A Storyteller's Journey: William Rabkin

Profession: Writer/Director/Producer/Author

Credits: Stranger Adventures, Psych, Monk, Missing, The Best TV Shows That Never Were, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Diagnosis Murder, Martial Law, Deadly Games, Sliders, Stick with Me, Kid, Flipper, The Cosby Mysteries, Cobra, SeaQuest 2032, Likely Suspects, She-Wolf of London, Hunter, Baywatch, Murphy's Law, The Highwayman, Spenser: For Hire

Books: The Dreamweavers: Fantasy Film-Makers of the 1980s, Science Fiction Film-Making in the 1980s, Successful Television Writing

Bio: I started writing for TV 20 years ago with a spec sold to Spenser: For Hire, and I've been working ever since. I've been a freelancer and a showrunner and everything in between, I've taught screenwriting and TV writing around the world, and I've written for two different dolphins in one season -- fortunately, only one of them talked. Also, I've run four marathons. What else would you like to know?

1) What were you doing before you "made it"?

I was working as a reader and a freelance journalist. I read at a bunch of places around town, but mostly at New World Pictures, where I was routinely reading 20 or more scripts a week. Then New World bought Marvel, and since none of the executives knew much about superheroes, I talked them into giving me a job as a development consultant on Marvel projects.

I also wrote dozens of articles for Starlog and Fangoria magazines, along with the LA Times Syndicate, Newsweek, and anyone else I could persuade to buy a story. I was briefly a broadcast technology columnist for the trade paper Electronic Media. Fortunately, I sold my first TV script the week my first column was due, which saved me from public humiliation since I knew absolutely nothing about broadcast technology.

2) What was your "big break" and how did you get it?

There were actually two "big breaks." The first came when my friend Lee Goldberg sold his book .357 Vigilante to New World Pictures. His agent inserted a clause in the contract that they had to let him write the first draft of the script -- they agreed, but gave him two weeks to do it. He'd never written a script, I was in the graduate screenwriting program at UCLA, we'd done some writing together, so he asked me to do this script with him. We banged it out, had a blast -- and New World and the producer Don Borchers liked our work enough to keep us around for another 6,000 drafts.

The second "big break" came after the .357 Vigilante project crashed and burned. Lee and I wrote a spec Spenser: For Hire. Our then agent -- who was not quite an agent yet at William Morris -- sent it to Warners, and the execs there liked it enough to pass it on to Bill Yates, Spenser's executive producer. It sat on his coffee table for about a year -- until they had a complete disaster of a script fall through on the first day of prep. Bill was so desperate, he actually started flipping through the scripts on his desk, read a page of ours… and then another… He called us up out of the blue and asked if we'd mind if they shot our script next week -- which they did, almost completely as we wrote it.

3) How does your career today stand up to your previous expectations?

It's hard to remember what my expectations were -- probably, like everyone else's, they alternated between believing I'd never sell a script and would spend my life in despair and believing that the entire world would acclaim me as the natural heir to Shakespeare, Keats, and Beckett. I can't say my career today matches up to either of them.

4) What do you find most rewarding about your profession?

Taking an idea and turning it into an episode -- all in less than a month. Seeing that little germ of a notion turn into a script, then casting it, working with the director and the actors, cutting it, mixing it… bringing it to life. It is the most exhilarating creative experience, and it's worth almost all the crap the business can throw at you. Especially when the show is actually pretty good.

5) What are the pitfalls of your profession and how do you deal with them?

The business sucks. Period. Right now, it seems to suck more than it has in the past, but maybe everybody always thinks that. It's hard to get that first job, but unless you're coming off a huge hit, it's still hard to get that second job or that third, or that twentieth. You have to fight for everything, and there isn't a person in the world who owes you a thing -- and if they say they do, watch out.

The only way for me to deal with it is to have a life. It's so easy -- especially when you're starting out -- to let the TV business take over everything. Your interests, your passions, your friends, your life, everything revolves around the biz. And then you start letting the TV biz define you -- if you're working, you're okay; if you're not, you're not much of a human being or a writer. You must be a failure. But think about is -- do you really want to judge yourself by a set of standards that regards the creators of The Man Show and Fear Factor as geniuses?

I live in Pasadena, where only recently have entertainment people started to move, and the people I socialize with aren't in The Biz -- they're lawyers and teachers and money people who do things that I can't even begin to figure out -- and if we talk about TV at all it's about The Apprentice and Hardball, two horrible shows which number among my guiltiest of guilty pleasures (along with all three of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell albums).

6) What is your personal philosophy, method, or style toward your profession?

Be nice to people. It's only a TV show.

7) What advice would you give to someone trying to "break in" to your profession?

Write. Write. Write.

I mean, that's really all there is to it. Write something great and people will find you.

Oh, and if you write a smash hit Broadway musical or best-selling novel, star in a hit movie, attempt to assassinate the president, or release a homemade sex tape of you with a current teen idol, that will help, too. (I'm only joking about assassinating the president, by the way, please don't try this.) If you're a celebrity first, doors will fly open. Welcome to America.

About "A Storyteller's Journey" Series

There are many trails you can choose when you're determined to scale a mountain, but as long as you keep climbing, they will all reach the top.

"A Storyteller's Journey" maps the paths others have taken before you. Writers and filmmakers tell you in their own words what they were doing before their ascent, the obstacles they faced along the way, and what they discovered at the summit of their ambitions.

I hope their insights and experiences will educate, motivate, and inspire you with your own goals. Whether you follow their footsteps or forge your own way, just remember that no rules for success will work if you don't.