard by which they are judged. When cuts are being made at the end of the season and your show ends up on the bubble with another show, it might well be the show that was the bigger nuisance that gets the axe. Someone has to go - so it might as well be the show whose creative "genius" prompts the thought "Life's too short to spend it fighting this guy."

Or to put it more succinctly, don't be that guy who ends up making everyone else's jobs harder. I promise you it'll hurt you in the long run.

If you cannot collaborate with others, if you consider yourself socially awkward and fear having to speak up in meetings with executives, if you cannot tolerate working within limitations or being beholden to creative input from others, then a career in television is not for you.

And let's be honest, if you want to work in film, those traits are equally essential. If you want to write without limitation and socialization, become a novelist.

The Black List announces a partnership with Fox Broadcasting to discover network television writers

The Black List has partnered with the Fox Broadcasting Company.  Press release below:

The Black List is pleased to announce our first partnership with a broadcast television network.

Today we begin work with the Fox Broadcasting Company to help discover television drama writers for current and future FOX productions.

"As we build a year-round slate of high-quality programming, we are constantly looking for fresh voices that break out of the pack," said Terence Carter, Executive Vice President, Drama Development & Programming. "Given the Black List's impressive track record in features, they are the perfect partner for us as we seek out new drama talent."

Beginning today, writers with pilots hosted on the Black List website who have not made more than $500K for script or teleplay work in aggregate over the last ten years may opt into consideration via the site. The deadline for opting in is May 1, 2014 at 11:59 PM PT.

Shortly thereafter, the Black List will select a short list of five writers based on the data gathered about each script during its time hosted on the website. Each finalist will then provide a professional resume and one page personal statement, which will be reviewed along with their selected original work by Fox executives.

To be considered, simply opt in during the script upload process or on your My Scripts page.

For additional information click here.

For additional submission requirements, click here.
 
For the submission agreement, click here.


This joins the Black List's previous partnerships with Walt Disney Studios, TBS and TNT, the Sundance Institute Workshop, the Cassian Elwes Independent Screenwriting Fellowship,  and the blind deal offered via Warner Bros, as the newest of the opportunities it's made available to users. 

Webshow: Using a spec pilot to break into TV writing

This week's video answers a reader question about how viable it is to break into TV writing using a spec pilot.

Interview with film and TV writer Jeffrey Lieber - Part 6: The Bitter Questions

Parts 1 and 2 - How did you get an agent? and First sales and going into TV.
Part 3 - The early genesis of Lost
Part 4 - The process of developing a show
Part 5 - Cable TV vs. Network TV

Our week-long interview with Jeff Lieber (Lost, Miami Medical, Tuck Everlasting, Crash and Burn) concludes as Jeff takes his turn in the hot seat with "The Bitter Questions."  Learn what Jeff considers his proudest and his most self-indulgent moments in writing, among others.


And if you're curious about how other writers handled the same questions, check out this handy playlist that houses all of those segments.

Interview with film and TV writer Jeffrey Lieber - Part 5: Cable TV vs. Network TV

Parts 1 and 2 - How did you get an agent? and First sales and going into TV.
Part 3 - The early genesis of Lost
Part 4 - The process of developing a show

Our talk with writer Jeff Lieber (Lost, Miami Medical, Tuck Everlasting) continues.  In this segment, Jeff talks the difference between developing a show for network TV vs. cable networks.  He also discuses how he goes about developing a show that draws on real life events and people versus shows with more fantastical elements.



Find Jeff on Twitter at @JeffLieber.

Part 6 - The Bitter Questions 

Interview with film and TV writer Jeffrey Lieber - Part 4: The process of developing a show

Parts 1 and 2 - How did you get an agent? and First sales and going into TV.
Part 3 - The early genesis of Lost

In this segment, Jeff Lieber discusses the process of pitching a TV series and what he feels goes into making a successful pilot. By way of explanation, he tells us a little about his new series "Crash and Burn," coming soon to FX.


Follow Jeff on Twitter

Part 5 - Cable TV vs. Network TV
Part 6 - The Bitter Questions 

Interview with film and TV writer Jeffrey Lieber - Part 3: The early genesis of Lost

Parts 1 and 2 - How did you get an agent? and First sales and going into TV.

If you look up Jeff Lieber's credits, it will probably leap out at you that he's credited as a co-creator of Lost.  However, not only did Jeff never write for the series, he never worked with fellow co-creators J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof. So what was Jeff's role in the genesis of the series?  What did his version of the Lost pilot contain?  Click on the video for the answers.



