Write On: A Screenwriting Podcast

“If you can make the twists [in the story] hit your character in an emotional way and set up their emotional arc, then when the case twist intersects with them, if it's hitting them in the deepest way, in the most unexpected way, maybe – then you've done your job. So it's getting that emotional arc to really bounce off of the crime story in the most impactful way,” says Gina Lucita Monreal about the most powerful way to fuse together story and character.  On today’s episode, we talk with David J. North and Gina Lucita Monreal, showrunners and creators of the CBS show NCIS: Origins that brings a fresh perspective to one of television’s most beloved franchises as it dives into the early career of a young Leroy Jethro Gibbs (played by Mark Harmon in the original NCIS). Set in the 90s, NCIS: Origins taps into the nostalgia of the era, from great music from bands like Pearl Jam to life with pagers and payphones.  North and Monreal discuss getting to know each other a decade ago writing for the original NCIS, and how now they are pushing the boundaries of procedural television by creating more complex, character-driven storylines. “The biggest challenge for us isn't the going back to the 90s. I mean, I think for a lot of procedural writers, that would have been a challenge, that you're losing the DNA and the fingerprints, all that stuff. But for Gina and I, that's not really ever the way we leaned into NCIS or wrote the show. Our episodes were definitely more about the characters, so that's what we looked forward to. And obviously in each episode of Origins, it's very character based. I would say the most difficult part of going back is just sticking to canon, knowing it. Weaving in and out, trying to, when you hit something and saying, ‘Okay, well, we know this happened in season three of NCIS,’ so trying to honor it while also using it to our advantage – that's difficult.  We get beat up a lot on X, and sometimes we have to just pick a path,” says North about the challenges of writing beloved characters with a lot of well-known history.  To learn more about North and Monreal’s writing process and hear their advice for emerging TV writers, listen to the podcast.   

On today’s episode of Write On, we chat with Kim Rosenstock, co-creator and co-showrunner for the new limited series, Dying For Sex, starring Michelle Williams, Jenny Slate and Sissy Spacek.  Based on a true story, Dying for Sex is about a woman diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer who abandons her husband of 15 years to begin a journey of sexual discovery. Rosenstock talks about her background as a playwright, nearly missing out on the opportunity to write for the hit show New Girl, and navigating the complicated tone of Dying For Sex that balances a woman having unconventional, often hilarious sexual escapades with facing her own mortality.  “We need humor the most as human beings, so don’t be afraid of injecting humor and joy and levity into these sort of subject matters… If you have the impulse to make it funny or to make it feel joyful or hopeful, lean into that and don’t be afraid of it. I also think that is what makes it feel real, actually. To me, that makes it feel more honest, not the other way around… I think what's exciting is that audiences are embracing these kinds of stories that can kind of go into darker and lighter places at the same time,” says Rosenstock about mixing joy and sadness in Dying For Sex.  To hear more, listen to the podcast. Please be advised the interview includes discussion of sexual abuse.  Dying for Sex is currently streaming on Hulu.   

“I didn’t really set out to make Cordelia (Uzo Aduba) quirky. I just wanted to make her distinctive. I just really thought about who I wanted her to be and how I thought [birdwatching] would be an interesting way for her to approach her job. And the very first thing that came to me was just her use of silence and her ability to just be comfortable in situations that might make other people uncomfortable. And it’s a quality that I’ve seen in certain people that I’ve always admired and been fascinated with because there’s nobody quite like Cordelia, but I’ve seen glimmers of it,” says The Residence creator and showrunner Paul William Davies about creating his lead character Cordelia, a detective who uses her birdwatching skills as framework for solving cases.  On today’s episode, we talk with Paul William Davies about The Residence, the new Shondaland show streaming on Netflix. Set behind closed doors at the White House, The Residence follows an offbeat detective, Cordelia Cupp (Aduba), as she investigates the murder of a lead member of the White House staff. Davies says the idea came to him watching a hearing on C-SPAN that went into details of the White House’s layout. But the show is more than just a game of Clue set in the upstairs-downstairs world of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The show goes deep into character and offers plenty of laughs along the way.  Davies talks about what he’s learned working with television revolutionary Shonda Rhimes, the intense work that goes into structuring a murder mystery, and shares his advice for anyone who may be working on their own TV mystery.   “I think it’s really important that you think about what the environment is that you’re having this murder mystery in, and making the motive something that feels like it’s related to the world that you’re working in. In most murder mysteries, the murderer is doing it for money or for love or lust. And that’s probably in 98% of the ones that you read. And that’s fine… But I think really giving a lot of thought to, what is the motive here? How do I keep it organic to this world and these people, as opposed to it just being grafted onto it, which I think sometimes does happen. Make sure that the killer is doing something that feels like it’s part of that world for a reason that is related to that world,” he says.    To hear more, listen to the podcast.   

