200 | Discovering & Embracing Your Strengths As A Writer (ft. Showrunner Joey Slamon)

Joey's impressive resume in TV includes shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live, Arrested Development, and I'm Sorry, which she show-ran for two seasons next to Andrea Savage. And even so, she's the first to acknowledge her both her strengths and growth areas as a writer, which has been one of the most valuable tools to propel her to the very top of a the writers room.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Lorien: Hey everyone, welcome back to the Screenwriting Life. It's just me and Jeff this week as Meg is having a very exciting travel adventure that we are excited to hear about when she gets back. Today we're thrilled to be joined by comedy writer Joey Slamon. So Joey got her start as a PA on a late night talk show if she eventually, as she put it, conned her way into a writer's room as a writer's assistant, and from there she was able to move up to a writer position and has spent the past 13 years writing on shows like Arrested Development, Those Who Can't, and Misfits and Monsters.

Jeff: Joey was the showrunner for two seasons of I'm Sorry, starring Andrea Savage, which aired on TruTV, as well as showrunning the writers room for what would have been season three, thanks COVID. Joey is reuniting with Savage as a co writer on her plLoriend directorial debut, a feature film for Sony.

Lorien: Welcome to the show, Joey.

Joey: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.

Lorien: Yay. And Joey and I and Jeff and Meg all know each other from CineStory. So I think that's the only time we see each other in person, like once a year out in the woods. Yeah,

Joey: except a couple of times I feel like I, did I see you on the line a couple times marching around Disney or something?

Lorien: Maybe. Before we get into our chat with you, we're going to do what we do called Adventures in Screenwriting, where we talk about our week, and I'm going to start and My week was a bit of a blur. I finally sat down and wrote a synopsis for a feature that I've been needing to do and I finished it last night and I hit send to the producer and I realized that I felt more of a sense of relief than in a sense of an accomplishment and I read somewhere that is how ADHD people process things and I want to feel more of a sense of accomplishment so I've been working on that like I did this thing.

So yay, and I like it, and I feel good about it, and then of course I got the call this morning, Hey, this is good, I have some thoughts, and then right after that, a minute later, Hey, do you have time to talk? And I was like, aww. So now I've filled in all these gaps, I've created a story about what it's gonna be, and how I'm like dreading it, and I'm like, why?

He said it was good. This is good, but like I like it. So why am I already giving away my power? I don't know. It's just such an interesting relationship. I know that I love it and what I love about it. And I am interested in hearing his notes because it will make it better. Because I get more information to decide what I want to do, but it's still like dread.

I wish I didn't have that. I could just sit in my power and be like you want to talk about this amazing thing I wrote. So I'm struggling with that a little bit and just trying to remember that I love what I wrote. Because I do. And that it could be improved, and that's how I'm going to approach it.

But yeah. I'm starting it out with a bang this week. How was your week, Joey?

Joey: I love it. First of all, I want to say, I think that anybody who wrote something and then hit send and got that email with a call or the text following up, if they thought I crushed it, like this is going to go great, they're a sociopath.

Because I feel like everybody instinctively is it's over. It's all over. I've been caught. I've been discovered. And I feel like people who don't are either not good writers, Or our sociopaths, which often make great writers, but we...

Jeff: Joey, had Ed Solomon on the show, who wrote a million movies, men in black, but he says that you get peace for the number of minutes that are the number of pages.

So it's a half hour pilot. You get 30 minutes of peace before you spiral. If it's a feature you get maybe an hour or two. So if Ed Solomon is having the panic spiral after hitting send, I think we all, I totally agree with you. I'm affirming.

Lorien: This was a three page synopsis. So I had three minutes before I was like, yeah, fuck I'm screwed.

Okay, but it's funny I didn't have that experience. I Didn't spiral about it until I got the email that just said this is good. I have some shaping notes I'm sure he listened to the show. So hi, but I was like, what does this is good mean? He didn't say this is great Yes, it was This is good period.

So I was like, okay, he hates it.

Joey: He hates it. He hates me. I'll probably never work again. What other skills do I have? Can I be a nurse? Is it too late?

Lorien: Yeah. Yes. And it. It's so funny how I, but I've been trying to resist it until just now this is good, period. It wasn't, yeah, it and I'm like, I can't, and then followed up with, let's talk, and I was like no!

I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna call him. After we're done recording, I'm just gonna call him, be like, hey, what's up? Do you love it too? Amazing. What are your thoughts?

Joey: I'd love to hear whatever minor thoughts you have, because I feel like we both love it, and think it's good, period.

Lorien: Yes I do think the punctuation on this sentence could change.

