Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Writers' Assistant Rules - the complete list

As I've been working as a Writers' Assistant for a while now, I've started compiling a list of Writers' Assistant Rules. If this sounds a little familiar to you, I'll cop to having been inspired by Jeffrey Liber's Showrunner Rules, which you can find here.

This started as a thread on Twitter. You can find the original tweet here:



Every now and then I add a few more rules, but I've hit most of the obvious points. My list isn't nearly as comprehensive as Jeff's, owing to the fact that there's a lot less to a Writers' Assistant job than running an entire show. Still this is a good way for me to outline the most important responsibilities I have in my job.

If you'd rather see the Rules transcribed, just keep reading:


I have two universal Writers Assistant rules:

1) Photograph the Board every night.

2) in an appendix to the daily notes, I always include a transcript of the Board as it existed at day’s end. It’s a good quick reference if someone doesn’t want to read the full discussion

The third rule is that every room will operate slightly differently so be adaptable. But if you’re lucky, you get feedback.

On my last show, week 2, the Co-Ep sent me a late night email - subject: “Your notes.”

My first thought was “I’m in trouble,” but when I opened it, it continued: “Have been spectacular as I’m going through my story area. Really clear, you have everything down in an organized fashion that shows how nicely you understand story telling.”

I let go of a lot of anxiety about the notes after that.

A few weeks later, the SP had a specific request about how she wanted the notes for her ep handled (I don’t remember exactly, which suggests it was easily accommodated. The point is - make sure there’s a dialogue so you’re serving them.)

Btw, I still have that email because of Rule 4: save EVERY email.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 5: let the Writers’ PA see how you work, even if just for an afternoon. Then, have them take notes, even just for a bit. Eventually they WILL end up covering for you and you want them prepared and confident

Writers’ Assistant Rule 6: taught to me by aforementioned Co-EP, print out the notes each day and file them in a binder that you keep within reach at all time. MUCH easier to hunt through when you need to refer to an old discussion

This should be higher than Writers’ Assistant Rule 7, but... when the Showrunner says something - especially a final ruling on a story discussion - BOLD it. That way, if people read nothing else, they will have that important info jumping off the page at them

Writers’ Assistant Rule 8 (optional): we had one wall that was just for breakdowns of every ep of the season (so we could track where upcoming plot points would land.) At the bottom of each episode’s column, I listed which recurring players appeared

This was so if someone had a 7-episode contract, we could quickly see how many appearances they had left if we thought this might be an ep they could sit out.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 9: be early. I often beat the Writers PA to the office. Rarely did something demand my attention before the room assembled, but it was an easy time to talk to some of the staff. You hear a lot of great stories that way.

Writers Assistant Rule 10: you will never regret being familiar with the resumes of your writers. This may include being aware of which showrunners they have worked for before.

Writers Assistant Rule 11: since showrunners are often in and out of the room and the rest of the staff rotates to being on-script and on-set, you may be the only person in The Room every day. Recognize that responsibility and become the resource The Room needs.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 12: I’ve sat at both the table using a laptop and at my own desk with a desktop. I actually prefered the desk. Keeping me at an arm’s length meant I couldn’t throw my two cents in on a whim and saved me from making a LOT of bad pitches.

(Note: I said “a LOT” not “all of them.”) Also, watching from a distance gives you a better vantage point on the room dynamics.

Writers Assistant Rule 13: the Room is closed, the office is dead. Be careful about being the guy or girl who’s always asking to leave ultra early. And if you ask and get a “No,” DO NOT be pissy about having to kill time in a quiet office.

(Rule inspired by someone I know who’s dealing with an assistant asking to leave mid-afternoon so they can go to the gym, and who went over my friend’s head to ask after being told “we need you here.” Consider this a good Assistant rule in general.)

Writers’ Assistant Rule 14: if you’ve hit the part in the season where the room is closed and half the office is out. Be generous and split the early departures with the other support staff. Cover for the PA and SA so they can leave early some of those days.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 15: if a non-writing EP emails asking to be on the room notes distro, report the request to your showrunner and verify permission before letting them get the daily notes.