Find Jeff on Twitter.

Part 4 - The process of developing a show
Part 5 - Cable TV vs. Network TV
Part 6 - The Bitter Questions 

Interview with film and TV writer Jeffrey Lieber - Part 1 & 2: "How did you get an agent?"

This week, it is my honor to be interviewing Jeffrey Lieber, a writer who's been very active in both film and television.  To some of you, his name might be most familiar as a co-creator of Lost.  Others of you might know him as the writer of the film adaptation of Tuck Everlasting.  For many years now, Jeff has been a working TV writer.  In addition to creating Miami Medical, he's also worked on The Whole Truth, Chase, Pan Am and Necessary Roughness.  His latest project is an FX drama called Crash and Burn, which is centered on the lives of stuntmen in the pre-CGI era of filmmaking.

Jeff is also known around the blogsphere for his list of 200 "Showrunner Rules," which are handily archived here thanks to fellow blog warrior Scott Myers of Go Into The Story.

And don't forget to follow Jeff on Twitter.

In our first segment, I dive right in and ask Jeff how he got his first agent.


In our second segment, Jeff discusses his first script sale, his first produced film, and his shift from features into television.



Come back every day this week for the remaining parts of the interview!

Part 3 - The early genesis of Lost 
Part 4 - The process of developing a show
Part 5 - Cable TV vs. Network TV
Part 6 - The Bitter Questions 

Anatomy of a TV spec - Don't Trust the B--- in Apt 23 - Part II

Picking up from yesterday, I had decided to do a spec episode of Don't Trust the B---- In Apartment 23 as my submission to the WB Writers Workshop.  Now I just had to come up with a plot.

From the moment the series began, I had great affinity for James.  I could probably write for his character forever.  I love writing blowhards, but I really enjoy writing for blowhards who are completely obvious to their own assholery.  Lock me in a room for a week, and I can probably come back with a season's worth of James stories.  So it came as no shock that I quickly had a James story that felt very much in the spirit of the show.

The show's pilot made it clear that unlike some celebrities who run from the thing that made them famous, James milks Dawson's Creek for all it's worth.  Or at least he does when it results in him bedding women who grew up with crushes on Dawson.  It was pretty well-established on the show that James gets a lot of action by trading on that nostalgia.  But there's a flaw in relying too much on that association.  I'll let James explain...

INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY

James enters. Strides over to counter.
 
JAMES
Enough about your problems, my turn.
 
JUNE
You just got here!
 
JAMES
I got complacent. I should have seen it coming.
 
JUNE
(weary)
Go on...
 
JAMES
A blind spot in my demographic appeal. “Creek” nostalgia locked up
the 25-39 demo, DWTS made me the number three sexual fantasy of the
40-plus crowd and my one-man “Curious George” show is planting
the seeds for the next generation of Beekers.
 
A guy tries to nudge in.
 
GUY
Hey, can I just order a--

James turns with a dramatic flourish, pushing the guy away without even seeming to notice him.
 
JAMES
In doing so, I neglected the current 14-19 demographic. Do you
know what that will do to my sex life in a few years?
 
JUNE
You’d have to sleep with women your own age?
 
JAMES
(horrified)
Exactly! I have to fix this.

Basically, James flies into a panic when he meets a hot 18 year-old who's completely ignorant of Dawson's Creek.  So his goal for the episode is to find a way to stay relevant to the next generation.  In and of itself, that's not a particularly unique problem, but the way James process and deals with the problem is entirely in keeping with his character.

I knew I was on the right track when everyone I told this plot to - including an actor who appeared on the series - responded with, "Oh I can TOTALLY see James doing that!"

But James is just a supporting character on the series.  He might have his own B-story in every ep, but at that point in the show it was never the A-story unless it involved Chloe or June.  Plus, the goal of a TV spec is to show how well you can mimic the actual series.  For that reason, it's a bad idea to center your TV spec on guest characters or supporting characters.  The stars of your show are the ones who need to drive the story.  I had to come up with a plot for Chloe and June and it needed to work with James's storyline.

During one brainstorming session I reflected back on my attempt to write a Revenge spec and it made me realize that both Chloe and Emily Thorne could be considered sociopaths and masterminds.  It led me to the notion that I could have Chloe Revenge-ing someone.  I went through a couple versions of what this could be, but I kept hitting the same stumbling block.