Thanks so much! Awesome. I have some thoughts on your email, actually. So when you're done with your notes, I'd love to hear them. I need at least one exclamation point, please.

Joey: At least one. Not every sentence, because that would be insane, but one.

Lorien: Yes. Okay, so how was your week?

Joey: My week was okay, actually.

I finally bit the bullet. I've had so many people I think I've been in development hell on 85 different things, and some have gone away, some are taking a break, some I'm taking a break from. But it's been about 150 years since I wrote a new sample. So I was like, I just got to write a sample.

And that was about a year and a half ago. I got to write a sample.

Lorien: I remember we were talking this about CineStory last year.

Joey: Exactly. I was like, Oh, just a new sample a year ago. And then I'm really learning cause I tend to write with people. Television is very inclusive, like collaborative environment.

And then the few features that I've done have usually been with people. And without that, I really struggle to start writing stuff. I've learned a lot about my process of writing something just myself and a lot of it is thinking about something for a year and then banging it out in four days. So last week and then today, which is what I was doing right before this, was me writing, it's the four days of me writing something that I think is in pretty good shape actually for a first draft because I've spent a year being like, I don't know, everything's lame, it sucks, whatever.

And then so I do like the self editing process in my head and then I can just write it out. So last week I spent a lot of time. At various coffee shops writing by myself, which was weird and not usually how I write.

Lorien: Do you, when you write at a coffee shop, so when I write by myself, I end up reading out loud, right?

I'm acting it out as I go, which is why I have a hard time doing it in public because I look like I'm insane. Because part of working with somebody is you get to talk it out, right? And I, and when I'm writing by myself, I have this relationship with my whiteboard and scraps of paper and acting it out.

So how do you, how did you transition from who you're having a relationship with when you're in a coffee shop writing by yourself?

Joey: Myself and my desire to get out of the coffee shop as quickly as possible. I feel like I need a fire under my ass to actually write. And I actually have an office space that I'm working on a feature right now with one of my collaborators.

And we have an office that we love, and I still have the office, so I could write there. But silence to me is a killer, because I am the queen of procrastination. So I went in a couple times thinking I'd write this thing, but I found myself like, checking, going down a YouTube spiral, and doing research that then turned into watching two episodes of Vanderpump Rules.

So I just have to, I need to not have so much freedom. As being by myself, I need I can't watch something at a coffee shop out loud. I don't bring headphones. I can't talk to people. I can't take a phone call. I can't do banking, like I have to focus. And I find that at a coffee shop, it's the perfect level of noise for me that I can dip in and out of so I can like overhear someone's conversation.

Have my thoughts about it and then go back versus like music. I tend to be like, I don't love this song. Let me find another song. What about this song? What about that song? Oh, they have a new album. I just, I really don't think I'm very ADHD except when it comes to writing. So I feel like being somewhere with a base level of white noise is very helpful for me.

Lorien: So what finally inspired you after a year and a half to start writing it four days ago?

Joey: A year and a half. It's a weird time right now and I feel like I'm, can't really rely on word of mouth for jobs way that I could say two, three years ago, or pre pandemic. So it is getting to the point now where I have a new eight, I have a new manager and my agent both were like, we can't actually keep sending out the same script from 10 years ago.

But I want to tell them is, but I've worked. all 10 years. So why can't we send out, one of the scripts that I've done for something? But, I threw myself a little pity party and then was like, all right, at a certain point, it's on me for not writing something new. And I just, I don't enjoy the process of writing a pilot.

Yeah. So it was a very hard thing for me to get started on.

Lorien: Is part of it. You have been writing in writer's rooms for 13 years, you've run a show, you are successful as a writer, right? You're asked to mentor, like you're the way we, I want to be that. Right? Writers think. And yet, here you are, having to write a new sample, having to re audition, right?

So the idea, success, it's like we're always having to generate new ideas, we're always still having to prove it. And part of that is really frustrating.

Joey: It's very frustrating and it's, I want to say it's humbling because that sounds a lot better. But it's not humbling.

Lorien: Way to spin it. Let's rewrite that.

Let's edit. It's humbling.

Joey: But it's not humbling. It's depressing. You do think and I think there was a time where you could the work spoke for itself. And I feel like because again, I'm not writing. I haven't not been a writer for 13 years. I just was so busy. that I didn't have the time or the headspace to be like, I'll write something for myself on the side.

Like I didn't, that's not interesting to me. So I didn't have to do it. But now I am at the point where if I can't write a new sample at a certain point, it's on me. And that's where I was a week and a half ago where I was like, okay, I had an idea knocking around. I kept Coming up with a million reasons not to write this idea.