Writers Assistant Rule 16: sensitive topic - when crediting ideas to specific staff members, be JUDICIOUS. You might end up inadvertently making people fear the notes are keeping score, and thus upset when one of their ideas isn’t cited by name.

(Obviously this doesn’t apply to the showrunner. And there will be exceptions where it might help to know, “this is a Rick pitch,” but again... exercise care with this.)

Writers Assistant Rule 17 (failed): know the correct spelling AND pronunciation of all characters and institution names on your show on Day 1. Otherwise, Week 5 someone ELSE will Google them and realize since they’ve been pronouncing it wrong, YOU have been spelling it wrong.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 18: you don’t HAVE to keep notes for the fake show your staff breaks when they’re sick of their real show... but you probably won’t regret it either.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 19: take note of who on staff is NOT meshing with the show and ask yourself why. Is it their personality? Their work habits? Their tone? Find the show’s Goofus and Gallant and learn accordingly.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 20: the room often starts off with bullshitting about the previous night’s shows. If you watch what the room watches, this is a chance to participate. Factor that in the night before when deciding what to timeshift.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 20A: in that scenario make sure someone ELSE is the first person to draw blood on another show. You never know who on staff knows someone on that show.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 21: in general, wait for your bosses to ASK to read your specs. At the same time, make sure they know you want to be a writer. They have to be aware of your goals to help you with them.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 22: if you got this job at age 23 because your uncle is Bob Paramount and the show had no choice, do NOT fuck up the opportunity to learn from the showrunner and staff and DO NOT take this access for granted.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 23 - if there’s a useless Johnny Paramount (nephew to Bob Paramount) on the support staff, these assholes usually defeat themselves, but documenting their screw-ups can’t hurt because when they implode, you might want receipts.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 24 - when you can, use Fade In. The staff will probably be supplied Final Draft, but spread the Fade In gospel for the inevitable Final Draft Crash.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 25 - as @matthewfederman and @GennHutchison demonstrate in this thread, there are some MAJOR room issues (like recording) that are NOT universal at all. (But "Writers Assistant Guidelines" doesn’t sound sexy)

Writers’ Assistant Rule 26 - always have AT LEAST two specs in your portfolio ready for professional eyes if asked. Ideally, together they should paint a consistent picture of the kind of writer you are.

Writers’ Assistant Rule 26A - this also goes for episode pitches for the show you’re assisting on. Be prepared in case your moment comes unexpectedly

Writers’ Assistant Rule 27 - if you’re doing social for the show and posting pics of The Room, ALWAYS triple-check you have blurred The Board or that there are no spoilers for upcoming episodes in anything that appears in frame

Writers' Assistant Rule 28 - Tempting as it is, do NOT murder the Staff Writer who interrupts the showrunner with a tangential pitch as the showrunner was clearly seconds into their "let's call it a day" wrap-up

Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Learning from my own journey as a writer

I've been thinking a lot about my own journey as a writer and what I can take from it to apply as lessons to some of you who are just starting out.

My first feature script began as an assignment for a screenwriting class in 2002. By that point I'd made a number of short films and had even run a campus TV series, where 7 of the scripts were mine. So I already had some experience translating my ideas to the page before this screenwriting assignment. I remember this was a story idea I'd had ever since my senior year of high school. At the time, I thought I had enough for a 30 minute short film (I had no idea the shorts I'd be making in school were to be closer to 5-10 min at most.) Over the next four years I kept expanding the idea with red herrings and twists until my treatment became longer and longer.

I vividly recall that I had that document in front of me one day as my professor started lecturing about the three-act structure and how most narratives we knew fit into that paradigm. I quite clearly remember scanning the document until I found the moment that would be my INCITING INCIDENT. I put a star next to that beat. Then I drew a line across the page where the division between Act One and Act Two would fit. Then another line at the midpoint, and a third line at the climax of Act Two. Just from eyeballing it, I could see that in terms of pacing, those moments were landing more or less precisely where they would in a basic three-act film.

I hadn't used any kind of Save the Cat template when I broke the story. I wasn't thinking about three acts or plot points - but I had internalized so much about films that I essentially did it on instinct. Recalling several of the other stories that came out of that class, I know that isn't always a given.