“Sameness is terrible. Your goal is to cut through it. If you have a unique perspective, you’re going to take vampires or anything that everybody thinks they know and do it in a way that’s really exciting and gets people really pumped up about it. There are all these incredible worlds to explore, but there just needs to be somebody that can take you there that has a different way of doing it… I want to see creators that offer something specific and unique. Specificity is key to me. I don’t want a cover band. I don’t want people covering what has been before. I want to see something new. I want to see a badass band with a new singer or new lyrics, a new style of music,” says Peter Katz, founder of Story Driven, a literary management and production company.  On today’s episode, we speak to Peter Katz, a manager and producer championing writers with fresh, unique voices who are forging new ground. We talk about what he looks for in a writing sample, why he loves being a judge in Final Draft’s Big Break screenplay competition, and why short stories are having a bright moment in the film industry.  “Recently, I’ve actually seen TV executives starting to think about short stories as a foundation for potential shows. It’s a really effective way to communicate an idea quickly, in a really conceptual way, but also, it’s not like a pitch. It’s very tonal. You have character perspective and you have the style that the author brings to it. So I think it has a really unique marriage between pitching the concept, but also immersing you in a world in a very short period of time. That’s why I think it’s been effective in selling to a market, because you could share a short story with somebody and it doesn’t demand a lot of time. If it’s developed properly, you’re able to learn about the potential of this project and then quickly share with somebody else on your team. And overnight, a lot of people can sign on to a project because it doesn’t take as long as other mediums,” says Katz.  To hear more about Katz’s perspective on the industry and what he looks for in a writer’s voice, listen to the podcast.  

“With an adaptation, you can never give back your first read. So, what are you taking away? What fills your soul? Why do you want to tell this story? And then that becomes sort of the North Star. And I’m tethered more by that North Star than by the actual moves that are happening in the book,” says Long Bright River showrunner, Nikki Toscano, about adapting Liz Moore’s best-selling novel for television.  Long Bright River is an emotional suspense thriller that follows Mickey (Amanda Seyfried), a police officer in a Philadelphia neighborhood hit hard by the opioid epidemic. As a string of murders unfolds, Mickey must find her missing sister who’s also battling addiction before it’s too late – but long buried family secrets stand in the way.  On the surface, the show is a highly engaging murder-mystery, but beneath the whodunnit is a love story between two sisters. We chat with Toscano about delving into the sisterly dynamic that is both compassionate and toxic at the same time.  Toscano shares tools for building an enticing mystery that includes giving your characters secrets to help drive the story.  “I think that in the beginning of anything, you have to determine what your character wants and then put a bunch of people or things in that character’s way. So that’s how secrets are born, right? And that’s how you have your audience leaning in. Is the secret going to come out? Who’s going to tell the secret? You and I could be having a conversation and I say, ‘Don’t tell anybody!’ And then the next scene is you being in a situation where do you tell, do you not tell? It’s about setting up those kinds of things. I mean, whenever building any kind of show, whether it’s an adaptation or not, determine what your character wants and then stick a bunch of people between them and that goal that either complement or compromise your character’s journey,” says Toscano.  To hear more, listen to the podcast. Long Bright River streams on Peacock March 13.

