(2016-01-20) Eleven Laws of Showrunning

Javier Grillo-Marxuach: The Eleven Laws of Showrunning. For many, the undeniable triumph that is pitching a TV series idea, having a pilot ordered, successfully producing it, and then having it ordered to series is nothing less than a validation: not only of their voice and talent, but also their Way of Doing Things.

This often leads to incompetent and - whether through ignorance or ego - abusive senior management

This is exacerbated by there only being two sins for which a showrunner pays with a pink slip: wasting time and squandering money.

once they have a show on the air, even the worst managers muddle through on something resembling time and budget: usually by the sweat of a lot of talented individuals doing everything humanly possible to keep the ship afloat.

One of the most jealously guarded secrets of TV is the reality that those who get their pilots made and show picked up on any given year are usually no more gifted, visionary, or prodigious, than the ones who did not. There are as many television writers who work regularly as there are professional NBA players at any given time - by that metric, we are all breathing rarefied air - but the process by which television shows are made and selected is by no means some mystical divination by which the artistry of very special snowflakes is empowered that it may elevate the art form as a whole

when there were only three to five broadcast networks and a much longer queue to the top, someone who worked their way up from staff writer (the lowest and least paid position) to show creator/executive producer/showrunner could at least be reliably understood to have at least spent many years learning how to make the trains run on time under the tutelage of writer/producers who had endured the same trials.

Nowadays, programming outlets are as likely to buy television pilots from more junior writers, as well as playwrights, screenwriters, novelists, investigative journalists, and bloggers

and then put them in the position of having to manage what is essentially a start-up corporation with a budget in the eight figures and a hundred-plus employee workforce

Why is it so hard for showrunners to implement simple strategies in the name of running the show efficiently and humanely?

The answer is that "simple" doesn't mean "easy". The simplest decisions are often hardest because they demand a painful concession to an unpleasant truth. Every one of the Eleven Laws asks for the same thing: the surrender of a quantum of attachment to a showrunner's idea of themselves as the fountainhead of the show's greatness to serve the show and those who work to make it.

THE FIRST LAW OF SHOWRUNNING IT'S ALL ABOUT YOU STOP MAKING IT ALL ABOUT YOU

Because it's all about you, you also need to face the truth that your staff works for you in exchange for a paycheck, not out of a genuflecting admiration of your genius

they enter every conversation knowing that you can fire them. Their indenture is a given. Their loyalty is not

It's on you to invest your staff in the vision of the show - in your vision - and turn them into true believers and dedicated workers who will go the extra mile. You can do that by giving them the opportunity to express themselves within the framework you have created.

THE SECOND LAW OF SHOWRUNNING KNOW YOUR SHOW AND TELL EVERYONE WHAT IT IS

Your employees need specific knowledge of the tone, texture, and technique of the show to do their jobs. Even after producing the pilot episode, most of that crucial information still remains in your head. The pilot episode was a prototype. Now you have to discern what it was that worked so well in the pilot and turn that into a reproducible result.

Most of your work as a showrunner is to communicate information to other people so that they can execute it within their field of expertise. (strategic context)

When you're a showrunner, it is on you to define the tone, the story, and the characters. You are NOT a curator of other people's ideas. (shared vision)

Bottom line: the creativity of your staff isn't for coming up with your core ideas for you, it's for making your core ideas bigger and better once you've come up with them

you have to articulate what Maya Lin referred to as "a strong, clear vision." You have to draw the boundaries of the sandbox with precision, detail, consistency, and integrity.

This is a difficult task that requires intellectual and creative rigor, a measure of non-solipsistic introspection, and that you make a discipline out of talking to other people and being on message at all times

you must communicate your vision so that everyone understands it, and then preach it, day in and out, to the point of exhaustion until everyone feels it in their soul like a gospel. And here's the great part of successfully communicating a shared vision: your employees will love you for it.