And then I took the onus off of myself of I'm not trying to sell this. I just need to say, I need 30 pages. My manager actually said it. She's give me 30 funny pages. I don't care what it's about. And I was like, Oh, that I can do. So then I went back to an idea that I'd thrown out weeks ago.

Cause I thought it was cheesy and over the top. And it's actually been really easy to write in a way that I get really stuck in the, but who's going to buy this, who's going to like this for, what kind of audience, who's buying things now, and just for a pure sample, I was like, if I can just write down these seven funny things that I know happen to me in real life and frame them in some structure that feels like a beginning, middle and end.

I can do it.

Lorien: I think this is something interesting to talk about. I've been talking to writers lately who are writing things that they like to watch on TV that are the things they imagine themselves to be the writers of when their superpowers lie in other places. You're really funny, and your manager's give me 30 funny pages.

And so then you're like, oh, I can do that. I know structure. I can, right? Then it makes it a lot easier to have fun to play instead of, Joey, I need you to write a 60 page high concept science fiction pilot. That's what are you, that, I might like to watch that, but I'm not, I don't know.

So I've been encouraging writers to think about what they're really good at and write to that instead of who and how they imagine themselves to be. It helps me too. Just write a character, just write that character wanting something and she's just Yeah. My characters are angry.

I write angry. You write funny, I write angry, right? Which comes out funny sometimes, but okay, I just need to get on the page, right? And that's not really a question. I'm just talking to you about that.

Joey: Yeah, no, I fully agree. It is an interesting thing. I think, I think you and I came up around the same time where the onus was always like what are people buying?

Oh, I heard that networks are looking for this specific thing. And even as, as late as a couple of years ago, my agent who I love, who always gives great advice was like, they're really looking for a workplace multi cam comedy. And I was like, once I hear those, I'm like, okay, what's that?

That hasn't been done a million times. And then I struggle where I really was like, I just need 30 pages. I'd not reinventing the wheel. It's not gonna go to buyers, I don't give a shit about it, I just need to write something. And to write by myself, also, after having written with people for so long, is also a whole other ball of wax.

But yeah, it really was like, what are my dinner party stories, and how do I weave those into a narrative? And that's ... made it a lot easier.

Lorien: Now I wanna read it .

Joey: It's, if you're staffing, you'll read it. 'cause this is gonna be the new thing I send out for the next 15 years.

Lorien: Yes.

Yeah. I get, and that's another question, right? Like you're looking for staffing jobs. Yeah. You're, yeah.

Joey: Yeah. That's absolutely the place I am. I never really wanted to be a world builder selling an idea from scratch. I like. I like writing with people and that usually means being on a staff of some sort whether I'm running the staff or on the staff so that is absolutely what I'm what I've always been looking for.

And it's a different skill set that a lot of people who like have all these ideas for shows and, they want to be in control and one of these 18 ideas will sell. I don't have 18 ideas, I have half of one idea but I've been trying to stretch it into 30 pages.

Lorien: That's not true.

Joey: It is actually, in a way it is.

I have a thousand ideas of how to fix your problem. I have a thousand ideas of episodes of television. I could write 14 episodes of Schitt's Creek tomorrow, but coming up with the world is a different skill set that not every writer has. And it's something that I don't necessarily have. I can come up with new characters to create something funny for characters that exist, but coming up with what kind of town is it?

What do they do for a living? What are their names? Even? It's that's the stuff that I get really tripped up on. I love that stuff.

Lorien: I love that stuff so much. And then I'm like, okay, come up with five episodes. And then I need people to help me with the engine of the show. Yeah.

Sometimes, right? That's always what I get. Great world, great characters. What's the engine of the show? And then I, that's when I fizz out sometimes. I'm like, and that's when I need help from other people who are really smart, who can point out that it's already in there. I just need to tweak a couple of things.

Exactly. So working with other people who have different skills than you. Can we talk about I'm Sorry, and how working with Andrea Savage, how did that happen? Because I love that show. Yes. I, the goldfish episode for me is chef's kiss. So good.

Joey: So real. So true. True. All of that was true stories.

That whole show was basically true stories. We took some liberty in weeding them together and coming up with endings, but that definitely wasn't all, all true all the time story telling show. And that came to be because Andrea was an actor, is an actress and was an actress of a certain age who was only getting these kind of boring mom roles.

And, Finger waggy nag. wife. And she developed a couple of things before for some places, but she really realized like she wasn't getting the roles that spoke to her or her friends. She didn't feel like she was that kind of wife or mother. She wasn't annoyed at being a mom, like being a mom.

