A writers' room is the hub of creativity in every TV show -- where ideas are expressed, thrown around, molded, and eventually take the shape of an episode of TV. A writers' room is also an 8-16 hour non-stop business meeting around a conference table.
These two things are true simultaneously and it means that a writers' room is a difficult thing to put into words. It's at times hilarious, stimulating, boring, offensive, friendly, familial, combative, and crazy-making.
If you're thinking about becoming a TV writer, it's good to know what a TV writers' room looks like, since writers' rooms have traditionally been the key to steady income in a TV writer's career. Based on numbers alone, it's much easier to staff on a show than it is to sell your own show.
I have worked in 14 different TV writers' rooms across networks and streamers. I've worked for shows on CBS, NBC, Fox, Netflix, ABC, and AMC. I've worked on the Warner Bros. lot, both CBS lots, the Sony lot, the Universal lot, and a slew of other offices around Hollywood.
And though each individual show may have subtle differences, there's a flow to the writers' room that remains consistent across all TV shows. There's a hierarchy, there's a system, and there, very generally, are hours that most shows adhere to.
In this post, I want to take you through a day in the life of a writers' room, so you can understand what your day to day will look like and better ascertain if this career is for you. The idea of being inside a TV writers' room appeals to many outside of the industry as this wonderful hub of creativity. And that can certainly be the case on the right show.
However, I want to make sure people understand the reality of what it means to work in a writers' room day after day. The idea of being in a conference meeting as your entire job may not hold the same appeal as the abstract idea of a writers' room does. OR maybe that's exactly what you're looking for: the ability to bounce ideas off other creatives and create something together.
This "Day in the Life" article is a summary of a chapter of my book, BREAKING INTO TV WRITING
That's why I put together a typical day in the writers' room that you can expect whether you're working as a writers' assistant, script coordinator, or writer...
The Beginning of the Day in a TV Writers' Room
It's 10AM and the writers assemble. This is almost always the start time across every TV show I've ever worked on. During the ambitious early days of a season, it may even be 10:30, but then something goes haywire and that extra half-hour is clawed back.
The writers congregate around the conference table and... begin work? No. They kibbitz and kvetch. The first 15-30 minutes is almost always catching up, joking around, and general fluffy talk before getting down to business.
The PA will generally come in during this time and ask where the writers want to go for lunch. They'll take everybody's order get it ready for pickup. In the meantime, the showrunner will eventually quiet the room and tell the writers what they want to start discussing.
They may pick up where they left off the previous day or they may move on to something new. The discussion may revolve around a variety of different topics: new story ideas, fleshing out a character arc, putting the final touches on the nearly completed beats of an episode.
All the while, the showrunner is the one deciding what the room talks about and guiding the conversation in the direction they want it to go. In other words, the showrunner has a goal they want to get to, some story or character point they want to break, and the other writers are there in service of that.
Therefore, this is when all the writers are pitching their ideas. Pitches should be fully thought-out, meaning it's not simply "maybe the character does this." Instead, it needs to solve the issue the showrunner is looking to solve, and be backed up with character and story motivation.
For some dramas, or in the early stages on a comedy, this type of talk happens all day long. The discussion may be less concentrated on specifics, and focus more on general story beats or season/character arcs. Eventually, however, these talks get more episodically specific.
Lunch Break
You've been in the room for 2.5-3 hours and it's time for a break. Some writers' rooms will eat all together at the table in the room. So, even the break isn't that much of a break. Others go for walks to get outside, or just get the hell away from one another. Being around the same people all day long can understandably be a lot.
At this point you are experiencing one of the major pluses of being in a writers' room: all the free food. Every day the writers' room will send the PA off of the lot to get individual lunch orders for all the writers.
There's usually a rotating option of 5-10 lunch places that people go to, and you start out loving these places, but eventually become so sick of them you're not sure you can stomach one more day of them. In LA some of the popular lunch spots are: Mendocino Farms, Sweetgreen, Sweetsalt, California Chicken Cafe, etc.
In addition, the kitchens are always fully stocked with more than enough food to make a lunch or to snack on all day long and put on a good amount of weight over the course of a season. I'm clearly speaking from experience here.
The Afternoon Rewrite
For comedies that have an episode coming into production soon, generally, the afternoon is spent working on that episode's rewrite. This is an episode that has come and gone in the writers' room. Let me explain...
The whole room talks through the episode idea together and even constructs a beat sheet of it. Then, one writer, the writer of that episode, takes it out of the room and writes a story area, an outline, and eventually the script.
At this stage, the script has come back into the room to fix any lingering story issues and to punch it up (i.e. make it funnier).
Therefore, with the script pulled up by the writers' assistant or script coordinator on the two big TV screens in every room, the writers will make changes to the script on the fly. As a writer on staff, you are pitching to the showrunner, who is then deciding which parts they like and want to put into the script, which they then relay to the writers' assistant at the computer.
These sessions can last a long, long time. And if it's crunch time and this episode is about to go into production, this could mean some very late nights. My first day as a PA, I got in at 10am, stayed with the writers until 3am, then started printing out and delivering scripts and returned home at 7am. I experienced morning rush hour twice in one day.
This can also be a very fun time in a writers' room. As opposed to other discussions, these are relatively concrete, meaning they're focusing on tangible story moves and fixing an actual script. The discussion has moved out of the abstract realm. Of course, new story problems always come to light during this time, but for those that like this challenge, this can be an enjoyable part of the writers' room.
Alt Room (Exclusive to Comedy)
Now, during this rewrite process, often the writers' room gets split up into an A room and a B room. While the A room, full of the upper-level writers, continues to work on story fixes, the B room, full of the lower-level writers and any writers who are particularly good joke writers, is given a bunch of jokes to pitch on.
The showrunner will highlight the jokes in the script that they're not too sure about. That means, any jokes that might cause a groan in the audience, anything that could be too offensive, or just jokes that aren't funny. Then the B room will pitch 5-10 alternative jokes, or "alts," for each one.
The writers' assistant takes down each of these alts and at the end of the night presents them to the showrunner. The best ones are selected to be put into the script. Others are put into a packet for the showrunner to have on set in case any of the jokes that do get into the script don't work. They want to have alternative jokes as a plan B.
Dinner (no) Break
If dinner is ordered, that means it's gonna be a late one. There's generally no break for dinner because nobody wants to stay any longer than they have to, but they do need sustenance.
This follows the same process as the lunch break, in which the PA collects orders from everyone and then goes to a restaurant to grab the take-out.
The Writers' Room is Dismissed
Finally, when the script is in good enough shape, the writers will be sent home, leaving usually only the showrunner or maybe one other high-level writer, to review the script one more time.
This is when the showrunner is really dotting every I and crossing every T. This script is about to be sent out to every bigwig at the studio and network, and they're going to be assessed by the highest level of TV executives. In addition, every single department (costumes, set dec, makeup, etc.) and every actor will be seeing this new script and will have their own opinions. And all this is going on inside the showrunner's head, knowing it all rests on their shoulders.
So, finally, they finish with their existential final pass, and tell the script coordinator to send out the script, bringing the day in the writers' room to an end.
In Summary: TV Writers' Rooms Are One Big Conference Meeting
Though a lot of different scripts, ideas, and stories are tackled during the day in a writers' room, one fact remains. The entire day is spent sitting at a table talking to the same 6-18 people. It can be grueling, it can be fun, it can be annoying, it can be hilarious.
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