Excerpts from The Executive Chair

On emotional connection:

Time and again, I’ve seen the same thing play out. A writer comes up with a cool concept with lots of bells and whistles. It’s clever and twisty, quirky, and funny. But by the time we’re done reading the first ten pages, we set it aside and click open the next script in the queue. 

Why? Because what we read is not connecting with us on an emotional level. 

People often mistake the phrase “write what you know” to mean specifically writing about themselves, but you do not have to write an autobiographical script in order to have a breakthrough piece of material. “Write what you know” means tapping into something you’re familiar with and putting that on the page. Use those wounds in your own story and transfer them to your characters. At some point in your life, you experienced something worth writing about. The more honest you are, the more authentic your script will be, and the better it will represent you in the marketplace. 

Malcolm in the Middle was inspired by Linwood Boomer’s life, just as Netflix’s Unorthodox was partly based on Deborah Feldman escaping her life in the orthodox Jewish community. Although he was never an ad man in the ’60s, Matt Wiener has said the idea for Mad Men came from his own personal struggle, wondering what do you do when you’ve achieved all of your goals? Whether you write directly about your life, or simply extract meaningful pieces from it to set yourself on the right course, bring the essence of who you are into your work. 

On the hero:

The hero of your show must have a perspective on the world unlike anyone else’s. There should be clarity in the way they operate so that we know that watching them will be a unique experience. In essence, they are our own personal tour guide through the world you have created for them. In Ted Lasso, we see him repeatedly confront the unrelenting cynicism of his team and the team’s owner with undaunted optimism. His mantra “Believe” permeates every action he takes and every bit of advice he dispenses, which makes watching him butt up against the next person with a bad attitude so much fun. We look forward to seeing him turn a cranky adversary into a soft pile of mush. How he does it both captivates and enchants us.

We might not remember the plot of any particular episode of Home Improvement, but we do remember Tim Allen grunting like a Neanderthal. You can drop Larry David’s curmudgeonly character in Curb Your Enthusiasm, or VEEP’s hapless Selina Meyer, or the self-absorbed Schitt’s Creek family into any situation and know the comedy will come from how those characters interact with the world. It’s Homer Simpson’s dimwitted decisions that cause him to spin into ridiculous situations. Had he been more level-headed and reasonable, The Simpsons would be far less enjoyable.

As you build your main character, you are simultaneously building a world that will work in opposition. The more defined the better. You should be able to sum up their philosophy about the world easily and succinctly. This will be your hero around whom you will create a team, and if you aren’t sure who your lead is, your ensemble will fail to come together. Mad Men’s Don Draper’s smooth, misogynistic callousness walks us through the male-dominated world of advertising in the ’60s. Eve Polastri’s fan-girl exuberance in Killing Eve pulls us into the MI-5 spy game as she stalks Villanelle. Even The Mandalorian, who exhibits little to no emotion, adheres to a draconian code of conduct. 

Bones, Monk, and Sherlock may all use deductive reasoning to solve crimes, but we love them because their style and their philosophies are peculiar to them. Far beyond the situations, these characters find themselves in, it’s the manner in which they maneuver through the world that causes us to keep watching.