Funny things happen when you're a mom, but not this, it's one o'clock somewhere. I hate my kids, give me a break kind of thing. And so she wrote. A pilot about that which at the time hadn't really been done before. So she wrote the pilot. They shot a presentation for it because it's very specific kind of humor that doesn't necessarily always translate to the page.

And when you say they, Who was it? It was her and some producers that she had worked with and they thought it would be better to have an actual physical presentation to get people instead of just a script. So they shot some of the pilot and then it got picked, it got shopped around and then picked up and she had never been in a room before as a writer and had certainly never run her own show.

So I came in to help her out and it was great watching that pilot was the closest thing I had to like, Oh, I know how to do this. All of my imposter syndrome aside, I was like, oh, this show I can write in my sleep. This is me, this is my husband, this is, these are my friends, this is what I do, which was really surprising because everything else I was being pitched at the time was like, so outside the box and so twisty, there was always some sort of catch and big high concept thing and this was very simple and very real. You weren't a mom at the time, right? I wasn't a mom at the time, but I did have so many friends who had kids, so even some of the parenting stories in that show ended up coming from me and interactions with my friends kids.

I've since become a mom, so now I understand it on an even deeper level, but but when you have stories, there are just so many kind of. Moments that you can pick. So other but I did have a husband. I was married and I liked my husband, I didn't think he was a 45 year old man child that was, Kevin James and King of Queens who I had to take care of.

We get along. He finds me funny. I find him funny. And that was another kind of relationship that hadn't really been in sitcoms in a long time. Surprisingly, like most of my friends. Like their husbands or wait wives, so it was a really, it was a fun pilot to watch and it was just, and it was just pure funny.

It wasn't trying to be a drama. There was better things was on at the time that was in its I think first season. I just aired and Pam Adlon's absolutely amazing. That show was phenomenal. It felt so sad and real. And this show just felt funny and funny was another thing that I think has gone to the wayside with a lot of comedies.

Lorien: So how did you get that meeting, though, with her?

Joey: I got it from my agent put me up for it, and then a friend of mine, her, my friend Caroline Williams, her husband, Drew Goddard, and Andrea play poker together. So Caroline and I had written together on Arrested Development, and Andrea had reached out to Caroline, who was like, do you know any funny female writers?

Who could run a show. And Caroline suggested me. So it was a two it was, but it was a total blind date meeting. I didn't know Andrea before then. We hadn't worked together. I knew of her but that was it. So she read my script the first and only sample I had written before writing. And then we met and it was like talking to My best friend, like it was so crazy how much we had in common instantly.

We both came from the same place, grew up in the same area, had the exact same sense of humor. So it was so easy. The whole thing, the whole process was just easy.

Lorien: Before you put up for that, had you talked to your friend about, I want to be a showrunner or am a showrunner?

Joey: No, not at all. I had a kind of, I had done a lot of onset work and I had run a room before for another show called Those Who Can't.

But I don't even know if Caroline knew that. Caroline just knew me from Arrested. But I think she just had more faith. in me than I had in myself because I remember my agent calling me being like, oh, they're looking for a showrunner. I was like, great. When it's staffed up, let me like, when they find that person, let me know who it is.

And I'd love to go for a staffing job. Cause I just assumed I wasn't going to be up for any show running job. So other people made that leap for me, which is nice. Cause I don't know that I would have done it.

Lorien: How did you prepare for that meeting with her?

Joey: I didn't really, it was interesting.

I thought. about what I liked about the show and just honed in on the characters and the relationship and I could tell even from watching it without having ever talked to her I could tell it was a very personal story and very you know based on real life so I just came in with a couple specifics of me and my relationships and I think that helped a lot but I didn't come in with like show ideas or anything I really just came in of like how can I help you with this show you've already got something you clearly have a vision so How can I best support that?

And am I the best person to help support that? And she fortunately decided it was.

Lorien: Yay. We're all very appreciative that it did work out because that show is so great. It was so fun to write that show. That was what does it look like when you're in development? So you're hired, you're together, and now it's go make a show.

What does that look like?

Joey: So for that one, it was staffing a room. It was coming up, which was very easy for the first season because we had some people that we just you know, Andrea had some writers that she knew from other projects and from real life. I had some people that I loved working with.

So we just got a room together and we really, that show specifically, it was what are your funnest, funniest parenting stories? What are your funniest relationship stories? What are your funniest school stories, friend stories? And let's see. And, in talking, it was such a conversation that show the first three or four weeks, I would say of the writer's room was just, And you can always tell when something's working, when everybody else is like, Oh shit, my husband and I do the exact same thing.

