8

Getting Hired

If a show’s story editors like the spec scripts your agent has sent in, they will ask you to come in and pitch ideas for episodes. You don’t need to convince them you can write; they’ve already decided you can. You need to convince them of three things:

1. You have great stories to tell.
2. You have passion for these stories.
3. You’re going to be fun to work with.

If they don’t like your pitches, but like you, they could possibly assign you a script, but don’t count on it. You want to give them pitches they can say yes to.

Killer Story Pitches

You want to come in with a half-dozen killer springboards for the show. Eric Estrin (McGyver):

The starting point of the perfect pitch is the pitcher knowing the show very well and exhibiting an understanding of the main characters and the types of stories that work for them. Ideally, the pitcher would have five or six stories pretty well worked out, all of them being in the ballpark for that show. The pitch would have the show’s stars doing things they’ve never done before—if possible, things no one on TV has ever done before—in ways that are uniquely suited to them. The pitcher would not get bogged down on story beats but would highlight a few twists and turns that might serve as act breaks, while bringing new depth to the main characters.1

The better you know your story the stronger your pitch will be, but don’t go into too much detail. The details are for you to know and the story editor or showrunner to ask for if they want them. You should know what your acts and act outs will be, not only because they may ask you for them in the meeting, but because they could okay your pitch only for you to discover that your concept doesn’t actually work and you can’t find good act outs. Then you’re stuck trying to make an unworkable concept into a decent episode. If you can’t break the story inside of an afternoon, there’s probably something wrong with the story idea; don’t bring it up in the meeting.

You don’t need to know the beats. You certainly don’t need to pitch individual scenes, unless you’ve got something truly exceptional—a killer teaser, an amazing confrontation, something memorable that the audience will talk about after the show.

Great springboards for a freelance script are like great springboards for a spec script, except they’re more focused. These will get on television, you hope. Therefore stunt episodes—crossover characters, pushing the envelope—are less welcome. You’re trying to make the writing staff’s lives easier. Crossover characters require delicate negotiations at the network level, and pushing the envelope could run afoul of the network’s Standards and Practices department.

On the other hand, your episode doesn’t have to float free of the season’s chronology the way a spec does. If you’ve been able to get a sense beforehand of where the core characters are headed in the season you’re writing for, then you can try to fit the episode into the season arc.

Try to avoid episodes that require big new sets or big set-piece action sequences. Go slightly smaller with the story than the show goes. Try to stick to the core cast. It’s easy to come up with an episode where an outside character shows up and turns everyone’s life upside down, but that’s not what they need a freelancer for. They need a freelancer to give them a new perspective, a fresh take, on the show they already have. Unlock an aspect of the show they haven’t already thought of.

If you can, miraculously, come up with a bottle show, by all means pitch it. A bottle show is an episode that takes place inside a “bottle.” It uses only the standing sets, and ideally only the core cast. This makes a bottle show cheap and fast to shoot. Bottle shows get a production back on budget and back on schedule.

A great bottle show doesn’t feel like a cheap episode. Its story naturally restricts the characters to the sets. A good example would be the “Abraham and Isaac” episode of The West Wing, in which the White House is on lockdown due to a terrorism scare. The characters can’t leave the White House set because the Secret Service won’t let them.

It’s hard to come up with a convincing bottle show. If you, as a freelancer, can pitch a plausible one, the odds are good you’ll get a script, and you’ll be a hero to boot.

It’s not a bad idea, beyond your well-worked-out half-dozen pitches, to have a couple of wild story concepts you can pretend you just came up with off the cuff. Sometimes your listeners are in a grumpy mood and will shoot down every good idea you have. They may latch on to something truly offbeat and send you home to work that one up. Any port in a storm, mate.

Be Fun

You’re coming in with stories to sell, but first of all, you’re selling you.

A pitch session is simple. You come in and meet some of the story editors. The showrunner may or not be there. The head writer probably is there. You have cleverly confirmed beforehand (through your agent or by yourself) whom you’re going to be meeting with and what they do on the show. You have checked out their credits on IMDB (the Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com) so you know what shows they’re alluding to.

