The Writers Room

Working it out on the page...

If all goes according to plan, I’ll likely be heading out to Los Angeles again in the coming weeks to staff my second writer’s room, the first after Lawmen: Bass Reeves.

The series will tonally be quite a bit different from Bass, but will be quite similar in other ways: another 8-episode limited series, headed up by some of the same team. The room itself will run similarly—and traditionally—too. So, approximately 10 to 12 weeks of pitching and breaking as a full room, before we head off individually to write our assigned episodes.

When the room does convene, the pilot will already done. Usually the show runner pens the pilot, and that’ll be the lantern that’ll light the way for the rest of us for the rest of the series. Our collective time in the room will be spent pitching additional character and story ideas and arcs, scenes, set pieces, all the way down to dialogue runs, all to “break” the season; i.e., craft a workable outline for the entire series.

When I sat in that first writers room, I didn’t know any of this. I walked in (mostly) blind and learned mostly on the fly. I’d never even outlined, a necessity when you’re trying to wrangle a multi-episode season written my multiple screenwriters. I’ve always written my own novels by “working out on the page,” a phrase I only learned in the room.

Despite the guardrails of outlines, there’s still plenty of “working it out on the page” that occurs when writing an individual script, as Niceole Levy discusses below. Her book, THE WRITERS’ ROOM SURVIVAL GUIDE, is fantastic, and would have been a wonderful resource BEFORE I went into the Bass room.

I do know after reading Niceole’s book that I was fortunate to have such a positive room experience, where everyone was gracious and humble, all striving to support the show runner’s vision, rather than compete with their own. I can only assume the new room will be similar.

The Emmy Awards were doled out this past Sunday, and Bass received only one nod (for Original Score/Composition), and didn’t win. Honestly, I have no issues with the winners, although some feel there’s definitely an anti-Taylor Sheridan bias at work, since the shows he’s written and produced have almost ALWAYS been shut out during these award seasons. Again, I don’t know, and I’m too new at all of it to have an opinion. Nevertheless, I was disappointed that David Oyelowo wasn’t even nominated for his lead role as Bass Reeves. While I am proud of the writing we all put into the show, it was David’s performance that really brought all our words to life, and I think he deserved the recognition.

As always, feel free to—