Then you're like, Oh, this feels more universal. And the specifics on that show, not everybody dances the way that Andrea dances in front of her husband for five minutes with no dialogue, but everybody has some weird way that they poke at their spouse. So in finding those moments, we were like, even though what she does or what I did in my stories or, some of the other writers, the specifics were ours, but the universal kind of idea, whenever something hit and everybody felt like everyone had a story about that thing, the whole fish episode, not everybody had at a party, they were given a fish that then of course died because of course those fish died right away, but everybody had that horrible, Oh my God, how do I tell my kid about dad?

And then weirdly everybody had a funny version of that. Not every, there weren't a lot of like super sad, dramedy versions of that story. They were all weirdly funny and that's when we knew oh, that's an idea for a show. That's an episode.

Lorien: So when you're meeting with writers, what are things, hypothetically, that writers can do when you're meeting with a showrunner?

to to be successful in that meeting, whether you're hired or not. And what are ways that writers can be just really unsuccessful when they're trying to staff?

Joey: I would say successful, know the tone of the show that you're up for and try and present yourself in that tone in some way, especially for that show, because we were really looking for true stories.

The people who came in and were like, Sorry, I am, I seem a little frazzled. My husband and I were blank like that. Even if ...

Lorien: why wasn't I up for staffing for the show? I,

Joey: you would've been perfect for it, but it was...

Lorien: I have stories!

Joey: Yeah. If it ever comes back you're hired.

Lorien: On record. It's on record everybody. There you go.

Joey: We can cut that part out, right?

Lorien: Yes, definitely. Cut that part out.

Joey: No. But yeah, being successful in that show for those meetings was. Feeling similar, having a similar kind of vibe. I didn't we immediately turned on people who came in and were like very particular or felt very not standoffish, but like above it, going to be stuck in a room with these people for God knows how many hours for God knows how many weeks for God knows how many seasons, if you're lucky.

So people who came in all business, we tended to be like, I don't know how much fun they'd be in a room, but people who came in ready to play were jamming. And that show was not improvised almost at all, but we had a very kind of improv, improv y writer's room. So whenever we could jump in on somebody's story and they could give it back to us, that was very helpful.

That was something that always made that bell ding for us. Oh, this is someone who could do this show.

Lorien: So one of the highlights for me at CineStory is when you run a mock writer's room, right?

Joey: Yeah.

Lorien: And I love the way you do it. And so what, can you describe what that looks like? And what exactly are you doing in the room in terms of breaking it down?

Are, are you beating it out or are you writing it in the room? What does your writer's room look like?

Joey: So for CineStory, obviously we only have a couple hours, so I never really get, I always spend so much time just breaking up the stories. I never get to the actual writing. But we, yeah, we overwrite in our writers rooms.

I like writing it all out. I don't like leaving things to writers to go off and do and then give us a first draft. Some people work that way, and that's great for them. I find that then you're doing so much work on the back end, trying to make all of the different scripts sound cohesive and like they came from one person, especially on a show like I'm Sorry, where it was so single POV.

But even in the rest of development, I can't imagine a lot of people writing like Mitch Hurwitz did, given the chance to just be like, here's a basic idea of what Jobe does, go ahead, go write it, like that would be insane. So for us, it was really always just writing everything out in the room of the most detailed 12 page outline with as much dialogue as possible to set people up for success so that when they did go off and write because somebody had to go put it in final draft basically and someone had to make sure that it was all working.

Knowing that we were giving them everything possible to do the least amount of work on the back end was important for us.

Lorien: You're getting 12 pages to translate into a final draft document into a 30 page document.

Joey: Yeah, 12 page Word document with like just like paragraphs of each scene was like a paragraph with as much dialogue as possible, which when you break it out usually ended up to be about 30 or 40 pages in final draft.

And then it was really up to the writer to trim, which was always hard. But yeah. Even that we would always do. It was like, don't break a sweat over trimming. We'll get it down eventually. That was a very room written show as was Arrested Development, obviously. And then as was Those Who Can't because Those Who Can't was another show where it was three people in that room were the performers of the show.

And when you have that, it makes so much sense to use that to your advantage. So we would read everything out loud, read every script out loud. We would cast it with all the writers in the room to make sure it was all working. We didn't do table reads. Or anything like that. So that was our chance to make sure that everything was working.

So it was a very laborious process. But ultimately from idea to script took a long time. But then by the time we got that script in from whatever writer was sent out, it was in such good shape that, from that to the stage was very fast.

Lorien: So what does that timeline look like from idea to script?

Joey: So for I'm Sorry , it was maybe about two and a half weeks per episode while doing other episodes at the same time. You do have that show was. We were on a pretty tight schedule. We had 10...

Lorien: you were writing as you were shooting.