THE THIRD LAW OF SHOWRUNNING ALWAYS DESCRIBE A PATH TO SUCCESS

means - in its most practical form - "Do not leave a meeting without letting everyone there know what they are expected to do/deliver next."

Every clear directive you issue is a gift because it relieves your staff of the stress of having to divine your goals. A clear directive is an indication of trust: your way of saying "I have taken the time and effort to figure out our goal. I now acknowledge that you have the knowledge and resources to figure out the process."

you don't even have to know the exact hill to take. The grinding race that is television often means that you may not always know the next goal; but even if you articulate your order as "Help me figure out the next hill to take,"

You will be amazed at how much even that measure of clarity will galvanize a team. When you define the problems, you not only control the direction of the enterprise, you also free your staff to do what they do best: dedicate their unique skills to their solution

THE FOURTH LAW OF SHOWRUNNING MAKE DECISIONS EARLY AND OFTEN

an aversion to making decisions is a massively common showrunning dysfunction (decision-making)

Avoiding decisions causes your staff to run themselves ragged coming up with contingencies and robs them of the time they need to properly execute your vision.

THE FIFTH LAW OF SHOWRUNNING DO NOT DEMAND A FINAL PRODUCT AT THE IDEA STAGE

Considering how much the creation of a TV series depends on a studio and network's ability to visualize a bunch of words coming out of some writer's mouth, it is surprising that many showrunners lack the skill to visualize story when pitched to them by their own staff

One of things increasingly lost as showrunners are no longer asked to work their way up the ranks in the television hierarchy is a comfort level with collaboration in the form of the writers room, and a knowledge of story - usually born of coming up with one story after another on other people's shows. It is from this longitudinal experience of collaboration and story generation that most showrunners learn how to visualize

The answer is trust. You take the leap of faith that the professionals you hired can execute on the page what is shorthanded on the board

THE SIXTH LAW OF SHOWRUNNING WRITE AND REWRITE QUICKLY

Scripts are an expression of a writers soul... but that's not all they are. A script is also work order

A studio has given you millions of dollars to hire a group of people whose mission is to learn how to produce work that reads and sounds like your voice. Reproducing that voice is the primary goal of your writing staff. The best and most efficient way they can do that is by reading your prose and dialogue.

A script ultimately represents the concretization of your voice and gesture. A script is your proof of concept, and if its fate is to fail that proof, then you are better off knowing sooner rather than later, so that you - and all of your employees - can use the time to fix what's broken and right the ship while there is still time.

THE SEVENTH LAW OF SHOWRUNNING TRACK MULTIPLE TARGETS EFFICIENTLY BY DELEGATING RESPONSIBILITY

At any given moment during the course of a season, there are six stories that have to be minded: the story in development on the board in the writers room, the story in outline, the story being scripted, the story being prepared for production, the story in production, and the story being completed in editing and post production

you have a secret weapon in your arsenal designed to combat the fatigue that comes from always having someone at your door who needs to be told What is What. That weapon is, of course, your writers. Though you don't realize it just yet, your writers are, in fact, your apostles.

you're not just running a show - you're also running a producer/showrunner academy

The way you run a producer/showrunning academy is by making the writers in the room the privileged bearers of your knowledge of What The Show Is and then sending them off to all these meetings to give voice to your unique vision

jealously guarding your time in the writers room should be your prime target

The more your stories represent the purest version of your vision, the more involved will be your writers's knowledge of that vision... and the better your scripts are going to convey the vision to everyone else involved with the production

THE EIGHTH LAW OF SHOWRUNNING RESIST THE SIREN CALL OF THE "SEXY GLAMOROUS JOBS"

the longer you spend with your other departments, the more you rob from them the time they need to actually do their job

Tell people what you want concisely... and then leave... or better yet, tell one of your writer/producers, let them have the discussion with the different department heads first, and then make course corrections later when there's an adequate level of proof of concept

THE NINTH LAW OF SHOWRUNNING EXPECT YOUR STAFF TO PERFORM AT VARYING LEVELS OF COMPETENCE

The assistant whom you promoted to staff writer as a reward for loyalty, hard work, and support - and because you read a spec script that you don't really know how long they took to write (or how much input they had from others in its creation) - cannot be expected to deliver on that level. It's on you to not only budget your time and energy to both give them thoughtful notes and rewrite their material, but also to muster the largesse to judge their work leniently

what do you do when your writers room truly includes a bad apple?

