Showbiz 101: A TV Showrunner Explains How to Be a Staff Writer

Last updated on: February 7, 2015 at 11:47 pm by Kate O'Hare

Showbiz 101: A TV Showrunner Explains How to Be a Staff Writer 2015-02-07T23:47:19-08:00 Kate O'Hare

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On Jan. 30, Javier Grillo-Marxuach, a veteran TV writer and producer, shared some wisdom on Twitter — follow him @OKBJGM — about the ins and outs of being a staff writer on a TV show.

TV is one of the few writing endeavors that’s collaborative (or involves more than just one other partner). It does happen that one writer pens a whole show, especially in the U.K. One example is Catholic Julian Fellowes and his “Downton Abbey,” which airs in the U.S. on PBS (click here for an earlier story I did on it for CatholicVote.org). But on this side of the pond, writing staffs are the norm, headed by a “showrunner.” He or she is the executive producer, often a writer, who is essentially the CEO of the small company that is a TV production.

Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and educated at Carnegie Mellon University and USC, Grillo-Marxuach worked on ABC’s “Lost” and NBC’s “Medium” before becoming creator, executive producer and showrunner of ABC Family’s “The Middleman,” based on his own Viper Comics title.

Currently, Grillo-Marxuach is co-executive producer of the science-fiction drama “Helix,” airing on Syfy Channel, about CDC scientists engaged in a life-or-death struggle against a genetically engineered virus altering the future of mankind.

(Apparently, the current season two takes place in a quasi-religious cult on an island called St. Germain, which is not the same as the actual Catholic Saint Germaine, but instead the name of a legendary occult figure.)

I originally published these tweets on my Tumblr blog/eclectic newsfeed, The Velveteen Hammer, but they’re a great first class in the reality of working in show business. A lot of young writers dream they’ll be selling their own show right off the bat, but the more likely path is to work your way up — and one important step on the ladder is to become a staff writer on an existing show.

BTW, here’s a bit of showbiz lingo: A “spec” is a sample episode of an existing show meant to demonstrate both a writer’s talent and his or her ability to understand and reproduce the tone and style of a show. It’s the noun derivative of the adverb form “on spec,” which is an abbreviation of “on speculation,” meaning work done without a contract or immediate expectation of payment, in hopes of either selling the work or leveraging it to get other work.

For example, writer/producer Tim Minear, who’s worked on such shows as “Angel,” “Firefly,” “Dollhouse,” “Wonderfalls” and, currently, “American Horror Story,” wrote a spec for “The X-Files.” He did wind up doing a couple episodes of that show, but his spec was never produced (the fact that it would require a trained porcupine might have had something to do with it).

Original TV ideas can also be written on spec — Marc Cherry wrote the pilot for ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” when he was between jobs — along with movies, magazine articles and, most commonly, novels.

There’ll be more on related topics tomorrow from another industry insider, but here are Grillo-Marxuach’s tweets in paragraph form, edited for grammar, clarity and mild profanity (incidentally, they’re also a good lesson in basic humility and dealing with authority, two things that a lot of folks, Catholics included, could do better):

A staff writer’s first script is literally a spec for the show they’re on (it’s counted against pay), so they’d better know how to write one. Pilots, short stories, plays, are nice ways to get TV writing jobs, but you KEEP the job by successfully mimicking your showrunners’ style. That most agents/managers don’t encourage beginning writers to write specs feels short-sighted. Write a spec, even if just for practice.

Showrunners who say they want only “distinctive” voices are amateurs/posers. By ep. 13, all a showrunner wants is to not have to rewrite. It’s cruel: entry-level TV writers are told they get jobs for being “a very special snowflake” when the real work is mimicry and pastiche.

Agents want original pilots because they can sell if you don’t staff. Write one, but better be ready to play in someone else’s sandbox. But know that you need to know how to write a show you didn’t create, in another writer’s style. Write the specs for your own education. Even if your agent won’t read your spec or go out with it, write it! Showrunners want people who UNDERSTAND their job… and the job is this: write ideas your showrunner didn’t have but liked, and write them in the way the showrunner would have if s/he had!

There is nothing more insulting to a staff than an entry level writer who thinks they are only slumming in television so they can “fix” it. Finally: being a staff writer is about surrendering your ego, knowing it is NEVER about you, good or bad. Make peace with that early, often. The two worst personalities in the room, the “Dr. No” (I don’t like that) who hates it but doesn’t have a pitch on how to fix it, ever.

As a staff writer, you may think you understand what’s gone horribly wrong and want to lead the charge to fix it for the sake of the show. Resist that urge at all costs. Your job – and that of most staff positions – is sometimes to produce “proof of lack of concept.” Sometimes you have to give a showrunner’s bad idea the best college try in good faith. It’s not bullets; it’s dry-erase ink. Acting like it’s beneath you to take an idea out for a test drive pisses off your boss and is the fast road to being labeled “difficult.” If the room decides an idea doesn’t work, let the co-ep [co-executive producer] break the news, they get paid very well to take that hit: they are your flak jacket.

Your job on a TV staff is to express your showrunner’s vision, not to insist on your own. Your showrunner’s job is to articulate what Maya Lin called “a strong clear vision” that the staff can follow… but here’s the bummer. Even if a showrunner can’t articulate a clear vision, it’s still your job to find out what you can about it and try to do express it. That’s the Sisyphean task of a TV writer who is not a showrunner: it’s their show for better or worse, there’s no work around for that.

And finally, if you don’t like what your showrunner does, DON’T VISIT IT ON YOUR STAFF WHEN YOU BECOME A SHOWRUNNER. The bad ones teach you more than that good ones sometimes. Our business is legendary for enabling abusers, that’s not a blank check for you to “get yours.” When you get to the top. If you were abused or experienced shitty management on the way up, but don’t stop the cycle, you are every bit as bad as they were to you. Staffs work in harmony when everyone knows their part clearly and plays it to the best of their ability.

In short: whether you’re at the bottom or the top, don’t be a d*ck.

Image from @OKBJGM on Twitter.

javier grillo-marxuach

middleman

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