With rooms starting now/soon, a few people who got hired as Writers' Assistants have reached out to me to ask for advice. I thought I'd compile that here on twitter dot com for anyone who wants to read it. FEEL FREE TO IGNORE.
I'm no longer a Writers' Assistant, I got staffed, but I did the job on three shows (Helix, Star Trek: Discovery, and American Gods), so I think I can speak to the job with some authority. First: Congrats on getting hired as a WA. It's very tough to get that job and you did it!
Next: be early (this goes for staff writer, too). Generally be the first person in the room (the PA may beat you, that's okay). Some rooms have a side table for the WA to type on. Some sit at the table. I've done both.
Your job is not to be a stenographer. ABSOLUTELY be thorough, but you don't need to write down every single thing someone says. The only time this isn't true is when the showrunner speaks: I generally tried to get down what she or he said as close as possible.
It's also useful to throw the initials of the EP in there before they speak (so on Gods, it would look like "JA: whatever he said"). Don't do this for every writer in the room. It makes it seem like a competition with who talked the most.
Don't put anything in the notes that would embarrass anyone if they accidentally went wide. My mantra was always to go as bland as possible. This seems intuitive, but you'd be surprised.
At the end of the day, I organize the notes by category and throw headers on every subject we talked about, along with a typo pass. I then put all the subjects into a table of contents on the top of the notes (this takes 2 minutes). THIS IS HELPFUL BECAUSE
a month later when your showrunners are asking about something you talked about, it's easy to pull up. From a writer POV, it's a life saver when you're looking over the notes when it's your episode and you're focusing on 1 storyline and need to look over what we talked about.
Re: page count, on a slow day, it'd be about 7-8 pages. A busy day, I might hit 15-20. If your room takes breaks, I tried to edit the notes as much as possible during the day so I wasn't up until midnight organizing them.
When it comes to pitching, feel it out. I generally tried to be silent the few week or so because the writers themselves were trying to figure out their own place in the room. Being judicious at first is not a bad thing, and try to pitch on what's already being talked about.
I used to set up arbitrary amount of times I would let myself talk per day. That was needlessly silly. The more you get to know the writers, the more you'll feel comfortable and they'll probably want to hear from you.
When it comes to asking for an episode or staffing: it never hurts to ask. Showrunners are not mind readers and have a million things on their mind. The worst thing they can say is no. But don't that get you down: even if this isn't the show that you get your break on...
...you're working with a ton of Co-EPs that might get a show and could staff you. And even then, you're working with people that might hire you 2, 5, 10 years down the line.
This got way too long. Have fun. You're helping make TV. You'll be great. Fin.
Last point then I'll shut up: Always be writing! Have a script ready! This may seem obvious, but when a co-EP or your showrunner wants to read you, you want to have something ready. And if there's a staffing opportunity, you want something they can show the studio/network.
