The 'Room'

"Sometimes there's a table that everyone sits around, sometimes just a room with comfy chairs and sofas. Sometimes it's in the showrunner's office. Sometimes it's in a clean-and-corporate setting, sometimes it's peeling paint and a window propped open with a book. Personally, I don't care as long as there is enough corkboard space." - Jane Espenson

"If the writers room doesn't work, the show doesn't work. If the show doesn't work, hundreds of people are out of jobs. And that is, at least in my writers room, evermost in our minds — that we are the people who lay the track for the train." - John Rogers

"One of the rules I put in my writers room was Don't Break Anything You Can't Fix. Which is to say, if you don't like an idea I don't want to hear from you unless you can clearly articulate why you don't think it's any good and unless you have something to counter-pitch." - Javier Grillo-Marxuach

"There are two things that a writers room can't live without: caffeine and toys. Caffeine is vital, as you're working yourself into a state of mental exhaustion every day. By about 3:00 in the afternoon, you're ready for a nap. Having toys around the office is an important reminder that the room is supposed to be playful. It helps keeps things light, fun, and imaginative." - Amy Berg

"A safe comfortable place for to think, laugh, cry, gnash, mourn, sulk, joke, mull, curse, spitball, create, destroy, and ultimately break story with others." - Will Dixon


Okay, I'm actually not included in the roundtable with several talented and respected TV writers interviewed by Marc Bernardin for io9, but hey, it's my blog - just throwing in my two cents...nevertheless you can read the above and way many more tasty nuggets of crafty goodness from this most excellent group discussion about the TV writers room and how it runs HERE.

Roomies...And Fear Itself

I quite enjoyed this diary of sorts HERE from Lost writers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz in a recent Variety article where they relate the agony and ecstasy of what they describe as the Four Day story break while working in the 'the room'.

The short version below:

Day 1 -- Wouldn't It Be Cool If ...

Day 1 is the day we start batting around the ideas. We know where we are in the uber-plot, and we know where we have to start and finish. Now we need the idea that gets us from A to B, and Day 1 is where the greatest idea ever happens. And that's when one of us will spit out something like: "Wouldn't it be cool if ... " Excitement sweeps through the room. The blank dry erase boards no longer look so daunting. We've done it. Which leads us to...

Day 2 -- Um, There's A Problem

Everyone comes in early, excited to knock this sucker out, only to discover that after a night's sleep, maybe this great idea doesn't exactly write itself, that maybe it's got a few... issues. After a few hours of wrestling with the difficulty of our premise, we all decide to sleep on it again. Which leads us to...

Day 3 -- The Breakthrough

We all come back in, maybe a little later than the day before, and all with the same conclusion. The problem is unfixable. That is until the sun is setting and someone, thankfully, quietly pipes in with ... the breakthrough. At first it seems just a small thought, but in actuality it has huge repercussions. Riding the wave of euphoria, everyone heads home nervous. Is this a real breakthrough? Possibly. Which brings us to ...

Day 4 -- The Break Begins

As the discussion begins, suddenly ideas for scenes start popping up. Natural places for our uber-mythology to slot in appear. Connective tissue between episodes presents itself. All the ingredients seem to be there. And that's when we know we might have a ways to go but we know we have an episode.

Up until the end of the break that is, because that's when, once again, we stare at the blank board that taunts us. We can't possibly keep going.

Someone: "Wait. Wouldn't it be cool if ..."

And the room goes quiet.

Suddenly we're re-energized. We all realize it at the same time. It's Day 1 again and, just maybe, we can do another one of these.

'We'...that's the operative word. Most of us have to work it alone --- trying to grind through those 'stages' all by ourselves. But the room is mostly successful because one has an undying belief that the collective creative energy of the group will ultimately save or at least improve anything you might come up with on your own. If you can find a handful of colleagues you like and trust that you can exchange works in progress with, the feedback can be invaluable.

There's another major factor why it works this way on TV series: deadlines, and the fear associated with those deadlines.

You can and will experience the same daily 'stages' when working solo on your feature film or series spec sample...but without some sort of deadline hanging over your head and the fear it generates, it's wayyyy too easy to succumb to the 'problem' and give up on the idea after Day 2. Or, conversely, spend wayyyy too much time getting bogged down trying to make the solution discovered in Day 3 the best solution ever.

And thus you never really reach Day 4 and the actual 'break'.

When working on a series and its intense schedule of delivering scripts to be filmed, there isn't the time or luxury to either give up or wait for the perfect solution. You have to deliver.

It's next to impossible to reproduce that pressure if you aren't under contract and the deadline is self-imposed...but if you can somehow believe it exists, and work 'in fear' so to speak, you'll get a lot more accomplished a lot faster. And believe me, something finished and out there is always better than the almost perfect idea still in the desk drawer.