How I Wrote That

Jennifer Maisel most recently developed an original pilot called “The 626” with Super Deluxe and adapted two Jane Green novels—Tempting Fate and To Have and to Hold, which aired in June. She currently is working on a two-hour about campus rape and institutional betrayal with Just Singer Entertainment. Her screenplay “Lost Boy” was filmed starring Virginia Madsen. She wrote The Assault and The March Sisters for Mar Vista Entertainment and Double Wedding for Jaffe Braunstein. She has written movies for NBC, ABC, MTV and Lifetime, was a staff writer on the television series Related, wrote a pilot for ABC Family and an animated feature for Disney. Maisel has developed original pilots with Bunim-Murray, Ineffable, Stun Media and MomentumTV and co-created the critically acclaimed web series Faux Baby with Laura Brennan and Rachel Leventhal. The screenplay adaptation of her play The Last Seder won Showtime’s Tony Cox Screenwriting Award, meriting her a month’s stay in a haunted farmhouse at the Nantucket Screenwriter’s Colony. A graduate of Cornell University and NYU’s Dramatic Writing program, Maisel is also an award-winning playwright whose Eight Nights will premiere at Antaeus Theatre in October 2019; the play is currently part of a nationwide event called 8 Nights of Eight Nights, raising funds and awareness for HIAS. She has taught playwriting at University of Southern California and guest-lectured around the country. On adapting novels “I like the puzzle of taking something that’s epic, novels are epic, even not great novels are epic, and you have to figure out how to find the essential spine to it and give shape to it as a writer.” -Jennifer Maisel

Laura Brennan’s eclectic writing career includes television, film, theater, web series, fiction and news. Behind the scenes, she has helped production companies develop movies, TV pilots and limited series. She has taught pitching workshops to executives at Netflix and Film Victoria, as well as MFA programs and undergraduate classes at universities including Stephens College, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Southern California, Boston University and National University.A graduate of Yale University, Brennan has won awards for journalism, television writing and fiction. Her children’s book, Nana Speaks Nanese, tackles the confusing changes brought on by dementia in a reassuring and straightforward way. She hopes it will help families facing a diagnosis of dementia open up a conversation with their young children. Her web series Faux Baby is also for parents, but it is definitely not for children—or even safe for work. “You are not everything to everyone. And you shouldn’t try to be. You should figure out what you do best and double down on it. Learn the stuff that you’re not great at so that you are comfortable and confident but narrow down what it is you really bring to the table ” -Laura Brennan

Dawn Comer Jefferson is an Emmy-nominated, award-winning writer. On television, Comer Jefferson wrote on the CBS family drama Judging Amy, served as writer/consulting producer on MTV's teen drama, South of Nowhere, freelanced on the CBS hit NCIS, and developed a drama pilot at NBC Universal Studios. She was nominated for an Emmy for writing the Fox-animated family film, Our Friend, Martin, and for the last nine years has written Emmy-winning arts programming for PBS, performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. As a non-fiction writer, Comer Jefferson has written about children, families and public policy issues for national print and online media including Garnet News, Working Mother, Fit Pregnancy Magazine and MomsRising, and her essays have been featured in the anthologies A Woman Alone (Seal Press) and Go Girl (Eighth Mountain Press). She adapted, produced and directed the eight-part NPR radio series adaptation of the biography Maggie's American Dream, co-wrote the nonfiction book Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work, and Family, and the African American historical children’s fiction, The Promise. Visit her website. "My first piece of advice is to recognize that you are a writer and a storyteller. A lot of people are hesitant to own that yet you really need to be in that mindspace. And then remember that your first draft is not your only draft. There are probably 15 or 16 more and you’re not really done until your done… and even then, you’re not done." -Dawn Comer Jefferson

Rachel Shukert is a producer and writer, known for GLOW (2017), Supergirl (2015) and The Baby-Sitters Club (2020). Her plays include Bloody Mary (NYIT nominee), Everything's Coming Up Moses and The Three Gabor Sisters and her books include the memoirs Everything Is Going To Be Great and Have You No Shame? When you know these characters so well you can get into a rut. You get caught up in what you thought their arc was. Characters become their own people and you have to keep yourself open to letting them do things that maybe you didn’t imagine for them earlier on… For me everything interesting exists in the space between who we are and who we think we should be and all internal conflict, all the stories, all these bad decisions people make – or good decisions people make – happen in that space.

