The TV Writer's Path

A guide to the writer’s journey from freelancer to producer and showrunner.

A question I’m often asked, exceeded only by, “Can you please stop talking?”, is “What is a television showrunner, how do they get the job, and what the hell do they actually do since there are so many other producers listed on-screen?”

So I thought I’d take a moment to clarify, because it can be fairly obtuse and confusing to folks on the outside. This requires quite a bit of set-up, so lets start at the beginning and work our way up.

Most aspiring TV writers begin the process somewhere in their early or mid-twenties, depending on when they start figuring out how scriptwriting works. This process is a bit different from writing prose because the gatekeeping system isn’t the same, and fiction writers generally start off writing short stories, which are shorter (hence the name) and more straightforward than scripts. This is not a qualitative statement about the difference between prose and scripts, we’re strictly discussing process.

Short stories for the most part tend to be either all first-act (setting up a situation and leaving readers with the implications) or all third-act (the situation that drives the story has already been established, the world created, and the characters have to address this in some conclusive fashion). It’s only when prose starts to hit novelette or novel length that the structure becomes more complicated, incorporating a detailed beginning, surviving the desert of the middle, and rushing toward what you hope and pray will be a satisfying end.

Depending on the venue, a one-hour TV script is around 55 pages, and can have as many as six acts, or be more film-like in construction, without breaking for commercials or other intrusions. So page-wise and in terms of complexity it’s a steeper climb than prose from day one. It also requires some knowledge of how to write for camera, what the lens can and can’t do, pacing action and dialogue, and finding balance between narrative and dialogue, plot and character.

Just to save time, let’s assume you’ve learned all of that, and found an agent to take that material out to the town in spec form, meaning scripts written as samples of your work. (And just the process involved in that single preceding sentence can take a long, long, very long time.) And now, at last, you’ve been able to sell a script or two. This is the freelance stage, which continues on for a year or more because you’re still learning your craft, and the people who buy scripts are gradually figuring out who you are and what you can do.

Because the job isn’t just about being able to write a script, it’s a matter of: can this person be worked with? How do they respond to notes? Do they break the PITA (Pain in the Ass) rule? Can they dig into the characters to produce stories nobody else has thought of? Every new writer thinks they’ve got it figured and their scripts are golden; but every experienced writer knows that they may never figure it all out. They look back at their early work through parted fingers and Ohmygod did I really write that? What the hell was I thinking?

Here’s the corollary: if you went into woodshop class at a junior college in your 20s, the odds are that you wouldn’t build a cathedral on day one. You might, maybe, build a respectable napkin holder by the end of the first week. But the more you do it, the more you commit to the learning process, the better you get. Progress is slow, and painful, but gradually you start to improve. It’s impossible to write ten scripts (or stories or novels) and not have #10 be at least marginally better than #1.

Writing is a talent but it is also a skill honed over time, no different than learning how to hold a hacksaw without cutting your thumb off. The only way to succeed in either profession is to master both the art and the craft of what you want to do.

So from a purely creative perspective, the first challenge to a scriptwriter is doing it at all; the second challenge is doing it well, and that takes time, we don’t just spring fully formed from the forehead of Zeus.

Eventually, after selling a few scripts, you get hired on as a staff writer at a weekly salary and a guarantee of usually two scripts over the course of the season. Depending on how the show is run, you may be left to your own devices to write, or you may be inserted into a writer’s room with other damned souls. Since no two writers rooms are run in quite the same fashion, with some being pleasant affairs while others are more akin to cage matches, I’ll leave the subject for another time.

After a year or so, depending on the breaks, and who above you in the pecking order decides to go elsewhere, creating a gap in the chain of command, you get promoted to story editor. This means that in addition to writing your own scripts, you are working with freelance writers to hone their scripts to razor sharpness. This is an absolutely critical moment in the process because the producers want to see how good you are at working with someone else and giving notes. I know of several instances where story editors were booted out for using their position to sandbag freelancers to protect their own position, or as a platform to address grudges.

If you’re story editing someone else’s script, the better you can make that document, and the more you can help that person rise up rather than perceiving them as competition, the more you are looked at by the rest of the staff as showing promise for promotion.

To address that last sentence just a bit more, I don’t believe in the concept of competition between writers. It’s like trying to suggest there’s competition between fingerprints; no two writers write alike, think alike, or see the world in the same terms. I’ve worked on shows where I wrote the majority of the scripts, and other shows where there were a significant number of freelancers, and the appeal of the latter has always been the joy of seeing how someone else perceives that story from their side of things. It’s always a surprise. Sometimes horrifying, yes, but for the most part amazing.

After being a story editor for a year or so, and again depending on whether or not anyone farther up the ladder decides to leave – there are financial limits to how many staffers in each category any show can carry – the next step is usually that of executive story editor. The other story editors are responsive to you, and all the revised scripts go through your hands before heading upstairs. This teaches you how to handle more than one writer at a time, which is essential for the long, slow training process of TV writers.

If the executive story editor title isn’t available, but the producers, network or studio feel you’ve earned a promotion, the other option is co-producer. This is the first time one achieves the title of writer/producer, and marks an important upward step in the escalator. And to elaborate further on the first sentence in this paragraph, yes, the studio, network, or streamer financing a given show has jurisdiction over promotions. I said jurisdiction instead of approval because at this level of staffing, most entities will defer to the judgment of the show’s main producers. But if there’s an issue, they may bring it up, and the next steps up the ladder will start to require more in the way of approval by the big guns.

