368 - Advice for a New Staff Writer (Encore)
Scriptnotes Podcast
John August
4.8 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 11 July 2023
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
John welcomes Alison McDonald (Russian Doll, #BlackAF) and Ryan Knighton (In the Dark, Billions) to reveal the fundamentals and unspoken rules of working in a TV writers room.
How did they get the job? How much should new writers talk? What should you wear? How much money do you make? And what’s for lunch?
Our bonus segment is for everyone this week! John invites Ryan Knighton back to talk about travel writing and the mixed blessings of tourism.
Links:
- The original Episode 368: Advice for a New Staff Writer
- Alison McDonald on IMDb
- Ryan Knighton on Twitter
- The Case Against Travel by Agnes Callard for The New Yorker
- ‘Designing Women’ Creator Goes Public With Les Moonves War: Not All Harassment Is Sexual, a guest column by Linda Bloodworth Thomason for the Hollywood Reporter
- Succession on HBO
- Be My Eyes app
- UCB Training Center
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
- Craig Mazin on Instagram
- John August on Twitter
- John on Instagram
- John on Mastodon
- Outro by Rajesh Naroth (send us yours!)
- Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our intern is Halley Lamberson.
Email us at [email protected]
You can download the episode here.
The original transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, this is John. |
| 0:03.6 | Today's episode is a rebroadcast from 2018. |
| 0:06.6 | In episode 368, I sat down with Allison McDonald and Ryan Knighton to talk about what it's |
| 0:11.8 | like to be a first-time staff writer. |
| 0:14.2 | What it's like to go from being that writer who works all by themselves in a room to a |
| 0:18.3 | person working with others to create a television show. |
| 0:20.9 | It's a great conversation, so we're happy to share it with you again. |
| 0:24.6 | Now just this morning, I sat down with Ryan Knighton to do a bonus segment we talked over |
| 0:29.4 | this article on travel and tourism. |
| 0:32.2 | He's exactly the right person to talk to about these things because he is a travel writer |
| 0:35.9 | and lives now in a place that is heavily impacted by tourism. |
| 0:39.1 | Originally, it meant to be just a bonus segment for premium members, but you know what? |
| 0:43.7 | We'll put it on the main feed so that everybody can hear this really good conversation |
| 0:47.0 | Ryan and I have. |
| 0:48.0 | If you are not a premium member, there's your chance to see what you're missing out on. |
| 0:51.8 | Enjoy. |
| 0:52.8 | Hello and welcome. |
| 0:56.0 | My name is John August. |
| 0:57.2 | This is episode 368 of Script Notes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting |
| 1:02.1 | to screenwriters. |
| 1:03.5 | Craig is out of town for the week, but he emailed and he's officially jealous that he's |
| 1:06.6 | missing out on this episode because today we'll be talking about what it's like to be |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John August, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John August and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.