Film Courage: How much time is a writer's room given to break a story?
Niceole R. Levy, Screenwriter/Author: It’s very determined by the showrunner
and their process but I would say in general it's about a week per episode
sometimes longer especially if it's a really serialized show and it's a streaming show where
you're writing everything before it shoots the 20 weeks of the writer's room can sort of if you
have 20 weeks can sort of stretch each episode break a little further because you have more
time in broadcast television once the train of the season starts running you have to keep running too
or else it will run you over so a week is about as long as I think I've ever had and a week like
meaning seven days shorter if if you can is always preferred but yeah it's no one wants
to rush an episode off the board because if you do you always end up putting it back on the board
when you go right the outline and stuff doesn't work and then it's like okay and you put the
cards back up and you're like let's fix it so it's better to take the time to fix it while it's there
another thing that can happen in a break is that people different different people prefer
different things as writers when you're breaking your episode that you're gonna write I think it's
always great to have a conversation in the room about like how do we get into the scene how do
we get out because that's helpful right it's sort of short hands for you about like I just need to
come into the scene while they're already sitting at the table arguing I don't need the build up
and whatever but there's a lot of things that I'm like you guys I can figure that out I don't need
to talk about it like I will figure out how we get out of the scene like I just don't need to have a
conversation about it some writers really need to have that conversation and so you need to say like
hey it would be really helpful for me if we talked about how we're getting in and out of everything
I tend to be like I just need to know what's happening in the scene I don't need the the how
we get in how we get out I'm going to figure that out on the page let's just make sure we have every
moment that we need in the scene written on this card so that I know what it what all has to happen
so it's a little bit different depending on your writing style I think and does each writer get its
own episode their own episode or each episode is a collective process very show dependent
my experience has been that every writer either gets a solo episode or co-writes episodes
throughout the season so most standard is each solo rider gets at least one episode that they
write themselves writing teams will write an episode together and then sometimes like in order
for a staff writer to get more experience they'll pair the staff writer with a co-ep to write so
they get to write another half a script so that they get more of a chance to write or in a room
that has the episodes to do it you really want your writer writer's assistant to get a chance to
write so you'll pair your writer's assistant with a more experienced writer so they get a chance so
oftentimes that'll turn into like one one and a half scripts per writer per team depending
on how it works out there are circumstances in which staff writers do not get to write
a script because the room is super top heavy and there's only a limited number say there's
eight writers in the room and there's eight episodes of Television well at least the
first one's already written probably because your showrunner's already written the pilot
your showrunner's probably writing the finale so now there's six episodes left
and there's eight writers so unless they pair you up with someone you may not get a script
but it's still a great experience and you'll still get to learn lots of things and what
most show Runners will try to do in that case is like give this the staff writer a chance to write
the story documents or to help with the outlines or do things that like give them experience even
though they're not writing a script I should give you a little more on that probably too
there is there are shows that do all group writing it is my least preferred method of writing a show
but there are show Runners who swear by it and if it works for them it's their right
to do it but that is where literally like you do that whole breaking process you have all
your scenes and it gets divvied up amongst the entire staff and so people write scenes
and then it all gets assembled and the share runner does passes on it whatever once there's
a completed episode someone on the staff will be credited with having written it
if it remains a completely group endeavor there are some shows where we group write the first
draft and then I as the writer of that episode will take it and do a pass to try to make it all
cohesive and then I will be in control of the script with the showrunner for the rest of the
run and then it is to allow the writer to take more ownership over it I believe group writing
is good in emergencies like when your lead actor suddenly has to disappear for three days
but I am not about it as a general rule but plenty of people do it is there a danger though in that
there are going to be different voices and styles that are going to be very noticeable if it's 100
100 which is why someone even if it's the share Runner is going to have to take that Frankenstein
draft is what we call them and go make a cohesive feeling episode like it's never going to be right
when you first assemble all the pieces like it's just not everybody has a different take
on slightly different way that they like to write this character versus that character this writer
does and so you as a showrunner will have to go in and or assign a writer to do it but you
someone has to make it cohesive so that it feels like one writer wrote it sure and then if it's
different episodes that there's also the danger in that each one's going to sound or have a different
style and tempo yeah I mean that is a danger the real truth of the matter is the showrunner is
should I believe I will say should be taking the final pants on every script because at the end of
the day it is the showrunner's job to make sure every episode feels like it belongs together so
you may have a really talented writer who doesn't quite get the voice of the show right part of your
job as the showrunner is to take that script and adjust it so that the voice feels right and send
it on through and not put your name on it because this is your job and allow that writer to take
full credit for the episode because they've done their work your job as the showrunner is to take
it to the final level does everyone in the room obsess over the season finale on the first day
no no I think it's pretty rare because sometimes I mean I have literally been