“My recommendation to anybody who is writing animation is to take advantage of the things you can do in animation that you can’t do in live action, which is to spend an infinite amount of money, right? If you and I are going to write a scene and you say, ‘Oh, let’s set it on a battleship, but then space aliens come and suddenly we’re transported to Jupiter,’ it better be animation because if it’s not, we’re never going to be able to shoot that. But if it is animation, that’s exactly what we should be doing all the time. You want to create the most expensive set in the world because it costs nothing to draw that battleship and send us to Jupiter. And that’s really the glory of an animated show,” says Brent Forrester, about what he learned writing for The Simpsons for three seasons.  On today’s episode, we chat with Emmy-winning writer Brent Forrester about his prolific comedy writing career that includes shows like The Office, King of the Hill and Space Force. He shares why the writing room for The Simpsons was so intimidating and his surprise when The Office showrunners had to teach him the specific tone and structure for the show after he turned in his first episode and just wasn’t getting it.   “I had gotten the tone wrong – it was largely my attempt to make it wall to wall funny. I wasn’t getting that you really had to make it serious. There were other aspects, too, that I had to pick up. One of them is the use of what are called ‘talking heads.’ It’s when the character speaks directly to camera. It comes from reality TV where they pull the subject of a reality show aside and ask them a question and they just speak directly to camera. So we stole that device and it’s a great crutch for writers because one of the hardest things for us is getting the exposition across,” says Forrester.  He also shares his advice for writing a great TV pilot that will hook the reader and offers a simple formula for writing jokes by mixing the sacred with the profane.  To hear more, listen to the podcast. 

“Fugler (Robert Carlyle) was a character that I really connected with from the beginning. I know it sounds a little strange that the Nazi was my way into this, but it really was that idea of, ‘How can we get inside his head and make sure that he’s a fully fleshed out person that way?’” says Josh Salzberg about trying to make his villain, a Nazi named Damien Fugler, a three-dimensional character. Josh Salzberg wrote the screenplay for The Performance with co-writer/director Shira Piven. In this episode, Salzberg talks about the challenges of adapting a short story by playwright Arthur Miller that’s about a Jewish-American tap dancer (Jeremy Piven), who’s willing to compromise his own core values to find fame and fortune in Nazi Germany.  “The idea of all [the characters] is that they’re all performing on some level. They all have another life. And that’s true to show business, that we all have sides of ourselves that we’re not sure we want everybody to see or that it’s okay for everybody to see. And then in Berlin in the ‘30s, there’s all these different communities that were impacted – not just the Jews in Germany,” he says.  Salzberg also talks about his background as a film editor, how it helped him transition to screenwriting, and the challenges of writing morally compromised characters like his protagonist, Harold.  “I think embracing the mistakes that they make, embracing those flaws and leaning into that is important. Sometimes we can care about our characters to the point where we want them to be likable, which is a note we always get, but we’ve got to be okay with the mistakes – and the consequences for those mistakes. And that was a lesson that Shira and I kept learning as we were developing the script,” he says.  To hear more about Salzberg’s writing process, listen to the podcast. Please note: this episode contains discussions regarding racism and anti-semitism. 