In this post, I talk about the script I had under my arm when I moved to LA, and just so you don't think I'm saying I had it all figured out: It was written on Microsoft Word and was in Times New Roman. Fortunately on my first internship a fellow aspiring took me aside and explained how I needed to fix it so that it matched industry standards.

Once I did that, the script ballooned an additional 18 pages in length. Oops. I immediately set to work finding what I could cut to make it more manageable. In an embarrassingly short amount of time, I'd taken not 20, but almost 30 pages out of the script. This leaner version was what I presented to the people at my internship and when they came back with notes, I took them to heart and did a decently sized rewrite. So for that reason, I log this as my 2003 script.

Thus, including that script, since 2003 I have written:
  • 9 feature scripts (two of them with partners) 
  • 4 original comedy pilots (one with a partner.) 
  • 4 original drama pilots (one with a partner.)
  • 6 spec episodes. 
That's a grand total of 23 scripts in 17 years, and if you look at the last 10 years, the numbers get even better.

Since 2009 the tally is:
  • 5 features 
  • 4 comedy pilots 
  • 4 drama pilots 
  • 5 spec episodes. 
Or 18 scripts in 10 years.

How many scripts should I write?

You will probably not sell your first script. You likely will not be hired off of your first script. And if you are lucky enough to get meetings off of your first script, the very first question you will get is "What else have you got?" soon followed by "What are you working on now?" When you get that first script to wear you want it, start planning your next one.

I have seen professional writers say that you should be able to turn out a new script in three months. I don't find that to be unreasonable. But that does not mean they are saying you need four new scripts a year. That's insanity. If you're just starting out - set the goal of one spec script a year. BUT that means that by the end of those 12 months, it's in its finished state. In other words - three months for the first draft and the remaining nine months to get notes, do major rewrites and really, really hone it. You should be able to do this and maintain a pretty good work/life balance too.

I personally get suspicious when I hear overeager writers say they churn out four new specs a year. Don't get so caught up that you end up valuing quantity over quality. Early on, no one's giving you any awards for how fast you work. For that matter, the learning curve on your first several scripts is pretty steep. As you rewrite and get feedback on your first couple scripts, the experience will teach you things about writing that can be applied to your later scripts. You need room for that sort of introspection and self-education to play out.

Walk, then run. It doesn't impress people when you say, "I'm on my fifth spec this year!"

Building the portfolio

When I started writing, I gave zero thought to how I was "branding" myself. I didn't see myself as "just" a horror writer or "just" a comedy writer. All I knew is that I'd get an idea for a story I really wanted to tell and I'd follow that muse. Looking backwards, I can see that the kinds of scripts I wrote were almost always a reaction to the LAST script I wrote. After spending a year in the world of a romantic comedy, that part of my brain was tapped out, but I had a GREAT idea for a genre-bending superhero courtroom thriller. And when I finished that, the next thing idea that sounded cool to me was a sequel to THE WIZARD OF OZ that was more in the tone of NARNIA. (This was JUST before the trend of mining existing IP really got big again.)

I was writing things that interested me, taking my varied influences and giving them a new spin, but none of those scripts fit well together. I tried to defend this at the time by saying I was a "genre-mixer." I'd take the concept we'd seen a billion times and try to subvert it or give it a new angle by adding another genre's tropes to it. It meant I was playing in a lot of different kinds of worlds and styles, but it confused people about the kind of writer I was.

Yes, there was the challenge of how none of this really fit in a neat box - and I can already hear the complaints of the special snowflakes about how Hollywood doesn't know how to recognize originality and only rewards mediocrity and the same old ideas. Yet if I'm truly honest with myself, I'm not heartbroken that none of those films got made. Genre-mixing often confuses an audience unless it's done very deftly. Get it wrong, and it's a fish with wings. That's what you get when you pitch "Superman meets Primal Fear."

Again, this is not me saying DON'T do this. sometimes it can help you find your own voice when you just follow where the muse takes you. Experiment! Mix it up! But at the end of the day, know that you are making it easier on yourself if you have the material that brands you as the right guy (or girl) for a particular kind of project.

I always describe that as making sure that your submissions tell a story about the kind of writer you are.