The problem is June.  Having Chloe pull a Revenge takedown presented an opportunity to fill in some of her past, but it left June with nothing to do but be the tag-along wagging her finger in disapproval at every mad scheme Chloe set up.  The real challenge of writing June is to not make her a killjoy.  She's bright and perky, but that quickly gets boring - especially when it feels like she's stomping on Chloe's fun.

Eventually it became clear to me that the only way June getting in Chloe's way was going to work would be if the story came from June and Chloe's scheme kept threatening whatever June was trying to accomplish.  Several episodes in the first season had played with this dynamic and after I started writing, the second season went back to this well with a fair amount of frequency.  I was a little disappointed that I was falling into a well-established pattern on the show, but after exploring a number of other avenues, I understood why alternate structures were not natural fits for the show.

Shifting the focus to June made a number of things fall into place.  The idea became that June would encounter several people who wronged her in her past and Chloe would take it upon herself to extract an Emily Thorne-like poetic vengeance on them, all while June attempts to abort this scheme she never wanted in the first place.

Because I wanted James's story to intersect with June's, I couldn't send the girls to a high school or college reunion.  June's past had to come to her, so I decided that some of June's old sorority friends would come to town for a wedding.  Since they needed to be evil, it made sense to me that they would make June a member of the wedding party so as to take advantage of her hyper-responsibility in planning everything.

Basically, they wanted a stooge to do all the grunt work - which I revealed was the dynamic in college. Through flashbacks I piled on some other Mean Girls-ish crap.  Fortunately, some of my friends are frenemies with some horrible harpies.  Every now and then these viral entities have snuck into our social group, wreaked havoc and eventually been expunged.

What I'm getting at is - between my female friends sorority experiences and a lot of ex-girlfriends of friends, I had more than enough to work with here.  Having known plenty of "users" over the years, this stuff practically wrote itself.

Eventually what emerged is that a cousin of the bride-to-be would be eighteen and totally perplexed that all of the other bridesmaids freak out at the discovery that June is friends with "Dawson."  James is so shaken by this that he passes up several easy lays in order to try woo the eighteen year-old, seeing her as the litmus test for his future demographic appeal.  This worked out neatly because while June leads the bachelorettes on a night of wild clubbing, I could always cut away to the underage cousin (barred from the debauchery) as she dealt with James.

Chloe's role in the story would be that she seemingly fits in with the Mean Girls, only to be a Trojan Horse that takes them down from within.  I had a few reversals written into this, and was rather dismayed when a couple episodes from later in the second season would pretty much play the same card.  On the other hand, it meant that I was writing them in-character.

I also came up with a C-story that involved the creeper neighbor Eli and I was actually pretty proud of using him in a way that both was true to his character and was an angle that was completely unexplored by the series.  I had a lot of balls in the air, but they all seemed to be crossing into each other's orbits in the right way.

After a few drafts, my biggest problem still was June.  While she'd probably be the wacky friend on any other show - on THIS show, June is the straight man.  Somebody's gotta be the killjoy of the group just to give the party animals someone to push against.  In practical terms, this meant that all of the good lines kept ending up in James, Chloe or even Eli's mouth.  Getting June to be funny within the parameters of this episode and still be "June" was probably my biggest challenge.

In the end, I was pretty happy with what I wrote, though it definitely was a much harder needle to thread than any original project I'd taken on.  It's really hard to nail the voice of a show while demonstrating that you're not just a really good imitator - that you're bringing something of yourself to the table.

This is why I still very much believe that it's best to put your energy into original pilots and screenplays.  The only avenue where a spec episode will really do you some good are with these sorts of fellowships and workshops.  They can be great ways to break in, don't get me wrong. but hopefully what comes across in this post is just how many moving parts there are in your typical TV spec.

And now - since Apt 23 was canceled, I get to go through this all over again with a new show if I intend to apply next year!

You can download the spec episode here.

Happy birthday, Homicide!

Today is the 20th anniversary of one of the greatest shows in television history, Homicide: Life on the Street.  You know all those people who annoy you by telling you you HAVE to watch The Wire because it's just the greatest show ever?  Well, I'm like the hipster version of those guys because many of the creatives behind The Wire were also behind Homicide, and I was a Homicide fanatic long before The Wire was even a glimmer in David Simon's eye.

Speaking of David Simon, the series was adapted from his non-fiction book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, covering a year he spent shadowing the detectives of the Baltimore Homicide Unit. It's a fascinating examination of the officers who "speak for the dead," and a great insight into the sorts of people who are drawn to that line of work. It's easy to see how someone would have read this and concluded there was enough depth to sustain an entire series.