These are the three most common kinds of bad apples that show up in writers rooms:

The "Doctor No" - A writer who responds to most ideas that are not theirs with "that sucks"

The "Hostage Taker" - Sometimes, Doctor Noes cross the line into Hostage Taker, refusing the let the room move on until their objections have been addressed.

The Politician/Manipulator/Insulter

The strategies you need to correct these problems are simple and straightforward. Oftentimes the people doing these things do not realize that they are negative actors.

Here are the simplest ways of clearing the barrels of Bad Apples

Throw the problem back at Doctor No - Doctor No tells you that they disapprove of something, you reply "You break it, you bought it."

Confront problems early, head on, and earnestly - If someone is chronically hijacking the room, tell them firmly, but politely (and preferably privately) that "You have a tendency to overshare, it's not always useful, and it undermines the times when what you have to say helps move the story forward,"

Discuss the problem with your closest subordinate, have them deal with it in one of the ways described above, and save your intervention as a court of final appeal

Exile - Some are so incorrigible that it eventually necessary to figure out a better use for their talent. Writers who perform well on the page but badly in the room can be used in draft writing and rewriting, and kept out of the room altogether. I have often seen Hostage Takers sent to perform producorial services on the set. So much of what happens on the set is about clarifying - especially for the actors - the context of the work at hand, that the sort of fine tooth- combed discussion that can turn into hostage-taking in the room can serve a useful purpose.

Firing

A writer gains mastery over the form and function of television in the same way that chess players master their game: by studying old games, internalizing the patterns, and practicing, practicing, practicing

where does the black powder for that explosion come from? Pattern recognition

Every member of a writing staff is on the hook for the education of the next person below them; recognizing that everyone is working at a different level is your first step toward building camaraderie.

THE TENTH LAW OF SHOWRUNNING DELIVER GOOD AND BAD NEWS EARLY AND OFTEN

You want and need to be the source of all that is true about your show - even if that truth is unpleasant. The worst position for a leader is as the bearer of bad news everyone already knows.

Transparency streamlines your life. Being transparent before anyone can be transparent for you means you control the narrative. Giving bad news before they crash land means no one can claim surprise at a bad break.

THE ELEVENTH LAW OF SHOWRUNNING SHARE CREDIT FOR SUCCESS TO A FAULT

The wonderful thing about credit is that it's not a finite resource. The more credit you give, the more credit you get

The reason this is the final Law of Showrunning is not just that it feeds right back into the First Law, but also that it is the biggest test of character before you as someone who has just been handed something close to absolute power in the business

EPILOGUE

when we fall - or see something brewing we do not want to face - the natural thing to do is seek refuge. The place where most of us find it is a vast and impregnable fortress called "my creativity." Surrounded by a crocodile-infested moat known as "my process,"

For a showrunner, this clinging is toxic not just for the obvious reasons, but because it provides place to run away from all of the very real responsibilities of your position

The price you pay to play to an audience of millions on the word stage is that you have to make concessions between the tempestuous artiste you idealized for yourself when your pain was something that pushed you toward self-expression. The cost of admission to the Majors is that you have people who depend on you: not just for their living, but also their creative, emotional - and, occasionally, physical - well-being... and, oh yes, you also have an audience that's waiting to be entertained

As I said previously, even the worst - and most abusive - of managers are generally propped up into functionality, not just by their writers, but by everyone who depends on their ability to perform for their profit. These may, then, be the only Laws that are not only completely optional, but - in all honesty - tangential to the most commonly accepted definition of success in this field.