The responsibilities of a co-producer (and again, this can vary wildly between shows, I’m only addressing the most common aspects) are something of a mixed bag. You’re still tasked with working with freelancers as needed, especially when the story editor is up to their ears, but for the most part the promotion is about being recognized for the quality of your writing and to help keep you from going elsewhere, so you spend most of your time writing your own scripts.

This is also the stage where you may (or may not) get more involved in aspects related to production. Depending on how open the main producers are to teaching you additional skills, you may (or may not) be invited to sit in on casting (but only in an advisory capacity, with little input into the final choices), editing (ditto), and scoring.

After doing this for another year or two – so about 6-8 years from the freelance stage, maybe working on just one show but more likely jumping between series – you have acquired enough street cred to be promoted to producer. This is where everything starts to change, because this is where the network, studio or streamer starts to notice you. They begin to understand your voice and your priorities as a storyteller; they develop a comfort factor with you, trusting that you will always come through with a script that can be dropped on a soundstage and shot without issue. That comfort factor is absolutely essential to what comes later.

After another year or so of being a producer, there are two different paths for what comes next.

For writers who enjoy the production side of things and want to move further into that area while still staying on the writing side, one correct path is that of supervising producer. You give notes on, or rewrite the work of the producers and story editors, taking almost a custodial role in guarding the creative vision of the showrunner, which includes taking the load off in terms of day-to-day management, budgets, logistics, and dealing with issues on-set. If the showrunner is a Mafia Don then the Supervising Producer is their Consigliere, the right-hand person to the individual in charge.

(This is a separate position from the Line Producer – though the credit just says producer – who is usually a non-writer focused on physical production, prep and post.)

Alternately, if you want to remain primarily a writer, the next bump would be to co-executive producer. Co-Eps often run the writers’ room as an extension of the showrunner, who may be up to his or her ears with all the issues to be dealt with at that level, and are heavily involved in casting, editing and final mix-downs. Most importantly, this is the level where you receive the last of your training to be an executive producer and showrunner.

This ensures that when you finally have a show of your own, you know everything necessary to run it well. In a weird sort of way, it’s a kind of trade school for writers, where you are mentored and taught a wide range of techniques and problem-solving methods to get a particular job done.

Which brings me to the very last step in the process: the executive producer, who is answerable only to the showrunner and the studio/network/streamer. Some EPs are more production-oriented, and some are more writer-based, but in general EPs cover more than one area to make the best use of their training and skills and be of the most use to the showrunner.

On any TV series there can be a number of executive producers, but only one of those is the actual showrunner, who has either written the pilot, or been brought in on a show to fix it or get it up and running. Showrunners must, of necessity, be well-versed in every aspect of production: from prep (set design, wardrobe, art department, CGI and prosthetics (if applicable), to shooting (stunts, casting, working with actors and the network, schedules, delivery dates, deliverables, camera department, catering, safety, department heads, directors, legal, unions, hiring and firing not just shooting crew but office staff), and post (editing, effects, sound design, music/scoring, conforming master copies).

The showrunner EP is always the first person on deck, writing and assigning scripts even before prep starts, and the last person off the boat once the final episode is delivered. One of the most essential responsibilities of a showrunner is to read, understand and adjust budgets, and all the various kinds of budgets involved in making television: the pattern budget is how much money you have for the whole season; the episodic budget is what each episode costs, with some flexibility to move money from one episode to another to service story needs while staying within the pattern budget; as well as the budgets for every department (wardrobe, construction, CGI, hair, makeup and so forth).

So when people ask, why can’t a new writer be a showrunner, the answer is: for the same reason a medical student can’t be a brain surgeon. It’s not about age, it’s about completing your training over a span of years that equips you to deal with all the things discussed in the paragraph before this one. It’s not about having good ideas, it’s about being a general in charge of a small army with a budget in the millions, given to you by people who trust that you will know how to spend it and how to drive the story you want to tell without slamming into a tree. And that trust is hard-won.

When you’re a showrunner, you can finally pursue the dream that got you into this business in the first place: creating your own series and telling your own stories. Depending on when you start, what steps you take along the way, and how long it may take to find an opening to move up, the process of going from freelance writer to showrunner can take ten to fifteen or even twenty years.

Having said that, are there variances, the occasional step that gets skipped, or someone who shaves off some of that time in one way or another? Of course. Again, we’re talking generalities here. And honesty compels me to note that I was one of those exception, going from writer-producer to showrunner with Babylon 5. But that happens very rarely, was done to a degree over the objections of the studio as a network decision, and as discussed in my autobiography Becoming Superman, I began that job woefully hindered by not having gone through all the steps of training to become a showrunner. I spent the pilot and most of the first season playing catch-up to things I should have known, that everyone expected me to know. So whenever I look back at that season, all I can see are the flaws caused by my lack of experience.

But that’s another story for another time.

Overall: it’s a hell of a journey. Often frustrating, often exciting, usually painful in one way or another.

But honestly? It’s a blast.