Joey: No, we weren't writing as we were shooting. That would have been too crazy with Andrea being in every scene and me being on set the entire time.

That's where you get into that oh, why don't you guys write some stuff and then we'll see how we feel about it when we come back, which is never, I think, a recipe for success. So we wrote everything before we shot. So we had a, I think an 18 to a 20 week writer's room. For everything. And when I say from idea to script, like from the core, someone talking about, oh, here's a funny goldfish death story, things like that.

Lorien: The blue sky, let's think of things that have happened and what's connecting.

Joey: Yeah, so that was about 20 weeks, um, from that blue sky idea, that one like pinprick of an idea to a script.

Lorien: Did you have a writer's assistant in your room? And what was their job?

Joey: Yeah, we had fantastic writer's assistants on that show.

And we had the best one for the last two seasons, first season two, and then what would have been season three. Cause we, we wrote all of season three and we're in the middle of shooting before COVID took us out. So I have 10 great scripts if anybody wants to read them. But yeah, we had a great writer's assistant who we had given her script to because she was phenomenal.

Lorien: What do they do in the room?

Joey: Write everything down, organize it in a way that makes sense to us later, make sure that she got everything that got a reaction from all the other writers, any sort of laugh, giggle, chuckle, anything, because what's the most frustrating is when you're all talking over each other, and then you're like, wait, no, Andrea said it in a very specific way.

What was that? Not having it written down was yes. heartbreaking. And fortunately, we had writer's assistants who were always able to get it. And I did that job beforehand. So I tried to help her out as much as possible. Make sure you got that. Make sure you got that. Because it's a thankless, thankless.

Lorien: Yeah, I did a version of it at Pixar where we would have the brain trust meetings and I would take notes and I had to take verbatim notes of everything everyone said and track tone and excitement and what people were responding to because I had to take three to four hours worth of verbatim notes and turn it into a summary that could be digested and I was like oh I have done that job like I didn't realize that like I'm always trying to like what was my Pixar experience so like for writers think about what you've done.

That can translate that because I wasn't called a writer's assistant. I was the script supervisor, but that was part of my job. So if you do want to be a writer's assistant, think about where you've other places you've done something similar that translates that might have been something different. It is a really hard job and it is one of the most important jobs in the room.

Do you think it's worth....

Joey: I think it0s the most important job in the room as a matter of fact.

Lorien: I was trying to be respectful of you as the showrunner, but I agree with you.

Joey: It is the hardest. I think A, because it's the most thankless and B, because you catch, we've, we loved our writer's assistant. So we weren't throwing around a lot of blame, but I have been in rooms where you can catch a lot of ire for not doing it correctly.

And I've worked with some writers assistants on other shows who were not. Able to be as quick or as fast or understand really the tone of the show and know what's working or not. And when you try to write everything down verbatim, you're not going to be able to do it. You're not a machine.

Nobody is. So being attuned enough with the show to know what's working and where you should focus your energy. That was key.

Lorien: Yeah. There is a mind reading component to it, knowing what everyone's going to respond to and highlighting those things. Cause sometimes the people running the room are going to miss stuff.

And the writer's assistant I worked with was phenomenal and she'd even call me after and she's I noticed this thing. It's not in the notes because of this reason, but I wanted to remind you of it. And I think it's connected to this episode and I'd be like, Oh yes, you're right. Like she was thinking like my brain.

She was like a showrunner too and that she had the whole show in her head. She was big picturing it in a way that I could have done it without her which is a lot to ask of someone who is working the hours they are, but I gave her an episode and she is now like a staff writer. Like it, it really impressed me how much she made my life easier.

Joey: That's so much of it. How much can you make everybody easier? And I think even a showrunner, it's how much can you make everybody's life easier? Don't turn in things at the last minute to everybody. Don't send every department head into a viral. Like people just want to work. There are too many people who want jobs in this industry.

You don't need to suffer through Yeah, they're a little tricky, but they do a great job. It's I don't need a little tricky anymore. I don't need attitude anymore, I don't need someone who's gonna, do a pretty good job at some things, but a great job at other. I can find the unicorn that's also someone you want to be around.

And I feel like that was a big, we had a no asshole policy on, I'm sorry.

Lorien: You had produced episodes of your own. Scripts, like on Arrested Development, right? Had you, you'd been on set before?

Joey: Yeah, not for Arrested Development, but yeah, for those who can't Yeah, I'd been on, I'd been on set for Arrested Development, but that show we didn't have episodes as writers, really.

It was weird.

Lorien: Because it was room written? Can you talk about what it means to produce your own episode of TV? What that role is, where there's a director on set, and a showrunner, if the showrunner is there.