Deborah Starr Seibel is a multiple award-winning journalist and screenwriter. For the past eight years, she has been an instructor at USC's School of Cinematic Arts in the John Wells Division of Writing for Film & Television. In addition, she serves as a mentor for Stephens College's MFA in Screenwriting program. In prime time television, Deborah recently sold two pilots to CBS and is credited with four years on staff. During those years, she wrote six episodes for the final season of NBC's Sisters and spent three additional years on the staff of Promised Land, the spin-off to CBS's Touched By An Angel. She has also written episodes for Mysterious Ways and 21 Jump Street. As a television reporter, Deborah won a George Foster Peabody award for investigative journalism, two Emmy Awards and First Place from the Associated Press for one of her documentaries. As a print journalist, she has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Parade and USA Today. In addition, she is a long-time national correspondent for TV Guide. In 2010, Deborah was awarded a USC Annenberg Fellowship to receive her Master's Degree in Specialized Journalism/The Arts. "If there isn't a kernel of truth you shouldn't be writing. You get to know the people in a writers' room better than your family, because you have to bring yourself, your stories, your history, your family experience into that room or you have nothing to contribute because nobody on this planet has lived the life you've lived and if you don't bring that into the writers' room, what good are you? What we are as artists are people who are trying to allow other people to feel that they are not alone." -Deborah Starr Seibel

Julie Hebert started her creative life as a theater director and playwright (Ruby’s Bucket of Blood). She's written and directed for the Magic Theater, Steppenwolf, Victory Gardens, LaMaMa, The Women's Project, Cornerstone and many more. Her plays were honored twice with the Pen Award for Drama. Moving into television, Julie has written and directed for some of the most respected shows in television including American Crime, The Good Wife, Boss, Numb3rs and The West Wing. Her films have been praised as “intriguingly complex” (Variety) and “pulsing with veracity” (LA Times), with “a raw power that is impossible to dismiss” (Roger Ebert). She blogs occasionally at: http://juliehebert.com/about-julie-hebert/ "I honor the depth inside and the stories that really want to be told because often in television you can get away with topline chatter, but to really hit on something that has meaning for you, that will have meaning for someone hearing the story, it has to come from a deeper place." -Julie Hébert

Valerie C. Woods is a writer/producer in television and film, and is also a publisher, editor and author. Valerie is currently Co-Executive Producer/Writer on the critically acclaimed television drama series Queen Sugar, created by Ava DuVernay and airing on Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). She has also been Adjunct Faculty for the Master of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting program since 2015. Recently, Valerie served as Creative Director for Syd Field – The Art of Visual Storytelling. Valerie is one of four Syd Field Screenwriting Method Instructors trained by Mr. Field. She also wrote the screen adaptation of the novel Tempest Rising by Diane McKinney-Whetstone, with the production company of actor/director Phylicia Rashad. In 2013, Valerie founded of the independent press, BooksEndependent which has published five titles including Valerie’s novel Katrin’s Chronicles: The Canon of Jacqueléne Dyanne. She is also the author of Something for Everyone (50 Original Monologues), which is published by Samuel French, Inc. In 2016, Valerie produced a series of staged readings of scripts adapted from literary work via Staged/Lit. During Valerie’s 20+ years as a member of WGAw, she has written on one-hour drama series for CBS, Lifetime, and Showtime. Credits include Co-Executive Producer/Writer on the drama series, Any Day Now on Lifetime Network. Her episode “Family is Family” was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award, and Consulting Producer/Writer for the drama series, Soul Food on Showtime Network. Her television career began after winning a Fellowship with the Walt Disney Studios. "You are there [in the writers room] plumbing the emotional depth and character growth and humanity. And social issues from the world in which your characters live because their world is our world." -Valerie Woods

"The most important thing is to show up and write every day. Don't wait for inspiration to strike." Kate Gersten is a graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwrights Program at The Juilliard School under the mentorship of Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang. Her play Benefit of the Doubt was produced at The Juilliard School, and was further developed at the Roundabout where she currently is under commission. Her other plays include A Body of Work, (also developed at Roundabout), The Untitled Priscilla Presley Musical (Ambassador Theatre Group with Dolly Parton), Be Your Best Friend, (2012 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Finalist, developed at Roundabout), Father Figure, and Exposed! The Curious Case of Shiloh and Zahara (Stage 13, MITF, Outstanding New Play award.) Kate has been a writer on the Golden Globe winning TV series “Mozart in the Jungle” (Amazon), the Golden Globe and Emmy nominated NBC comedy “The Good Place” starring Ted Danson and Kristen Bell, and the upcoming musical comedy “Schmigadoon” from Lorne Michaels and Apple. She has developed two pilots with FOX with Steve McPherson/Lionsgate and Jamie Tarses/Sony respectively, and has developed pilots at Showtime (also with McPherson), and CBS, with Working Title/CBS Studios. Kate is a three-time recipient of the Lincoln Center Le Comte de Nouy Prize. In addition to her studies at Juilliard, Kate did her undergraduate studies at the UCLA School of Theatre, Film and Television.