“People think sequels are easier, and I’m like, ‘No, no, it’s much harder. It is much harder to write.’ They have never written sequels, those people, because you need to do everything as well as the first and yet better, and go to new places, follow all the world rules, but create new ones. I mean, it’s just so many balls in the air,” says Meg LeFauve, co-writer for Inside Out 2, along with Dave Holstein.  In this special live episode from the Writers Guild Foundation Library, Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein talk about tackling a whole new set of challenges as they wrote the sequel to the beloved movie Inside Out. They also discuss the 5-year Pixar development process that includes the concept of failing fast. “They really want you pushing to things that are new and innovative, so they expect you to fail. They actually want you to fail but they want you to do that quickly, right? Because we only have five years, so it’s always like, hurry up, hurry up. You know, fail. Go again. Go again,” she says. Holstein shared some very personal advice for writing coming of age stories, like the Inside Out movies: get micro-focused.  “Sometimes it’s better to zoom in than to zoom out. For me, it helps to zoom in on a detail and let the detail be a microcosm for the rest of it. I know that when we were writing this film, I was thinking about my anxiety at that age and where that came from. I had a speech impediment, I had a stutter, so I hated Spanish class because I had to read out loud, and my stutter always came out in front of people, which made me very, very anxious. And I feel like, for Riley, there’s a three-day hockey camp that could determine the rest of her life. That’s where I sort of sunk into and if I was writing a different story about me, I would have gone into those details. But for me, it was about finding something very specific and very small,” says Holstein. To hear more about the writing process, listen to the podcast.   

“The most subversive thing this show could do is make you cry… If you really boil down television, really cook it in the pan, it’s the character business. I’m in the character business. Movies are in the plot and spectacle business, for television, there’s a thing about laying in bed and watching someone in your bedroom or living room that you really care about, you’re inviting these people into your house. The more you care about them, the more your show will succeed. There’s no simple formula, but you could boil down every single TV show to if the characters work, that show is likely going to work. If the characters don’t work, no matter what that show is, no matter how much money you throw at it, that show is not going to work,” says Eric Kripke, creator and showrunner for The Boys on Prime Video.  In this special episode hosted by screenwriting career coach Lee Jessup live from the Writers Guild Foundation in Los Angeles, Kripke talks about the functions of a showrunner, the excellent training he got doing 15 seasons of the show Supernatural, and what it’s like when the real world mirrors the darker aspects of The Boys.  Kripke also shares his sage advice for writing dialogue.  “I was interviewing people about their life experiences – it was a romantic comedy so I was asking people about their love lives. I wanted to transcribe it, so I had about 20 hours of material that I’m just transcribing and that’s how I learned to write dialogue, just from doing that because you learn how people really speak. No one speaks in straight, declarative sentences. It’s this weaving thing where they’ll start and they’ll back away and throw in a new idea. When you start to pay attention to what real language looks like on a page, it’s very different than what you think it looks like. So, to know what it looked like and how to recreate it, was huge. I recommend everyone try that,” says Kripke.  To hear more, listen to the podcast.  You can also watch this episode here. 

“If everything's being played on the surface, it's very hard to make that character come to life. You want hinterland, you want subtext. You want the things that are buried, the things that we don't know about them, the things that maybe they don't know about themselves. And always, the story is about this excavation of what's underneath the surface. One way or the other, that's kind of what story is. It's about bringing things to the surface,” says Conclave screenwriter Peter Straughan, about the importance of giving your characters secrets.  In this episode, we speak to Peter Straughan about his powerful film Conclave, starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow. Based on the book by Robert Harris, the movie follows five very different modern Catholic Cardinals as they go through the process of electing a new Pope. Straughan talks about why he loves a flawed hero, getting to tour the Vatican, what surprised him the most, and whether or not he thinks the real Pope will watch this movie.  Having also written the TV show Wolf Hall about Tudor England, Straughan also talks about the surprising connection between King Henry VIII and the modern Catholic Church.  “Both the world of the Tudors and the world of Conclave give us a way of looking at human behavior and the pursuit of power from a sort of angle that makes it particularly clear and fresh, without the clutter of the normal secular world of elections, that really anchors it in the human individual. So, Tudor England was maybe the last time where the sexual desires of one man was going to dominate the political landscape of an entire country. Maybe not the last time. Maybe this still happens in the world. But it becomes really pared down to basics, so you see very clearly what's going on. And I think it feels the same with Conclave, it's about the personalities and the morals of these few individuals,” says Straughan.  Just a warning, there are spoilers about the ending of Conclave in this episode, but we give you plenty of warning before they are discussed.  To hear more about Straughan’s writing process, listen to the podcast.