Writers' rooms are as idiosyncratic as writers themselves: a system of organization has to be devised to keep track of plots and characters. Some writers prefer lots of stress relievers to play with during their usual marathon script-writing sessions; others like to stay as focused as possible. Food — what's permissible, when and where it can be eaten — has to be negotiated. And often the sensibility in the room ends up being reflected on screen in the finished show. Here's a look inside the rooms where the staffs of five of this season's acclaimed series ply their trade.
Writer Elisabeth Jensen then takes the reader on a quick tour of the rooms for House, Damages, How I Met Your Mother, Flight of the Conchords and Weeds.
THERE is a rule in the “House” writing room: No eating on the pool table. It’s left free for the show’s creator, David Shore, who can be found playing a game with a colleague there nearly every afternoon. The rule is important because the table is a tempting surface in a room that is more a daily lunch spot than the site of writing sessions, for a staff of more than a dozen. Mr. Shore — who is also an executive producer of this Fox series, starring Hugh Laurie as the cantankerous Dr. Gregory House — said the “basic gumshoe-type work” of researching the obscure maladies that form the core of each episode is done by individuals outside the room, as is much of the script writing.
The writers’ room really comes into play only when it is time to map out the multi-episode arcs of the characters, Mr. Shore said. “Every few weeks we get together in that room and discuss where we are with the characters and where we’re going and options we should go with,” he said. The sessions clarify “little character traits that are coming out with or without writerly help.”
He noted that the staff members take advantage “of those white boards the same way House does” when trying to make a diagnosis. Although they probably wield their markers with more tact than House. The process is “quite amicable,” he said. “We mock each other’s ideas, but good-naturedly.
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On "Freaky Stories" we held our Writers Room every Tuesday, over lunch at the late, lamented
"New Excellent Peking House" on Spadina. No better way to break a story then over a tureen of Hot & Sour soup.
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