in situations where on the first day we don't even know what the season's about
so all you're hoping for in that case is that someone figures it out because to me really
good showrunners are prepared and they come in and they're like okay here's the the big idea of the
season is X and then we can all start riffing on that but sometimes you're in a room where someone
literally says to you what is the season about and you're like I thought that was your job and
so now you all start riffing trying to come up with something that the showrunner latches on to
and then it's like okay that let's talk more about that and then you can start building it so really
the once you start talking about what those tent poles are and your show Runners start saying like
oh and then maybe this would be cool at the end of the season this would be cool like you're you're
building a list of what might be in the finale but until you really start getting ready to pitch the
season to the studio and the network you're more concerned on just making sure you actually have
6 8 13 22 episodes like that that you're gonna have those episodes because
you can Netflix oftentimes will ask you to pitch a whole season in three two to three
weeks so you're just in there basically and and by pitch a season I mean have big ideas for what
the season is so you're just in there like okay what if we did an episode about this and he's like
yes write it on the board like you're just trying to come up with ideas and half of it will go away
by the time you actually get to the end of the season because you're you come up with
better ideas once you have more time so yeah I don't think I've ever experienced
a show where someone was like this is how the season ends on the first day and we
were all like so just like into that it was more like okay how are we gonna get there
how do you have enough story for the entire season
I would say one of the bigger problems honestly is that you usually have more story than you have
room for like especially in streaming where you're only getting eight six to eight ten episodes
you will find that there's stuff that you really want to do that you just can't get to because to
some of the points that we've talked about that main character or main character relationship is
going to always need attention and if you really need a b story to pay off in the finale that b
story has to keep getting serviced and so you're going to have great ideas for things that you want
to do and they're going to stay on a board for maybe next season because it's just you end up
having more ideas than you have space for now if you're doing a season of say SWAT where you've got
22 episodes it's it's part of the reason that you have a room the size that you have for that right
where you have 10 to 12 bodies to just constantly be coming in being like what if we did an episode
about this what if we did an episode about that because then you're worried you won't have enough
crimes right you can make the character stories work but it's like you need 22 crimes what are the
22 crimes going to be so it's that brainstorming session of like maybe this maybe this and maybe
this and then you put some down and some of them go away and some of them become stories and you're
always looking when you work on that type of show you're always reading newspapers and looking at TV
shows and doing stuff trying to be like oh what if we did this case and you just kind of keep
a running list because you never know when like exactly the case that we were all so excited about
we're like this one's going to be great and then you try to break it and you're like oh this isn't
an episode what are we going to do and then you go to your list like this one let's do this one
how many story lines are in a typical season of a show that's I don't know that I can answer
that because again I think it varies so much depending on the type of show that you're doing
so I wrote on a show called Fate: The Winx Saga and so we had five girls who were the focus of our
show so each of them has to have some some sort of story that we're following right so each one of
them has a storyline and then there's a romantic storyline between our lead and the handsome boy at
the school and then there's a storyline about the secret that the teachers are keeping and
it starts to be a lot and it's sort of the trick is the management of how those you want those
things to all eventually sort of cross over each other and touch each other and weave together the
problem is when you suddenly find yourself with like 10 stories that are all sort of separate
and you're like I don't know like we can't this character's not participating with any of the
other characters how do we get her involved in these stories and then you have to like change
the path of that character's art because you you don't want them on an island all by themselves
you want them in the main story somehow and part of that core group of characters so a lot of it
is I really want to do this for this character and you'll love the story but you realize it's
pulling them out of the main arc and so you have to find a way to pull them back or you
have to choose different stories for them how do you structure the story lines into an episode
that's what we call blending or weaving or as one of my show owners love to call it the smush
and that is when you have all your storyline beats out and now you have to put them in an
order that actually works as an episode of television and so that's that's a lot of that
I think this is definitely how I want to end act three I think this is a great way to kick off Act
five I think we really want this relationship turmoil to start in act two and then boil over
in act four so like you're just sort of trying to figure out the rhythm of the episode and it's a
lot of moving cards around or changing things on a whiteboard or moving your electronic cards but
you finally kind of get a feel for okay this this works this is an episode because you're
looking out for all kinds of things right you want your main characters can't disappear for too long
so if you find that like they're at the top of act two and then we don't see our main characters
again to like the middle of act three that's a problem so now you gotta go rearrange some stuff
you want to make sure that you're tracking the stories enough so that no one's like
they're just not going to talk about that thing anymore so like even for
your c-story runner that's only three beats it's like okay if we launch it in act two and
then we need to touch it in like four and six to pay it off so that you're not just
forgetting about it so it's it's that kind of balancing act it's like you're trying to
make sure that you're giving the audience a good flow of information through the episode.