A pitch meeting is a bit like any other job interview. The people in the room want to know you’re qualified to do the job, but they already suspect that, or you wouldn’t have been invited into the room. They want to know you’re going to be a fun person to work with—someone who can handle the job and would be fun to go out with for a beer afterward.

This is a job interview, so all the usual job interview rules apply. Get to the office half an hour early, so you can hang out in the parking lot and walk in the door exactly on time. Dress appropriately. In L.A., a guy can’t go wrong with the writer’s uniform: a white Oxford button shirt, brand-new jeans, and blindingly white new sneakers. Weather permitting, add a leather jacket. Women can dress up a bit if they feel like it, but be careful not to dress like a secretary—or a producer. The look is active, casual, and not too threatening—e.g., a feature writer or a showrunner can get away with biker or cowboy boots, but they might be a bit much for a TV freelancer. As a rule of thumb, a writer will never go wrong looking as if he or she is about to go to, or just came from, a barbecue.

Once you’re in the room, take the time to get to know everybody you’re meeting. If you’ve been able to dig up any personal stuff about them, engage them personally. If your interviewer rides horses, talk horses. If he believes in UFOs, talk about Area 51. Remember, they already know you can write—they read and liked your specs, or you wouldn’t be here. Now they’re trying to figure out if they want to work with you personally. The story editor who’s supervising your draft will have to work closely with you. Be personable.

Let them ask you about yourself. It’s not a bad idea to have a funny story ready to break the ice. It could be something you saw in the trades, or something about the vacation you just took, or something upbeat about the last job you did. If they don’t ask you about yourself, give them a way to get to know you.

As with any interview, remember, they’re just as worried as you are. They’re wondering if they’ll hire a difficult person, or someone who’s good at writing a spec but bad at delivering under pressure, or a psychopath who’ll show up at their door in the middle of the night wearing a hockey mask. They’re writers, remember, which means they’re probably not the most socially ept people you will ever meet. Just because they’re sitting behind a desk doesn’t mean they feel confident. Charisma is largely a matter of giving people a positive impression of themselves. Make them feel good about the whole process and they’ll feel good about you.

Just Do It

After a bit of chitchat, there will be a lull, and they’ll ask to hear your pitches. Now’s your chance to tell them some stories that they’ll want to commission you to write. Be positive. Your attitude should be, “I have some ideas I’m really excited about, and I hope you’re going to be as enthusiastic about them as I am.”

Start with your best pitch. Meetings sometimes get interrupted. If they like your first few pitches, they may just stop you there and buy them.

When you come to pitch, you want to stay on your toes, but don’t get nervous. Hah! Of course you’re going to be nervous. Only your whole career depends on this. But if you stay focused on the people in the room and the story you came to tell, and not on your own performance—focus out, not in—you’ll forget your nerves and achieve what you came to achieve.

Don’t rush. They’ve gone to the trouble of inviting you in to pitch, so figure you have at least a good twenty to thirty minutes. If you’re getting in and out any faster than that, you’re rushing. Chris Abbott (Magnum, P.I.):

I think you should basically give the people you’re pitching to a beginning, middle, and end. And you should give them anything really, really cool and unexpected—but not because of custom but because that’s how you’ll sell it.

If you really know your pitches backward and forward, they should come out naturally. Remember, you’re telling a story. If you have any doubt whether you can tell a story on your feet, practice! Pitch your story ideas to friends before you get to the pitch meeting.

Practice, practice, practice. Ask others to listen to your pitch and give you feedback—not on the story, but on the pitch. Did they get lost? Were they pulled into the story? Are there any places that dragged or that went by too fast? I think it’d be good to offer to do the same for your fellow writers. It’s good to hear how someone else pitches and discover what works for them and what doesn’t. But, in the end, the pitch is your voice, your vision, your idea. So it has to sound like you.2

It’s not a bad idea to have notes on note cards. You probably won’t need them, but you won’t have to worry about drawing a blank. (Winston Churchill used to memorize his speeches, but would bring a paper copy into the House of Parliament anyway, so he wouldn’t have to worry. He even wrote in the audience’s riotous applause.)