Tara Hernandez started working on The Big Bang Theory as an assistant to the executive producer in season 4, and became a staff writer in the middle of season 5. From there she rose in the ranks to be a co-executive producer, helping to craft the series finale before moving to work on the show’s spin-off Young Sheldon. The key to pitching sitcoms – there’s the event and then there’s the story. The event is the thing that happens but the story is her emotional realization that comes from the event… So for my first story that sold on Big Bang Theory was about the time Bernadette was getting married and Amy was going overboard so the girls decide to go dress shopping without Amy. That was the event that happened and then, because she was so devastated, Sheldon had to step up as a boyfriend and comfort her and it lead to their first cuddle. -Tara Hernandez

Cindy Chupack has won two Emmys and three Golden Globes as TV writer/producer whose credits include “Sex and the City,” “Better Things,” “Divorce,” “Modern Family," “Everybody Loves Raymond,” and most recently Showtime’s darkly comic hour “I’m Dying Up Here.” She is the author of two comic memoirs: the New York Times bestseller The Between Boyfriends Book: A Collection of Cautiously Hopeful Essays, and The Longest Date: Life as a Wife. Last year she directed her first episode of television for "I’m Dying Up Here," and her first feature, OTHERHOOD, starring Angela Bassett, Patricia Arquette, and Felicity Huffman. OTHERHOOD is a comedy Chupack co-wrote that premiered this week in select theaters and on Netflix. It feels very paint by numbers so it seems so easy - but it's not. As soon as I get good and comfortable I want to take a risk. To challenge myself. -Cindy Chupack

A Macarthur Genius Grant fellow in 2018 Morisseau has written a 3 play cycle, titled The Detroit Projects which includes: Detroit '67, Paradise Blue, and Skeleton Crew. In television, she served as a story editor for the television series Shameless and she wrote the book for the jukebox musical Ain't Too Proud—The Life and Times of the Temptations which is slated to open on Broadway in March 2019. “It was so transformative to see how many people responded to seeing something new, to hearing from my voice and my perspective and I realized “Oh, this is what happens when you fill a void” and that was the bug that bit me.”

Marie Jamora is an award-winning Filipino music video director and commercial director who is best known for her music videos, commercials, and feature film What Isn’t There. “As a woman I always feel like my work has to be perfect, or else why am I there, but that’s unmanageable because you have to give yourself room to make mistakes so that you can be better.”

Denise Hewett founded Scriptd, a script database for the entertainment industry (think google for scripts) that is a pipeline for diversity and content discovery, creating a script culture similar to the book culture so the public can pay to read scripts for the first time ever (like e-books) and upvote them on the site. “What’s cool about our platform is that because it’s inclusive you can go on there and read all kinds of different stories.” “I think the thing that breaks the noise, that always makes money, that pushes the cultural zeitgeist, is the thing that hasn’t been done before.”

Writer-director Rachel Feldman has directed more than 60 hours of television, beginning with Doogie Howser, M.D. Thanks to her mother’s love of sharing stories Feldman became enamored of classic films, worked as a professional child actor into her teens. “I think like most artists I was very comfortable with my imagination at a very early age. As a child I occupied myself very well by turning almost any inanimate object into a character, including my box of Crayola crayons which was the Queen’s Court.” “I always wanted to write female characters. I always wanted to write female protagonists. Girls and women interest me.”

Teresa Hsiao majored in finance and worked for Lehmann Brothers before finally chasing her true life dream of being a writer. She began writing for a Canadian children’s show and credits now include Family Guy and American Dad. “I went from one male-dominated industry to another male-dominated industry. It’s a little demoralizing, but It’s the nature of how it is right now. Hopefully it will change as we do get more voices in the room.”

Amy Rardin has written as part of a team with Jessica O'Toole for dramas from Greek to The Carrie Diaries to Jane the Virgin and became the executive producer of the Charmed reboot in 2018. Moving from writing unproduced features into television she realized, “This is the most creatively fulfilled I’ve been in years.” “You have to always find the emotion behind it. If it gives you a visceral reaction, it’s a good thing and you shouldn’t ignore that.”

Helen Estabrook, producer of Whiplash and executive producer of Casual began her career as an actress but quickly transitioned. “I see the role of the producer as the person who can speak all languages fluently, all aspects of the budget and the business of it and you know all aspects of the creative.” “Being a producer is being someone who is ready to encourage every other person’s best work.”