Joey: It's interesting, I've had a very kind of different experience, I think, than a lot of people.

In so much as every show that I've worked on didn't really have a writer's episode. Even those who can't there were episodes that I wrote. That I got writing credit on, but because of everything, almost everything that I've worked on has been room written, you are on set, but not in the same way. I was a writer's assistant on a show that felt very that.

It felt oh, this is this person's episode, so they're going to be on set, and they're the person everybody goes to with questions. And I feel like that's where Network shows live a lot of times because of the turnover and because of the time constraints. But because I've worked on shows where we were able to basically write everything before we shot it, it was always going to be the showrunner on set anyway.

And I feel like that is, hurtful in some ways in so much as it takes a million more years to do things, but it's so helpful in so much as you feel like the cohesion of the show. It doesn't feel as disjointed. It doesn't feel as based on whoever was on set are the types of jokes you're getting.

So I didn't really, but I was on set. So for those who can't, for Arrested Development, I was on set a ton. And then for those who can't, I was on set almost all the time. Along with Dean Laurie, who was a showrunner at the time. So I had a lot of onset experience and onset is a whole different beast of everything as is post production.

And I was fortunate enough to be in post for all three of the for Arrested Development, for those who can't, and for I'm Sorry. And that's really where jokes live or die, is in the edit bay. And I feel like showrunners who don't want to spend that much time editing, you feel that too. Much the same way that you feel showrunners who aren't on set, you feel showrunners who aren't in the edit bay.

Because you're like, oh, they totally fucked that joke. that we spent so much time working on. Or, oh, they dropped the audio for that thing? That's the total reveal? Great, well done guys. You need a consistent voice throughout the process. And I feel like that's where, I'm sorry it was me and Neandria, where the consistent voice is.

And I feel like that's why it felt so, whether you liked it or not, it felt specific and seamless in that way. I don't think a lot of people were like, boy, episodes feel very different from one season to the next. I feel like, Every episode came from the same two brains in the same exact way.

Lorien: So what was it like for you, you have all this set experience, what's it like that first day you're a showrunner on set?

Joey: It was intense. It was...

Lorien: tell us about your trauma.

Joey: It was all trauma. No, it was good. I was very worried about being a showrunner for the first time officially, even though I had done a big part of that job in previous on previous shows. That was the first time where I knew it was all coming down to me.

It's really nerve wracking, really scary. And I, you can go one of two ways with it. You can either want to go in being the swinging dick, like the big swinging dick. Who's this is my show. And I'm going to, take over everything. And I want to be the smartest person in the room.

So people respect me. Or you can do what I did of I want to hire people with so much more experience than I have. I want to hire people who make me look dumb as fuck. And that worked in every sense for every show that I was able to do that on. Cause it sets you up for success in a way that is hard because it's hard to be like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Sorry, DP, what are you saying? And then having them walk you through things that you as a showrunner should know. When they talk you through it, you learn so much more and then you're able to do it, but also just giving people that kind of ability to be the best at their jobs is something that weirdly I feel like in a lot of other industries might be the norm of like you hire people for a job, let them do that.

But I feel like a lot of times I've seen it not happen that way where people are hired and then told no. I want this person to be wearing this because I know better than you. Like it's...

Lorien: yeah, I agree. It's intimidating, and it's one of the reasons why I was really resisting directing my feature that I've written because I'm like, I don't know shit about lenses or stuff.

I did it on the TV show, but I had this amazing DP who like taught me and told me, I think I was like a director. I felt like you have to know this stuff until we had Celine song on the show. And she was like, no, you just hire an amazing. And I was like, Oh, okay. So I'll just do the same thing that you do, right?

Hire amazing people. So you are now moving into. writing and directing your own feature with Andrea?

Joey: Yeah, Andrea's directing it, but yeah, I'm writing, I'm co writing. This is the third feature though that I've written. We've written two together. One we wrote right at the start of the pandemic just to be working on something, so we weren't going completely insane.

But this is the first for a studio, which is nice.

Lorien: So she's directing. Okay.

Joey: She's directing. Yeah, she's going to direct. Yep, and I'll produce it. So I'll be on set. So you'll be on set. She'll be in it too, and it's, it is you're splitting your attention as an actor and as a director in a way that's really hard.

So much like I'm sorry, I'll be on set to be another set of eyes.

Lorien: Do you think you want to direct your own work?

Joey: Yeah, I like directing. I've, it's interesting as a showrunner you tend to, and I know directors would kill me, and I, we had an amazing directors for all the shows that I worked on.

