Ask the Expert: Ellen Sandler ... Getting Staffed on a TV Show

Question: How does someone get staffed on a TV show?

Answer: I can tell you that in a sentence that’s short enough to fit on a bumper sticker: If you want to be a (staff) writer: Write.

Once you’ve written something, you have to write something else… and something else. Then you realize, “Oh, no, this is so much work. This can’t be right, I must not know the secret; there must be an easier way to do this.” This is a short article, so I’ll give you the short answer. “No. There is no other way. You have to write. A lot.”

One of my students was the showrunner’s assistant on a highly rated show and she knew her boss was looking to fill a new staff writer position for the coming season. My student had written a spec script and her boss had read it, liked it, and even made noises about moving her up to a staff position. But she did not get the staff position that season. Why not? Her boss told her, “Your script is good, very good, in fact, but you only have one. The guy I hired has eight current spec scripts – and that shows me he’s a writer! That’s what I need on staff – a writer.”

If you want to be a writer: Write. Every day. Yes. Every day.

You don’t have time to write every day? Why not? Because you have a job? A family? Other needs? Then you don’t have time to be on staff. Being on staff means having a job – spending hours (could be 10 to 12 a day), working in the writers room – and then finding time to write draft after draft of your assigned script. And that family? They aren’t going away when you get staffed; you’re still going to have to remember your significant other’s birthday, make doctor’s appointments, and pick up your kids when it’s your weekend. Develop the muscles to write even when you have a lot of other demands on you, because that’s what is going to be expected of you when you get staffed.

Try this rule: Write as much as you eat. If you skip a day eating, then skip a day writing. If you only eat on the weekends, then, okay, only write on the weekends. See what I mean? Writing, if you are a writer, is as much a part of your life as eating.

Too much for you? Okay, how about 2 minutes? Do you have 2 minutes to write today? I mean that literally: 2 minutes. Set a timer and write down something that made you laugh today. Nothing? What about something that made you mad? Thought the movie you just saw was terrible? Write down why. Write down your complaints about your ex or your parents (the genesis of every Everybody Loves Raymond story). Write down the absurdities of modern life that make you crazy (every Seinfeld story). Write when you have nothing to say; write until you find something to say. If you can’t find a way to put some personal words on a page for at least two minutes every day, then are you sure you actually want to be a staff writer? (Think I’m too mean and bossy? Hah, wait 'til you meet your showrunner!)

By writing all the time, you create your writer’s identity – you discover what your strengths are, what themes you’re drawn to. You discover what you think, what irks you, what tickles you. You develop your writer’s voice, which will then find its way into your scripts almost automatically. That, by the way, is what anyone looking to hire a writer is looking for!

You know, the best thing you get out of writing all the time? You develop the discipline to write when you can’t – there is no writer’s block in television, you must deliver and you must deliver on time.

So write something even if you’re tired. Write even if you don’t really want to. Write instead of watching TV, answering emails, watching YouTube, twittering, shopping online for discount cosmetics or the latest electronics. Some days you’ll write for 5 minutes, or 30; then 2 hours! A couple of months like that and you’ll have something finished.

Most importantly: Be willing to write badly.

Okay, now that is the secret. You have to be courageous enough to write badly, so you can learn how to write better. You have to respect the craft of writing enough to recognize that you won’t get it on the first try. You won’t get there in ten tries. You have to be willing to accumulate experience. You can’t do it alone; you’ve got to get feedback – professional feedback – from a working writer or from a professional coach. (Full disclosure: I am both – a working writer and a professional writing coach specializing in TV scripts.)

What do you do with all this writing? Getting on staff of a TV show is like making it to the Olympics. You have to do a lot of push-ups and swim a lot of laps before you get to compete on the world stage. For a writer that means pursuing smaller venues. Put your ideas into a recognizable format and get your work seen – sketch comedy shows, off-off-off Broadway theatres, trade magazine articles, student films – anywhere that actors can say you words or publishers will print them, because that is where people who are looking for new writers look, or at least have their assistants look.

If you create material and get it in front of an audience, your writing will improve and doors will open; maybe not the big golden one just yet, but small ones on the way to the big one. You will find your way to that coveted staff job – it may take longer than you’d hoped, but maybe not as long as you (and your parents) feared.

By the way, my student – the one whose boss turned her down for that staff job – wrote more specs and an original pilot. Know where she is this year? Yes, on staff! She’s working on her first assigned episode. By next season, she’ll be a story editor, and her mom can invite the family over for nachos while they watch her credit crawl across the screen. So write. Now.

Ellen Sandler, the author of The TV Writer’s Workbook, will be speaking at StoryLink All-Stars at the Great American PitchFest on June 13. She received an Emmy nomination as a Co-Executive Producer of the CBS hit Everybody Loves Raymond, and has created original pilots for ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and Disney Channel, among others.