There really had been no show like Homicide on TV.  It focuses on murder police, but is more character-driven than procedural.  The characters grew and changed to a greater degree than most of the principals who drive the Law & Orders and CSIs.  Visually, it was distinct too, shot on 16mm with handheld cameras and often with jarring jump-cuts.

And the writing... If you want to see a master class in how to write a pilot, check out the premiere episode "Gone For Goode," written by Paul Attanasio  In the span of 45 minutes, a fairly large ensemble is introduced and if you don't have a handle on each of the characters by the end, you haven't been paying attention.  The characters are so well-defined through their actions and dialogue that you'd swear this was an episode deep into the first or second season, from a point where the writers really had the show figured out.

And then there were scenes in "The Box" - the interrogation room.  Andre Braugher frequently shined in these moments as Frank Pembleton, master interrogator.  This scene is the first time we see him in action.



But the show wasn't all drama. It was frequently funny, sometimes even funnier than the sitcoms of the day. It was sort of like if Quentin Tarantino did a dialogue polish on Law & Order. Frequently, the show would lapse into funny exchanges that often revealed much about the characters and their philosophies.  It wasn't unusual for the show to take a few minutes and let Richard Belzer's Munch drop a new conspiracy theory on the squad, or have a few cops take an... unorthodox approach to getting a witness to talk...



And then just as frequently, it would hit you in the gut.

One episode that made a huge impression on me when I first saw it was a third-season episode called "Crosetti."  In it, Ned Beatty's Detective Bolander is given the unenviable task of investigating the death of one of the squad's own, Det. Crosetti.  Crosetti's body is fished out of the harbor in what is almost certainly a suicide.  Largely out of respect to Crosetti's partner, Meldrick Lewis (the fantastic Clark Johnson, who graces the screen too little these days), Lt. Giardello agrees to let the case be treated as "wrongful death."

The episode deals with the entire squad's reactions to the loss.  Bolander is frustrated by everyone's denial that their comrade killed himself; Giardello clashes with the bosses, who deny permission for an honor guard at the funeral; Pembleton and Bayliss provide moments of lightness as they deal with arranging the catering for the memorial service.

But it's Lewis's denial that forms the emotional core of the story, and it brings him into conflict with Bolander.  As Bolander pursues an answer he can never get ("Why did he do it?"), Lewis does his best to get to Crosetti's friends first and block them from saying anything that would support the suicide theory.  And that's where we pick this up...



Lewis's breakdown gets me every time I watch it.  The way you can almost see him feel the room spin around him, the undignified way his voice breaks as he finally gives in to the truth, and then his collapse in Bolander's bear hug.  These aren't touchy-feely guys, and so when we see this kind of display from them, it just guts you.

I've talked before about how I ran a half-hour drama series for two years in college.  It sort of aspired to be a WB-type show, though I'll admit that our ambitions often exceeded our grasp.  Part way through the first season, I started planting seeds for a later storyline that would see one character ending up in a dark place emotionally and the other characters coming to her rescue.

I presented the idea to my fellow writers, and no matter how many times I denied it, they were convinced I'd been inspired by a different "serious" episode of a show.  See, Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "The Body" had aired just a few weeks prior to this and they were all "Oh, you want to write your version of 'The Body.'"

No. That's also a great hour of television, but if I'm being honest, I don't want to write "The Body." But I'd die a happy man if I ever write anything as masterfully done as "Crosetti."  It manages to be a powerful and standout episode without feeling too aggressively a departure from the norm.  "The Body" is clearly a very different animal from most Buffys, but "Crosetti" is pure Homicide, through and through.

If you want to see how to write great characters, watch Homicide.  It was a show ahead of its time, and 20 years later, it still feels unlike few other shows on TV.

Interview with TV writer Liz Tigelaar, creator of "Life Unexpected" - Part 13: The Bitter Questions

Part 1 - Breaking in as an assistant
Part 2 - First Staff Writer Job on "American Dreams"
Part 3 - How Do I Get an Agent?
Part 4 - Selling a Pilot
Part 5 - Personal Themes in Writing
Part 6 - Genesis of "Life Unexpected"
Part 7 - First-Time Showrunner
Part 8 - Developing the second year of LUX
Part 9 - Dealing with network notes
Part 10 - Controversial LUX storylines
Part 11 - LUX lives on
Part 12 - Network overall deal, working on Once Upon a Time and Revenge

I confess, I'm a big fan of Inside the Actor's Studio.  It's my goal with these interviews to hopefully explore the craft of writing as well as James Lipton probes his subjects on the craft of acting.  To that end, I plan on concluding each interview with "The Bitter Questions," a series of serious and silly questions that will hopefully allow the writers to reveal something unexpected about themselves.

