Thread by @robsforman

So, you're been seeing a lot of stuff from TV writers on Twitter thanks to #WGAStaffingBoost & #WGASolidarityChallenge, as broadcast staffing season kicks into high gear. But what is staffing season? And why does it seem like it is LITERALLY THE WORST? A thread.

First, a disclaimer. This is about writers trying to get staffed. Showrunners and creators have a whole other pit of despair and anxiety to deal with (focus groups, network screenings, trying to meet all of us and not being able to hire everyone they want bc budgets).

Staffing season is the time of year, from around April through as late as mid-June (but really more like Memorial Day) when the broadcast network pilots are done filming, and start meeting writers to form their first season writing staff.

This used to be the be all end all time of year for TV writers. If you didn't get a job, that was it for the year. Go try and develop. Thanks to cable and streaming, that's no longer the case. This is important to remember bc there are 100 ways staffing season can not work out.

"But Rob," you say. "Didn't you have an enormous anxiety spiral freak out two days ago when you heard that two shows you loved already had their people in mind?" Well, yes, gentle reader, I did. Because, even knowing the prior tweet, THIS TIME OF YEAR IS STILL THE FUCKING WORST.

Let's call it like it is — the broadcast networks have been getting kicked in the balls by critics. It's no longer "sexy" to work on a broadcast show. But you know what it is? Potentially, a full year of employment, with 22 episodes of paychecks. It's the brass ring.

Writers still put a lot of investment into the idea of getting staffed on a broadcast network show. It provides something that short order cable/streaming series simply can't. In success, the idea of stability. We're all technically contract workers and freelancers. It's bananas.

Anyway, we usually suffer through this season in relative silence and solitude, but thanks to the agencies deciding they'd rather have conflicts of interest than represent their clients' interests, we're out here talking in the open about this shit. Let's get to the down & dirty.

Some combination of things will happen before you get staffed on a show. You could meet at the network, studio, production company, and with the showrunner/creator. It's a hustle. Really, the only one that NEEDS to happen is meeting with the showrunner/creator.

The way this works out successfully is "you meet with any/all of the above, everyone loves you, the pilot gets the greenlight to go to series, there is room in the budget for you, and you say yes to the offer."

You may have noticed... there's a lot of steps here. And any one of them can result in you not getting that job. Let's work forwards.

You need to get any/all of those meetings, especially with the showrunner. Well, there are literally hundreds or thousands of other writers vying for the same job. They've got scripts, too. And they all go to the dreaded pile.

How do you get out of the pile? Well, I think that's a lot of what #WGAStaffingBoost & #WGASolidarityChallenge have been about. It's about finding connections, the right way in — in order to get bumped to the top of the pile and get read.

"Back in the day," he said while walking ten miles to school in the middle of a snowstorm, you didn't call in recommendations until AFTER you got the meeting. No longer. There are hundreds & hundreds of scripts in that pile. You get that call or email in NOW. Just to get read.

Trying to get your signal to rise above the noise sucks bc, if you're like me, you don't want to overburden your mentors and upper-level friends, constantly asking for favors and recos. This year, people have been really open about putting in more calls. It's work for them, too!

Anyway, congrats! Your script is on the top of the pile. Probably an assistant's pile, but I'm gonna skip ahead. Whoever is screening for the pilot reads 1, 5, maybe 10 pages. The showrunner ideally will read the full script, but you never know. This unfortunately means...

(a) that typo or grammatical mistake you didn't catch on page three knocks you out of contention
(b) that juicy character moment you built to on page 47, the whole reason you wrote the sample, never hits the reader...

(c) the hidden message on page 31 where the first letter of every line reads "fuck you, you didn't read this far anyway" will be a clue in a Nicolas Cage movie
(d) you question why so many shows you recommend don't get good until episode 7 but your fate is decided on page 5.

The lesson here, as far as staffing samples & how much of the script gets read is... it's unfair. But the people on the other end have HUNDREDS OF SCRIPTS TO GET THROUGH. Make sure the whole thing sings, but know that you have to knock it out of the park in the first 10 pages.

Congrats! Someone read your script and wants to meet with you. Let me tell you, gentle reader — THIS IS A VICTORY. You are a writer and someone liked your writing. Log that emotion and live off it for the next week because...

