Typical Day
Rea Wright, a staff writer on a successful network comedy, stumbles out of bed at 9am. By 9:30am, she's in her Civic and off to work, still only half-awake.
She's excited for the day—after all, her job allows her to show up in stretch pants, an old Abercrombie sweatshirt from 2006, and a half ponytail/half-whatever-happened-in-her-sleep-last-night, and no one even blinks an eye. TV writers aren't known for their fashion, they're known for their intelligence and their ability to down a Costco-sized bucket of Red Vines by day's end.
When Rea rolls in at 10am, she goes to the kitchen, grabs a muffin from the fully-stocked shelves, and pours herself a cup of joe.
As she devours her breakfast and her morning coffee, she chats with her fellow writers. Life is good. This is her first real job on a TV show, and Rea couldn't be more excited.
After she re-fuels from her tough morning, Rea retreats to her office where she watches a YouTube clip of a monkey dressed as a giraffe. These animal videos never, ever, get old.
Shortly after, the room is called together and a gaggle of writers gather at a large conference table that's covered in yesterday's pizza. They'll spend the next hour talking about what they did the night before, whether they should order Thai or Vietnamese for lunch (on the network's dime, of course), and what movie Matthew McConaughey's breakout role was in. Believe it or not, it was actually before Mud.
It's now 12pm and lunch has arrived. The room has decided on Mexican because they had Thai for lunch earlier in the week, and their showrunner had Pho for dinner the night before. Just a note, the showrunner is the head producer, the person who runs the show, and often the creator of the show. They make all of the important decisions, including what to have for lunch.
After downing way too many fish tacos, the writers are ready to begin their day. Rea has an idea for a story line, but since she's only a staff writer (and at the bottom of the writer totem poll), she wants to wait for the perfect moment to pitch her idea. This is a tough call for any newbie writer looking to make a name for herself. You can’t just throw around ideas willy-nilly like you own the place. You've got to be strategic, calculated, and smart.
Luckily, Rea gets her chance. The showrunner asks the staff if anyone has any pitches for the A story. The A story is the primary story of a television show. Shows also contain B and C stories, which are minor sub-plots that are weaved into the script. Just in case you were wondering, being talented at knitting doesn't necessarily make you a better scriptwriter. Trust us, we've thought about it too.
Rea nervously clears her throat and goes for it, trying her best to sound confident, "What if Sally gets trapped in an elevator? And then the entire episode takes place over one day as she attempts to entertain herself while awaiting rescue?" The showrunner rubs her chin and cocks her head to the side, "I...love it! But what if, instead of an elevator, Sally is trapped in a Walmart after closing?"
Rea is ecstatic—a drastically different version of her idea is going in the script! This is a huge success for a fledgling writer like Rea.
The rest of the afternoon is spent breaking out the beats of the story. Beats are a way of summing up individual scenes into just a few sentences. Rea volunteers to write on the whiteboard, and for the next several hours, the 10 writers break a comedic story about a girl trapped in a Walmart after closing. Breaking a story entails fleshing out the entire A, B, and C stories into individual beats—that are then weaved together—representing how they will play out in the show.
Breaking a story isn't an easy task. It involves hours of mulling over ideas, getting it wrong, then re-forming ideas, all while sustaining brain power over a bucket of brownie bites.
Before she knows it, it's 7pm and Rea is disappointed to learn that the writers are staying for dinner. In this case, "dinner" is code for "we're staying late." She texts her date, Rob, that she won't be able to make it for drinks at the swanky Standard Hotel. Even though she's bummed, these kinds of disruptions are normal for Rea. No day is the same and no plans can ever really be set in stone.
After several more hours at the office, Rea finally gets home at 12am, just in time to watch a re-run of her favorite cooking show. She slowly drifts to sleep, while the sweet, sweet glow of her TV set glimmers in the background.