Venis - Inside the room : writing TV with the pros at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program

INSIDE the ROOM

WRITING TV with the PROS at
UCLA EXTENSION WRITERS PROGRAM

Edited by Linda Venis, Director, UCLA Extension
Department of the Arts and Writers Program

GOTHAM BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014, USA

USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com.

Copyright 2013 by Linda Venis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Gotham Books and the skyscraper logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Inside the room : writing TV with the pros at UCLA Extension Writers Program / edited by Linda Venis, Director, UCLA Extension Department of the Arts and Writers Program.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN: 978-0-698-13837-7

1. Television authorshipVocational guidance. I. Venis, Linda editor of compilation.

II. UCLA Extension Writers Program.

PN1992.7.I525 2013

808.225dc23 2013004221

Designed by Spring Hoteling

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To Laura

Inside the Room: Writing TV with the Pros at UCLA Extension Writers Program and its companion book, Cut to the Chase: Writing Feature Films with the Pros at UCLA Extension Writers Program, grew out of creating and refining Writers Programs film and television writing curriculum, in close collaboration with its instructors and staff, for more than two decades. My sincere hope is that these books appropriately thank and honor the expertise, generosity, and contributions of all of the Programs screenwriting and creative-writing teachers and staff memberspast, present, and future. I have assigned all royalties over to UCLA Extension Writers Program.

Foremost gratitude goes to Cindy Lieberman, Program Manager of the Writers Program, my right-hand person, colleague, and friend who has been Inside the Rooms and Cut to the Chases most meticulous and dedicated reader. Special appreciation goes to Program Representative in Screenwriting Chae Ko for his helpful comments on every chapter; to Assistant to the Director Carla Janas for her abiding support; and to UCLA Extension Interim Dean Michelle Stiles, whose work on the highest administrative level of this project helped bring it to fruition.

I am indebted to and in awe of four screenwriters whom I call, for lack of a more elegant term, the books core authors: Writers Program instructors Cindy Davis, David Isaacs (now at USC), Steve Mazur, and Billy Mernit. This dream team provided invaluable feedback on the books content and organization, contributed spectacular sample chapters, and maintained a steadfast commitment to this project that is humbling. My gratitude also goes to the Editorial Board, whose constructive advice and insights, generously rendered, made every chapter better.

Thank you to my agent, Betsy Amster (Betsy Amster Literary Enterprises); Gotham Books/Penguin Group (USA) Executive Editor Lauren Marino; and Emily D. Wunderlich, Susan M. Barnes, and Aja Pollock of Penguin Group for their belief in and support of Inside the Room and Cut to the Chase. That my name would appear on the same page as the Penguin logo is amazing to me.

To my precious late parents, Grace Bullock Miller and Ashton and Dona Venis; to my Im so lucky I married into it family Leona Berg Town, Alec Berg, and Maggie Trinh; to my dear friends David Bushnell and Karla Klarin; to my incomparable husband, Gary Berg; and last but never, ever, least: to my daughter Laura Berg, the gift of a lifetime: thank you.

by Linda Venis

Welcome to Inside the Room: Writing TV with the Pros at UCLA Extension Writers Programthe first-of-its-kind book on how to write on-air and original dramas and comedies and how to launch and sustain a TV writing career. Based on the renowned UCLA Extension Writers Programs TV-writing curriculum and written by some of its most talented writer-teachers, it takes you, as the title promises, inside the room.

Which means what, exactly? On the most basic and important level, inside the room refers to a literal room: a room full of writers (i.e., the writers room) who work as a team to write and rewrite, often line by line, the shows we watch every week. This is a key fact about TV writing, and one that many people outside the industry dont know: It is a highly collaborative medium, not the domain of the individual artist. And when everything is clicking in the room, scripts are made stronger by creative input from all the writers congregated in that single space.

Inside the Room embodies a similarly rich and collaborative spirit. Ten working TV writers have come together in the room of this book to teach you the kinds of lessons in the craft and business of television writing that have, until now, only been available in UCLA Extension on-site and online classrooms.

Reflecting a scope of professional experience that no single author can possibly duplicate, Inside the Rooms contributors collectively have had hundreds of hours of television episodes and pilots produced. Their credits include House M.D., CSI: Miami, Battlestar Galactica, Pretty Little Liars, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Simpsons, The Wonder Years, Cheers, and Frasier. They have won Emmys and Writers Guild Awards. They have been producers, supervising producers, consulting producers, and showrunners (Medium, Mad Men, The Glades, The X-Files, and The Wayans Bros., among many others). They have created series (ABC/Touchstones Miracles and Paramount TVs Almost Perfect). They are, in short, the real deal.

There is a second layer of meaning that inside the room has for writersparticularly at the beginning of their careers. When they have the chance to hammer out scripts with a group of creative, talented peers, their own skills improve dramatically. Just as importantly, they learn that collaboration is vital to professional survival; as Alison Lea Bingeman puts it, Knowing how to be an effective member of a writing staff is critical to your success as a writer in television.