Quinta Brunson, Issa Rae and More Top TV Writers Share Scribe Secrets

“Under the Banner of Heaven”
“I have an opinion, but I do believe we did the hard work to make sure that the facts and the history support that opinion. I know it’s difficult for my family in the Mormon faith to watch, but maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s about time.”

“The Staircase”
“It’s always a challenge to take something that people think they know and show it to them in a new light. I also think that, with boundaries, it helps you to define and find something that’s a bit nebulous, but then becomes something new.”

“The Offer”
“There’s a lot of freedom in the fact that it’s ‘The Godfather’ and a lot of people have a lot of different stories, We were using the Al Ruddy story as the north star and using everybody else’s stories as a vehicle of gut-checking it.”

“Maid”
“You don’t know if anyone’s going to relate to your show until it’s on the air. It’s what drew me to the project to the first place… to give voice to that woman, to really invest in her, and to make her important.”

“Gaslit”
“When we set up our writers’ room, the first question to all the writers we were inter- viewing was, name the quality of yourself you see in the characters, but it has to be the ‘quality’ you’re very ashamed of and embarrassed about.”

“WeCrashed”
“We didn’t want to vilify or caricature these folks, because a crime was not committed. We tried to understand them as human beings, and to, as best we could, depict that, but also the collateral damage they caused.”

“Dr. Death”
“It’s vitally important when you’re writing anything like this, that you try to completely cancel judgment and try to find little bits of yourself in these things because that, to me, is how you build a three- dimensional character.”

“Dopesick”
“I combined true stories with fictional stories with composite characters and I love working like that. It’s really freeing, because you’re only doing it because there’s so much fantastic, interesting material that it’s worthy to do.”

“Dexter”
“We determined what the ending was going to be first, and then we basically put your nose against the ending on that wall and then walked backward… That doesn’t mean it doesn’t change in the writing process.”

“Bel Air”
“One of the things that’s great is people know these characters, so you come with a lot of familiarity and goodwill when you start the show. The bad side is everyone knows these characters. And they think they own these characters.”

“Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty”
“There aren’t that many ongoing dramas based on true events. I guess there’s ‘The Crown’ and then there’s old things like ‘Rome,’ but you don’t do it for obvious reasons, because people can get angry.”

“Truth Be Told”
“I had gone to see Elizabeth Gilbert and Cheryl Strayed speak… I was turned the opposite direction, looking at all the women and thinking, if those two were evil, this would be a really interesting afternoon. That kind of bloomed for Season 2.”

“Ozark”
“I feel like any show, you get to know it well and you work within it and so seasons should get better because they get deeper. When you know you’re going to end, it’s just like, ‘Oh shit, this is it. Let’s lay it all out as best as best we can.’”

“Better Call Saul”
“This was the hardest season by far because this is the season where the two shows really meet and everything we’ve done before has to make sense with what we see Saul Goodman doing on ‘Breaking Bad.’ It’s been very difficult.”

“The Man Who Fell to Earth”
“You want to look through the lens of what I believe is one of the most endangered species, which is a brown or Black woman because you’ll get a true picture. This material lends itself perfectly to the view.”

“As We See It”
“I started to realize that the beauty of the show was observing the sort of microscopic moments and really letting ourselves do that — [seeing] what it’s like to be in the world. Then it became, for me at least, pretty universal and it didn’t feel specific to this particular population.”

“Welcome to Flatch”
“It’s the golden age of comedy in some ways. We are allowed to take moments, to actually have something breathe and not have it be just joke, joke, setup, joke, setup, joke, and that allows characters to breathe and be real.”

“Girls5Eva”
“You get to look back at the ’90s and unpack what was fucked up back then that snuck by as normal. They’re like, ‘Oh, well, let’s not do it that way, this time,’ but still go up against a remaining sexist and ageist business. It’s not like it’s fixed.”

“Cobra Kai”
“You know that visceral feeling of feeling weak and then somebody gives you something. On this show, it’s karate. In life, it could be a million different things that change you and give you confidence.”

“The Wonder Years”
“At that time, children were seen and not heard. The kids had to figure it out on their own. I was like, ‘I have to show this. That’s what the show is gonna be.’ [ABC] saw the value in that and that helped us create a reimagining of the classic.”

“Dave”
“Making music is probably more mentally exhausting, but making a TV show is just literally, physically [exhausting]. My body by the end [and] my back are not the same. I’m not kidding. Physically I’m different than I was at the beginning of doing this!”

“The Afterparty”
“The goal was that for the whole show that you would be able to think about, oh, maybe if I just took some time to get to know people and put myself into their shoes for a little bit that you would have a lot more empathy and understanding.

“Abbott Elementary”
“Part of the message that made me really want to make the show is showing people who shouldn’t be talking to each other making something happen.”

“Ghosts”
“This seemed like something that had a reason to adapt, because it was about a chance to explore American history at a time when — it’s always a fraught time in American history, I guess, now as much as any other time.”

“Upload”
“I wanted to do something that was romantic, intense, sci-fi, satiric and said something about the income inequality and the late-stage capitalism. I really wanted to bring in a lot of it and be cinematic. This was as ambitious as possible.”

“Insecure”
“Parts of the story were based off things that happened to me [or] happened to writers. We love to live in the gray area of the storytelling where there’s no right answer. There’s no wrong answer. The most important thing was just being honest.”

“Harlem”
“I kept seeing all of these New York-based shows where Black people were just kind of gentrified out of them. I love ‘Friends.’ I love ‘Sex and the City,’ but I just never saw people of color. Then when I was living in New York, I was like, ‘Oh, it’s very, very diverse!