I'll give you an example - last year I applied to the Disney / ABC Writing Program. They require two script submissions - one original pilot and one spec episode of an existing show. These samples must match in terms of being both one-hours or both 30-minute shows. In other words, don't write a sitcom and submit STRANGER THINGS as your spec episode. My spec pilot was a dark teen drama thriller and my spec episode was a 13 REASONS WHY. They complimented each other - there was no confusion about the kinds of stories I could tell, about the tone I could play in, about the kinds of characters I could write for.

When I had the opportunity to submit to a showrunner recently, I gave them basically the same submissions except that I swaped out my "proper" 13 REASONS WHY spec for the one I wrote about last year and posted publicly. I did this because during my sit-down with the showrunner, the topic of that script came up and they thought it sounded like a rather clever idea. I think the gambit worked because they enjoyed the script quite a lot - more than I think they would have with the "playing it safe" version.

My most recent one hour drama pilot script started as a half-hour comedy spec pilot I wrote about nine years ago. It was a case where I had what I thought was a pretty unique concept and I leaned into the humor of it. But if you know me, I'm more of a drama writer, and the more I worked in TV drama, the more this half-hour stuck out like a sore thumb among my samples. Eventually as a thought exercise, I pondered - "What about that... but as a drama?"

By the time I was done, the lead of the comedy pilot was reduced to AT LEAST the third lead of the drama. The main POV character was someone who didn't even exist in the earliest version of the script and the second lead was a character who was on the second tier of characters in the original version. I think the script is MUCH better, but it is completely unlike the idea I started with about a decade ago. If you were to read the two, you'd definitely see the relationship and the common DNA, but it's crazy to realize how much of what was load-bearing on the first pilot got completely blown away on the second one.

The changes that got me there mostly didn't happen all at once. It was an ever-increasing number of "What ifs" that I flung at the original concept, each one opening doors that led me to further What ifs that hadn't occurred to me before. I'm not always the best person at drastically reinventing the wheel on some rewrites. This experience is one I'll reflect back on when I need that extra push to REALLY shake things up.

Ultimately, what specifically works for me might not work for you, but I'm a big believer in the value of self-reflection. If something's not working in your process, the answers can usually be found within.

Monday, August 19, 2019

Ten years on Twitter and everything that's come with that

Today is my 10-year Twitter anniversary, and it arrives just days after I crossed the 48,000 follower mark. That's really mind-boggling to me. I wouldn't normally celebrate something like a social media anniversary, but this is a case where just about everything I've achieved professionally in the last decade traces right back to Twitter.

Every single job I've had in TV came from a Twitter contact I made in the business.

Every single interview for my YouTube channel was the result of a twitter relationship.

There are too many real life friends to count that I have made through twitter, though at this point, I'd say it's easily two dozen and probably closer to three dozen.

And then there's the really cool stuff. I've gotten to know writers whose work I've followed for years. I've had drinks and meals with a few of my favorite actors. I've gotten to meet and spend time with creators whose work has been a part of my life as far back as my early childhood. At one point, I even had a meeting with one of my all-time idols. It's not just cool - it's incredibly surreal.

So while there are a large number of interactions that are and will remain merely social media relationships, there are real, substantial contacts I have cultivated there, both personal and professional. When people ask me for advice on getting started, "Get on Twitter and follow people you're interested in" is always at the top of my list.

This doesn't mean you should expect that within a month all the doors of Hollywood will be open to you, and you shouldn't look at it just as a pipeline to everyone you consider successful in Hollywood. Get to know people who are on your level or just a little higher. You're all gonna rise in this business together and more than likely you'll be in a position to help each other.

Have something to offer the conversation. My follower list grew because I had content from the blog that was drawing people to my feed. What I wrote was of interest to people, and therefore they saw value in following me. My tweets soon became an extension of that, which only helped increase awareness of me. As long as I'm contributing to the conversation on Twitter, I keep being discovered by new people and develop stronger relationships with those I know already.

It opened a lot of doors for me, and if you know how to play your cards right, it can open doors for you too.

Just be smart about it and don't be like that weirdo who in his first interactions with me directly insulted what I choose to tweet about and then since then has sent a half-dozen tweets asking for advice or help. I block assholes and Trump supporters mercilessly. So tweet smartly.

You can find me on Twitter at @BittrScrptReadr