Staffing meetings! Let's skip the network/studio side of it. Let's say you're at a producer meeting on a pilot. They've been involved in this idea for months. They're nervous as fuck about getting a series order. They want to protect their creator/showrunner.

This means you walk in there knowing your shit. Know why you loved the script. Know why you're uniquely perfect to be on staff. Know the characters that spoke most to you. Know what storylines you're most excited to see what happens next. Bring joy & enthusiasm & questions.

Hopefully you knock this meeting out of the park and get a showrunner meeting. Remember, the producer and showrunner are different people. The producer could recommend you, and the showrunner reads you, and they don't see the same things in your material. Or...

... those things that you think make you uniquely suited to the show (passions, your background, the things you responded to)? The showrunner has those covered. Or there's 17 other people in the mix who ALSO said those things.

And so, for whatever reason (and there's plenty more, feel free to chime in)... you don't get the showrunner meeting. Which means you don't get the job.

Let's say you do get the showrunner meeting, and IT GOES AMAZING. YOU ARE ON TOP OF THE FUCKING WORLD BECAUSE YOU FUCKING NAILED IT. Welcome to the staffing math portion of "ways staffing season can go wrong."

There are these things called "budgets" & there's a limit to how much money any given show has to hire its writers. And that number hasn't been increasing much in the last couple decades, despite the massive profit boom in entertainment, largely bc of TV. It's a whole thing.

If you're an upper-level writer (EP/CoEP/SP), congrats. That means the if/come offers are going to you first, and — lord — why are you reading this far into a thread about staffing from a low/mid-level writer.

Anyway. Upper level writers have more experience in the room and a longer track record. They're the biggest chunk of the writing staff budget. They get read first, met with first, and hired first. After that, it's literally a game of "how much is left in the budget?"

You could absolutely slay that meeting with the showrunner, and there's just not enough money left to hire you. This can and will happen. Often. And what you must NOT do is be mad at the show or the showrunner. Because they probably loved you, too. GETTING THE MEETING IS A WIN.

Does it pay your rent/mortgage/bills? No, absolutely not. But it's still a win. And while you need to take care of those things (again, that's why this time of year is so fucking stressful), you need to know that not getting the job IS NOT A DIG ON YOUR TALENT.

This is the real frustration. It felt like the stars aligned — from the right material for the show, to the right connections to those involved, to a kick-ass mtg — and you don't have a paycheck. It feels like you never will. But — SOMEONE LIKED YOUR SCRIPT. Someone will, again.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. Let's say you get the offer. Remember, a few tweets ago when I said "if/come"? And how waaaay at the top I mentioned how the showrunners/creators/producers are all on fucking tenterhooks, too? Brace your damn self.

An if/come deal, in this context, means you have a job if the pilot gets picked up to series.

What if it doesn't?

Yeah.

So, EVERYTHING could have gone right. You could get the offer... and there's no actual job. Staffing season is THE LITERAL WORST (and, remember, there's also a set of someones who have been intimately involved in creating this project whose disappointment FAR outweighs yours).

So, what do we take from this? Well... I've been trying to hammer it home. Provided you have methods to pay your bills, the meetings are the victory. Why? Because this business is a marathon, not a sprint, even though staffing season feels like a sprint.

That meeting might not result in a job today. But who knows where that producer will wind up, or what the showrunner/creator will do next. That meeting is a seed for the future.

Maybe the showrunner/creator remembers you and loves you hires you on their next project,. Maybe you go in to that producer with a pitch, and you take that pitch out, and you sell your own pilot. Maybe that happens tomorrow. Maybe it happens years from now.

Maybe that's a little woo-woo. But it's the truth. Staffing season SUCKS. It is a ball of nerves and anxiety where 1000 things can go wrong and there's only one very specific combination of things that means it has gone right. The good news is it's NOT the be all end all anymore.

And there are going to be moments where you're in your feelings (hi, this is me, constantly) that you forget that. But, in the immortal words of Lady Gaga... there can be 100 people in a room, and 99 don't believe in you. And then you find your Bradley Cooper.

Now go, my children, and find Bradley Cooper.

(There is a typo in the first tweet in this thread and I want to delete it all and start over because it is the only thing I will ever see)