All writers are a bit squirrelly, but TV writers have to be less squirrelly than movie writers, just as movie writers can’t be as squirrelly as novelists. When you’re pitching, you have to listen at least as well as you talk. Be prepared for the people you’re pitching to to ask questions or make suggestions. If they do, it’s a terrific sign. It means they’re really listening.

Be Flexible but Passionate

A pitch session is all about bringing in stories that you believe in, but which you’re flexible about. Believing in your stories means you’re passionate about them. They move you. You care about them. You relate to them personally. Even if they’re not the stories of your life, they’re the kind of stories you became a writer to tell.

TV is all about process. The people you’re meeting are not buying your stories. They’re buying you writing your stories. They want to know that you’ll put your heart and soul into them.

It’s a bit ironic, because TV is not a medium for personal expression in the same way movies are. You’re working with their characters in their template. You can’t tell any old story you like. You have to tell a story that delivers the goods on their show. But that’s all the more reason why they want to see passion. Anthony Zuiker (CSI):

The main thing is passion. Passion begets more passion in the room, and when you are excited about something it becomes fun and improves the quality of writing. Passion is the main thing we look for in hiring writers, along with intelligence and understanding structure and story. One pitfall to avoid is writing for other people’s expectations.3

And here’s Shaun Cassidy (Players, Cover Me, Invasion), who became a TV showrunner after being a Hardy Boy:

I want you to come in with a specific point of view. It’s the old actor trick. When you go up for an audition, make a choice. It may not be the choice the producers wanted or expected, but it will be specific, it will catch somebody’s attention, and it may inspire the producers to think, “Oh, there’s a different way to go.” That applies to a writer. When you go in to meet the executive producer or the showrunner or whomever, don’t just try and do what you think they want you to do; come in with something that you can run with. Be bold. Try things.4

Remember, your value as a freelancer is that you bring a fresh eye to the show. You can have a writing room of six people, and after working together for a while, they all start thinking the same thoughts. If all you do in the pitch room is reflect those thoughts, they don’t need you. They’re giving you their time so you can bring in something they haven’t thought of.

Never argue with the people in the room. Just as you would if you were negotiating with an armed hostage-taker, discuss, but don’t disagree. If someone makes a suggestion where you could take the story, don’t you dare shoot it down. If they’re giving you suggestions, they see the possibilities of your story. Run with their suggestions as far as you can. If it’s a dead end, let them tell you so.

Part of being flexible is the ability to take criticisms. The better you can take criticisms in the pitch room, the better they’ll figure you are at taking criticisms when you’re hired to write. Since it is the essence of freelancing that you will get the show at least slightly wrong, and story editors will have to let you know in what ways you missed the target, you want to show them how well you embrace criticism.

Get a sense of whether the story idea you’re pitching is going down smoothly. If not, wrap it up and move to the next one. (Remember, you have four to six pitches.) If they’re really hating it, you may want to just cut it short—“Not so much with that one, huh?”—but if you’re not sure, just wrap it up efficiently. Get where you were going without further ado and be ready to go to your next pitch.

Keep the energy in the room up and focused. Although a few jokes and personal anecdotes when you get into the room are good to give people a sense of who you are, once you’re pitching, stick with the pitching.

Chris Abbott has devoted an entire handbook to how to behave before, during, and after the pitch. The essence of her very useful Ten Minutes to the Pitch is to be mentally and emotionally prepared, and then be ready to go with the flow. Be energized, but relaxed. Know what you came to do but be ready to do it in ways you didn’t expect.

Here’s Chris’s checklist; to get the details, read her book!

1. Arrive early.
2. Make sure you’re at the right place.
3. Bring a pencil and notebook.
4. Go to the restroom first.
5. Be pleasant to the assistants.
6. Don’t forget to breathe.
7. Know the people in the room.
8. Turn off your electronics.
9. Don’t start pitching till you’re in the room.
10. Tell the story you came to tell.
11. Expect the unexpected.
12. Be memorable.
13. Don’t leave until you’re finished.
14. Have someplace to go after the meeting.

