Official WGA Writers Strike thread.

[KneeCo]

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Or they simply prefer to do something else.

Im sure there are lots of amazing novelists who will never break in because they don't want to go through the hassle of writing a novel.

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I'm the world's best hockey player I just don't want to go through the hassle of skating.

Seriously, wtf are you trying to say here? This is dumb.

[Dudd]

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Or they simply prefer to do something else.

Im sure there are lots of amazing novelists who will never break in because they don't want to go through the hassle of writing a novel.

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I'm the world's best hockey player I just don't want to go through the hassle of skating.

Seriously, wtf are you trying to say here? This is dumb.

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You say that like it's a joke, and for hockey it probably is, but how many great football players fall through the cracks? How many are lost to the streets because it's not enough to simply be good at the sport, but you also have to be able to stay in school, play 3 years in college, and then finally you can get your chance. I know nothing about the writing industry, but it's not inconceivable that there are enough external hoops to jump through to make it in the industry that deter people with great writing ability from making it.

[CharlieDontSurf]

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Even cheesy sitcoms aren't easy to write.

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this I agree with.
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But there is also a lot more to getting a job as a TV scribe than simply being a good writer.

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This couldn't be more wrong.
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I'll concede that there's a craft to writing for television, and honing that skill is difficult, requires a lot of work, and is something most people, or writers outside the system, don't have or even understand.

But that doesn't mean tv writers are good writers, most aren't. The writing on most tv shows, the vast majority in fact, is unoriginal, cliche, boring, repetitive, stupid, unfunny, superficial and facile; the people who write it are not good writers.

Again, they may have a particular skill for their field and have jobs which are not easy, but that doesn't make them good writers, not even close.

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The show you write for has nothing to do with your ability as a writer. Poor writers end up writing and creating good shows and great writers end up working on crappy shows. TV is not a medium where usually what you write is simply put on the screen no matter how brilliant...its ripped apart over and over again until it makes it on screen

Here are some past credits of the SOPRANOS staff

The Magician
2 Stupid Dogs
Batman (the animated series)
Cover Me
Swat Kats
Hack
The In-Laws
Baby Blues
American Gothic
DiResti
The New Flipper
The Naked Truth
Living in Captivity
Sister Sister
The Secret Squirrel Show.


If you can get a job on a tv show your probably a good writer and better than a large majority of America.

Whether your also good at writing short stories, novels, articles in Time magazine is meaningless.


The argument that there are tons of brilliant tv writers who simply will never break in because they don't want to move to LA, get a agent, and go thru the process is [censored] retarded because you have to write for tv and work on a tv staff to be a great tv writer. Lots of people write one or two amazing TV specs...most get hired onto a show...a lot are out of work a couple of years later.

Like I said..there is a lot more to being a succesful tv writer than simply good writing.

[KneeCo]

Without getting too deep into the vast intricacies of the English language here, can we at least agree that there's no such thing as a novelist who hasn't written a novel? When you see a reality TV contestant with "writer" under their name, the only reasonable reaction is to laugh.

Sure, there are a lot of people who have a natural wordsmith inclination that could help them be among history's greatest storytellers if they are willing/able to put it the enormous amount of work required, but they don't because they are unwilling/able. Same applies for sports. What's your point? Why should that be seen as a negative or to somehow devalue the people who have put in that amount of work, and in cases where there wasn't that natural inclination, that amount of work and then some.

[SNOWBALL]

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I think somethings gotta give and the power is in the writer's hands right now. It just sucks because the consumers will end up paying for the writer's higher wages.

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either that or the execs take a hit. I mean, there are many possibilities. It's silly to say that the cost will always get thrown at the consumer.

[CharlieDontSurf]

"There are absolutely brilliant writers in Los Angeles. And they are definitely briliant writers in the rest of the world who will never break in because they don't want to move to Los Angeles, get an agent, and go through the process."


There are brilliant writers who don't break into TV because they don't want to write for TV.

Just like there are probably brilliant novelists who don't break into the industry because they prefer to write for some random TV show etc.

Agree with u on the reality TV thing...but this whole debate started because I said that there is not a huge wealth of screenwriters and screenplays laying undiscovered by Hollywood and that if you just gave any joe blo the shot at writing on a tv show they would fail...miserably. The vast majority of aspiring screenwriters and screenplays suck or are not even remotely commercial.

Writing is a skill. There are many specific and specialized types of writing. If your good at one it is likely that you would stand a better chance at being good at another but it is no guarantee and you might be awful at writing for tv, or writing a novel, or writing for Time Magazine while brilliant at another.

So the notion that because there are lots of brilliant writers in LA and other city...who would obv be brilliant TV writers if they bothered to try is retarded. It is likely that they would stand a better chance than the reality tv contestant but its still no guarantee.

[CharlieDontSurf]

and the other issue is this response

This couldn't be more wrong.
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I'll concede that there's a craft to writing for television, and honing that skill is difficult, requires a lot of work, and is something most people, or writers outside the system, don't have or even understand.

But that doesn't mean tv writers are good writers, most aren't. The writing on most tv shows, the vast majority in fact, is unoriginal, cliche, boring, repetitive, stupid, unfunny, superficial and facile; the people who write it are not good writers.

Again, they may have a particular skill for their field and have jobs which are not easy, but that doesn't make them good writers, not even close.


If your a good screenwriter or television writer..guess what your a good writer.

If your a good short story writer..guess what...your a good writer.

Insert journalist, novelist, etc.

you don't have to be good at every single form of writing in the universe to be considered a good writer.

[SNOWBALL]

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Studios should be able to hire whomever they want. If a good script comes in from a kid in Canada or Illinois or Romania, so be it.

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Dude,

It's not about justice. It's about fighting. The bosses are fighting for their piece of the pie, and the workers are fighting for theirs. Don't act like a union free america is somehow "normal" and union industries are somehow abnormal and bad. Both are just different results of the class struggle.
If you wanna say you love bosses, and that bosses should be able to have their own associations, but workers shouldn't be able to have their associations, then say it. Clouding your anti-union viewpoints in "free market" rhetoric is BS though, and I gotta call you on it.

[suzzer99]

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If you can get a job on a tv show your probably a good writer and better than a large majority of America.


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A friend of mine from college wrote for the Reba show, Til Death, some other stuff. I could be wrong, but I kind of got the impression that to be a writer on a show it helps if your sense of humor is inline with your general fan base. As I would say hers was for the most part with Reba fans. Otherwise you're just writing cynical and it shows.

IE - try to plug in the head-writer for Family Guy or The Office into According to Jim - and it would be a disaster. And I mean even before that person became a big shot at those other shows.

Do you know what I'm trying to say, and does it make sense? I'm sure my friend is a good writer, and has a good sense of humor. But to some extent I think another important qualification to writing for a show, is that you're kind of at the level of that show. Or maybe that's just a qualification for not hating your job.

[CharlieDontSurf]

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I think somethings gotta give and the power is in the writer's hands right now. It just sucks because the consumers will end up paying for the writer's higher wages.

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either that or the execs take a hit. I mean, there are many possibilities. It's silly to say that the cost will always get thrown at the consumer.

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Power is with the studios and will be with the studios till like spring or april/may when they start to panic over next years TV season and the possibility of SAG joining the WGA and going on strike which would pretty much shutdown everything.

They're not going to jack up the price of a DVD because they are now giving writers 6 cents per dvd instead of 4.