This segment also has what might be my favorite moment from Liz Tigelaar.  See if you can guess what it is.


And that's a wrap on Liz Tigelaar!  I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did.  Huge thanks goes out to Liz for being so generous with her time AND being willing to put up with being interviewed by a puppet.  You can follow Liz on Twitter at @LizTigelaar.

Also, I highly recommend two Nerdist podcasts on which Liz appears.  There's a little bit of overlap in the discussions there and in this interview, but because I'd heard one of these and saw a report on the other before I interviewed Liz, I made a conscious effort to not ask Liz too many of the same questions.

This podcast also features writers Robert Hewitt Wolfe (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Alphas) and Dana Gould (The Simpsons.)  There's a lot of great writing insight, but also a lot of funny moments among the group too.  It's an hour and twenty minutes, but it feels like half that.

Meanwhile, this podcast is a recording of a panel from the ATX Television Festival earlier this year and in addition to Liz, it features Jane Espenson (Once Upon a Time; Husbands; BSG; Buffy) and Erica Messer (showrunner, Criminal Minds).  The topic: "Women on TV."  Yes, they wade into the issue of gender politics in Hollywood.

Interview with TV writer Liz Tigelaar, creator of "Life Unexpected" - Part 12: Network overall deal, working on Once Upon a Time and Revenge

Part 1 - Breaking in as an assistant
Part 2 - First Staff Writer Job on "American Dreams"
Part 3 - How Do I Get an Agent?
Part 4 - Selling a Pilot
Part 5 - Personal Themes in Writing
Part 6 - Genesis of "Life Unexpected"
Part 7 - First-Time Showrunner
Part 8 - Developing the second year of LUX
Part 9 - Dealing with network notes
Part 10 - Controversial LUX storylines
Part 11 - LUX lives on


How about some more business oriented questions? In this segment, Liz explains what it means for a writer to have an "overall deal" with a network.  If you read the trades, you may have seen that term crop up a lot.

The other interesting apsect of Liz's answer is the way she explains how a show can evolve beyond its original conception as other members of the writing staff contribute their voices and imprint their perspective onto the show's voice.

Further, Liz explains the difference between writing on Once Upon a Time and writing on Revenge, and how working on both shows forced her to come at stories in a way unlike her usual process.



Part 13 - The Bitter Questions

Interview with TV writer Liz Tigelaar, creator of "Life Unexpected" - Part 11: LUX lives on

Part 1 - Breaking in as an assistant
Part 2 - First Staff Writer Job on "American Dreams"
Part 3 - How Do I Get an Agent?
Part 4 - Selling a Pilot
Part 5 - Personal Themes in Writing
Part 6 - Genesis of "Life Unexpected"
Part 7 - First-Time Showrunner
Part 8 - Developing the second year of LUX
Part 9 - Dealing with network notes
Part 10 - Controversial LUX storylines


This was one segment of my Liz Tigelaar interview that very nearly didn't make the final cut, but the more I thought about it, the more I realize it speaks to one element that every writer should strive to bring to their work: passion.

I've followed Liz on Twitter for a while, and one thing I noticed is that in the year that followed LUX's cancellation, Liz and the cast tweeted each other frequently, often referencing the fun they had on the show, or lamenting that they weren't still working together every day.  It was a little like seeing an incredibly close-knit group of high school or college friends dealing with the fact that they all had to go off and live their own lives now.

My own observation is that that sadness underscores the really deep connection that all involved had with the material and with each other.  I don't get the sense that this was "just a job" for any of them.  Sometimes writers and actors tire of their material and when the end comes, they're ready to move on.  Or there may be writers who can churn out episode after episode with the same characters, but are dispassionate about the show.  Maybe they're good at figuring out what sells, or what people are willing to watch and they

But the best writers give all their heart to the material, whether it's a series, a feature film, or even a short film.  When you talk to Liz Tigelaar about Life Unexpected, there's no doubt that she loved that show.  In fact, as I say to her at the start of this clip, I wouldn't be surprised if the show still lives on in her head, with seasons full of untold stories about those characters.



I hope that every one of you gets the joy from your writing that Liz clearly did from hers.  And if you don't, ask yourself why.  If you can't connect to your own work that deeply, how is anyone else going to be able to?

Part 12 - Network overall deal, working on Once Upon a Time and Revenge
Part 13 - The Bitter Questions