(For the last one, I can recommend My Father’s Office, a pub in Santa Monica.)

Writing Your Freelance Script

So, they bought one of your pitches and hired you to write the script. Congratulations! You’re a TV writer.

Guess what? You’re still auditioning. Only now, you’re auditioning for a staff job. If they like the job you do, and the way you worked with them, they’ll hire you on staff when a staff writer position opens up.

Your job is to deliver the goods on your pitch, and to turn in the best script you can, in the time available to you, without unduly taxing your story editor.

It’s a good habit to underpromise and overdeliver. Promise the script no earlier than whenever they seem to need it. If you think it’ll take a week, but they seem to need it in three weeks, ask for three weeks. If you underpromise, you won’t be in a jam if it turns out you needed more time than you thought. If the script is harder than you thought or personal problems intervene, you’ll have that extra time to finish the script. If it’s as easy as you thought, then you’ll have that extra time to put it away and come back to it with a fresh perspective. You may be able to turn in a much more polished draft than they expected. Nothing wrong with that.

If you turn in a script too early, no one will thank you. If it’s rough, they’ll wonder why you didn’t take the time to finish it. And if it’s perfect, they’ll just resent you. Anyway, it’s probably not perfect. It just looks that way because you haven’t had enough time away from it to get perspective.

Under no circumstances ever, ever turn a script in late, even if you have to pull one all-nighter after another. The story editors are counting on you to save them trouble, and if your script is late, you’ve created trouble.

When you accept a deadline, make sure that you have no other serious obligations during the writing period. If you’ve got a vacation planned for right after you turn in your first draft, be ready to scrap it if it might somehow get in the way of your obligation to rewrite your script.

Don’t be afraid to ask your story editor as many questions as you need to, and even a few more. A phone call is good, a sit-down meeting is better if your story editor has the time. You want to get as good a feel for the show as you can. If the show is new and hasn’t aired yet, now’s your chance to come in and watch rough cuts of the early episodes, to hear how the actors speak. Ask for a tour of the standing sets. Read all the scripts you can.

A good show has a voice. If you can tell a story, you’re valuable, but if you can tell a story in that voice, you’re much more valuable. Whatever you write will get rewritten into that voice sooner or later—if not by the story editor, eventually by the showrunner. The less rewriting your script needs, the more likely they’ll have you in to write another, or hire you on staff.

Ask what the tone of the show is. Ask if there’s anything about the characters they’d like you to bring out. Ask if there are any overall themes that make the showrunner happy.

Once they buy your pitch, they may want you to write up a breakdown of your pitch—teaser, acts, act outs, and tag. Or, they may provide you with their breakdown. Some shows will actually provide you with their own beat sheet if they feel their template is particularly hard to nail, or if they’re not really sure how to communicate it to you.

Under a standard WGA contract, you can be cut off after the outline stage if the show isn’t satisfied with your work, so really take the trouble to get your outline right.

After you turn in your outline, you’ll get notes. After you turn in your first draft, you’ll get notes. All the rules of taking criticism apply a fortiori now: they’re paying you to write this, so if you have a choice to make between what they want and what you want, there’s no question. Go with what they want. In most cases, though, if you struggle with a note long enough you can find a way to address it that will make both of you happy. That’s usually the solution they were hoping you’d find.

If you’re not sure how to address a note, figure out several ways you can resolve it, and then ask your story editor which she likes the best. If your story editor is bumping on something—a plothole, something implausible, something unoriginal—try to find the fix yourself. Don’t expect her to fix it for you. That’s what they hired you to do. Chris Abbott:

If they’re stuck, it’s better to call and ask for help than turn in the wrong thing. But I don’t want them to call me and ask for every beat, or I could write it myself. Most writers I’ve known have been good about that. I’ve had writers come in and completely miss it. But in that case all the phone calls in the world wouldn’t have made a difference. I like them to ask a lot of questions and then write a beat sheet, and I give them notes on the beat sheet. Once they’ve got the end of the outline they should be in pretty good shape.