This week How I Wrote that sat down with a trio of working writers who also work hard for their union. Elizabeth Martin & Lauren Hynek are a writing team responsible for the live action Mulan but they also serve as Co-Chairs of the Committee of Women Writers at the Writers Guild of America, West. They each offer solid advice on the business of screenwriting as well as the craft. Hynek says the benefit of writing as a team is a more cohesive script, “We would fight about a scene and then realize part of the reason we’re fighting about it is it was not supposed to be in the movie.” Alison Schroeder was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Hidden Figures and is currently working on Christopher Robin. Her response to the idea of a writer’s ritual is simple: “I don’t miss deadlines. That’s my ritual.” Martin: “If we’re having trouble with something it’s because we’re not trying it from the right angle so we’ll just try it from another angle.” Lauren Hynek: “Once you get the job it’s only 10% writing. 90% is how you are in the room.” Alison Schroeder: “Pitching is an art form in and of itself and you have to learn how to do it fast, because you’re doing all this for free so you can’t let it consume all your time.”

Writing for I Love Dick and Pushing Daisies, Dara takes us through the worst move to LA, writing partner breakups, and the thrill of each writers room. It was a full on party sitting down with her at Jim Henson Studios. Tune in. Tell your friends. On the show she writes for, I Love Dick, “It’s foreplay.”

A peek at how Chicago does it. Sam Bailey of Brown Girls fame (Hey HBO!) and Fawz Mirza of the critically acclaimed film Signature Move talked about careers that start outside of Hollywood, and how you find success by creating your own work. Samantha Bailey “I wasn’t seeing it, especially for younger women of color, like women in their 20s. I always felt like I heard in college like, “Oh you’re gonna work Sam when you’re in you’re late thirties.” I was like, that’s dope, but like in the meantime... what am I supposed to do? And I guess the answer to that is, create your own.” Fawz Mirza “I created this character, the Muslim illegitimate daughter of Donald Trump...when you talk about like a great feminist safe space, that’s not it, the comments are not feminist safe spaces.” “I’m just this weird little person, what power do I have? Well, I can do satire.”

Marquita Robinson began as a staff writer on Survivor's Remorse (on Starz) before moving to New Girl in 2016. She shares stories that help define the work of a staff writer and how to handle those precipitous first years of your writing career. "I like characters who are aware of what they are and they’re not pretending to be anything else, but the joke isn’t their skin color."

Meg LeFauve of Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur, and now Captain Marvel takes us through a master class on writing, producing, child psychology, and how to trust your worth. “You suddenly realize, oh no no. Nobody is going to tell you you’re a writer. You have to claim that. It’s a claiming. It’s not an ordination. It’s a claiming.”

Alexa Junge has written for some of America's greatest tv shows. She is currently on Grace and Frankie, and has written for Friends and United States of Tara. Alexa lays out what she's learned about a story in the rooms of some of the very best. “Good story breaking means you’ve looked at the story from every angle, and you know you’re not gonna like hit a dead end and blow everything up.”

Niceole Levy is in the writers' room for The Mysteries of Laura. She walks up through Berlantiland, how writing programs propelled her career, and her days as a police dispatcher. "One of the things the writing programs, or just continuing to work will push you to do is say, but how can I be different? Sometimes that’s all you have to do to be different, just go to the place in yourself where there’s an honest thing about this story, and be willing to reveal it, and you never have to tell anyone it’s really about you.”

Guinevere Turner wrote American Psycho, The Notorious Bettie Page, and the breakthrough movie Go Fish. She also wrote for and acted on The L-Word. Guinevere talks about making a movie on no budget, collaborating on scripts, what draws her to a project. “To be scared, but then also so deeply moved by a movie? I was like, that’s impressive. If you’re gonna give me a horror, if you’re gonna give me scary stuff, you better earn it.”

Tanya Saracho, a playwright who writes for tv, has written on How To Get Away With Murder, Looking, and Girls. She's a member of The Kilroys, a group for gender parity in theatre. “Just let us play the complicated characters . . . Viola Davis, Keri Washington’s character . . . Sandra Oh’s character, like, they’re not likeable all the time, you know, but it’s because . . . something about them are you, because that’s how people are right? Complicated, sometimes dark, sometimes funny.”

Nell Scovell, Co-Executive Producer for The New Muppet Show leads us through writing across genres, being a woman writing for Late Night, co-writing Lean In with Sheryl Sandberg, and the beauty of a hilarious voice. “I was never scared by the risk and the idea that I didn’t know how to do something, actually, it made me want to do it more.”

Carol Barbee, Showrunner for Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, gives us an inside look at what it means to lead a writers' room. “It’s not my job to have all the answers, but it is my job to recognize the answers.”