The same goes for problems you discover on your own. No beat sheet is perfect. As you’re writing your pages, you’ll probably run across problems you never suspected. Sometimes you can solve them neatly, but sometimes it will be unclear which way to go. If you aren’t sure, come up with several solutions, and then ask your story editor which she thinks is the best.

That said, don’t deviate too much from your beat sheet without checking in. They bought your idea because they liked it. Just because you no longer like it doesn’t mean they don’t. If you truly hate your idea now, come up with a new approach and check in. But no one likes a writer who’s constantly second-guessing herself. It just creates more work for everyone. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Chris Abbott again:

Executives like to participate in creating the script. If you change it substantially, you’re insulting them. Now why would you want to do that? If there are specific parts the executives loved and you take them out and you don’t warn them in advance—start looking for a new day job. On the other hand, if the spirit of the notes is in the script and you’ve given them essentially what they remembered buying, they’re not going to haggle over a couple of minor changes.

[On the other hand,] sometimes you need to change the beat sheet. What the story seems like in outline, once you start writing characters, it doesn’t work anymore. Don’t be too slavish to the beat sheet—don’t go off in a whole new direction, but no one’s going to be unhappy if you bring in a better script.

I was working with a writing partner and we had sold a story idea to an episodic TV mystery show. After we had gotten the approval to “go to story,” which, for those of your readers who don’t already know, means we could go home and write up the story we had just sold in more detail, my partner decided he hated the story and we should change it. I didn’t know that was a really bad idea, so I agreed. We came in, not with the fleshed-out story outline the producers had bought, but with an entirely different story, which, incidentally, they hated. I could almost see the blood pressure rising on one of the producers as we pitched him our new “improved” idea. I never made that mistake again.5

Don’t get too fancy with your episode. Freelancers sometimes like to show off, using lots of cinematic techniques. Unless it’s a show that’s chock-full of flashbacks, match cuts, hallucinations, dream sequences, and so on, try to tell the story clearly. Leila Basen (Mental Block, Emily of the New Moon):

Don’t junk up the format. A lot of freelancers overreach. Keep it simple. Grasp the situation and love the characters. Sometimes scripts I get are too showy, too flashy—too clever by half.

If you turn in a great script, and everyone dealing with you has a great experience, you’ll probably get hired for another script. If that goes on long enough, then you’re a pretty good bet for the next staff job.

Multiple Jobs

It may happen that you’re offered two freelance writing jobs at the same time.

If you have to choose, don’t worry about the money. It will probably be Guild scale anyway. Worry about which story you feel closer to, which you’ll be able to do the better job in. Secondarily worry about how impressive the show you’ve been asked to write for is. But writing a great script for a mediocre show may lead to more work faster than writing a great script for a great show: the competition will be that much fiercer.

Anyway, most experienced writers will take both freelance gigs. The amount of time you’re usually given to write a freelance script is enough to do a good job on two scripts. That’s why you under-promise on delivery dates. (Remember Scotty on Star Trek?) You can usually get two weeks to write your freelance script, sometimes even a month; you should be able to polish off an hour script in a week once the outline is locked. Also, when you’re working on one script, you often have to wait for feedback on it. While you’re waiting, you can work on the other script. Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove):

I’ve done at least one draft of something like seventy scripts…. The only project I’ve ever turned down was a remake of Rin-Tin-Tin, a lapse of judgment I’ve regretted ever since. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Rin-Tin-Tin!6

Of course, you have to know how fast a writer you are, and how many personal drafts you need to write to get to an official First Draft that you can turn in. (A writer’s first draft, as turned in to the story department, is sometimes called the First Writer’s Draft, to distinguish it from the White Production Draft, which is the first draft the story department turns in to the production unit.) You may not want to take a second gig if it comes too hot on the heels of your very first gig. Don’t take a second gig if you believe it will interfere with delivering a great script for the first gig. But don’t feel it’s morally wrong to take two freelance gigs at the same time. That’s what “freelance” means. So long as you deliver the goods to everyone, it’s nobody’s business how you allocate your time. If they want you full-time, all they have to do is sign you up as a staff writer!