But you do end up filling in a lot of that role. You do want to hire directors who feel comfortable with you being like, that's actually not the joke we were going for. Can you have them throw it away more? No. No. There's still that line of you're not supposed to talk to the actors as the show, the directors still get that, but like it is, it's such a hired hand on shows.

For television in a way that it's not for features. I feel like features, director is king. Director is the visionary.

Lorien: Or Queen. Empress. Empress. Goddess.

Joey: No, you can't be a king. You're the emperor. Sorry, Lorien. Yeah, but For shows, especially so I feel like it's a very tricky job because you want to go in and we had a couple of directors that we met with, especially I'm sorry you came in and we're like, I love the idea of this and you're like boy that's just not our show even a little bit like that sounds delightful and gorgeous.

I have no interest in doing it but I'll watch it. You really want people who are team players as directors for television. So I think I could do that in so much as I think I can, walk into somebody's set and help them get what they want. Directing a feature, I don't know. It seems interesting.

I don't really, I don't want to say I don't love features that much because I do, but I came from development like you did in features and I know how long that process is and that doesn't interest me in the same way that television does.

Lorien: I came from animation features where the development is like the lifespan of an elementary school child.

So yeah, but...

Joey: crazy, but you want to go back into that and be like, Oh, maybe I can work on the same project for nine years. It's like, why I don't want to do that.

Jeff: Can I quickly ask you, you mentioned working with directors on set and television specifically, we talked quickly about posts on I'm sorry and one thing we've never talked about on the show that I think would be valuable.

For both TV producers and showrunners is how to work with editors in post like etiquette between a showrunner and their editor, especially in comedy. Would you mind quickly illuminating that because we've actually never really talked about it on the show before.

Lorien: Knock before you enter the room. Do not startle the editor.

Joey: Not startle the editor. Do not startle the editor. Don't throw a window shade open.

Lorien: Don't turn on the lights if the lights are off. Don't ask them to take their hoodie off if they're wearing a hoodie. Don't. Let them be. Don't pressure them.

Joey: Don't get in their space. Sit on the couch. Relax. Lean back.

Don't touch them a lot.

Lorien: If they're editing and they're, you're just waiting for them to do the cut. Don't. Talk. About the cut.

Jeff: So important though. Yeah, go ahead. I'm interrupting you, Joey. Sorry.

Joey: No. It is a very important skill set, and it's one that I'm still developing. I think some editors that I've worked with will laugh that you asked me about editor showrunner etiquette, because I tend to be a little controlling when it comes to the edit because I know what I want.

When you're there from the conception of a joke, you know what the timing is. You know what the take is on. When you're on set, too, you know the take. Boy, I thought I saw Tom Kill this line in a completely different way. And I know you chose this one because it matches, but there's actually a much funnier take.

And we had phenomenal editors on, both on Those Who Can't and on I'm Sorry, who were very gracious with me and allowed me the ability to be a little obnoxious and controlling. I learned some bad habits for some previous, from some previous showrunners I had worked with, including snapping. And they're there for the cut.

Instinctively, I have done that. And then I immediately retreat and apologize and buy them. You still have your fingers? I'm impressed. Now if you're, yeah, and it's not like a, hey, pay attention. That would be insane. No, cut it right. Like that, it's knowing the timing of a joke especially on shows like I'm Sorry, where so much of that show lived in the lingering silence or the awkward pauses in between things.

A lot of times editors who are given so much material, especially when it's a half hour show, they're given so much material and their whole thing is like we got to get all of this in 30 minutes. I'd rather lose. a couple lines at the end to make the jokes that I want to work, or the story that I want to make work.

So sometimes that meant But that's not necessarily their instinct. Their instinct is, this is the script I was getting, how do I cram all of this in the best and most seamlessly edited way? Which is a great skill set for a lot of shows, but for mine it was, I actually don't care about those last four lines that we wrote, that was bullshit.

I need this awkward moment to land. And that usually meant sitting in silence, where people are not necessarily trained To edit. So I did do that a couple of times, and I always...

Lorien: I tease about editors, but I think they are the magic. They are the ones who make the show, and that they can do what they do, and half listen to the showrunner talking, giving notes, and listen to the and put it all together.

I think it is without them, I don't know that we'd have anything. Everyone plays a critical role, but Like when I heard that the editors were going to be taken out of the Oscar ceremony, I was like I don't know what's happening now, like you, they have to be in it, like they are, at Pixar, they start on the film at the very beginning with the director, writer, like they are the critical part of the crafting, and when you're working with an editor, are you doing like a kickoff with them before are you like, hey, in this episode, this is what's really important, these jokes, are you letting them put it all together, and then you're coming in to review?

Joey: So we would do a kickoff for the season. So we would talk to the editor about the tone, what mattered to us, what we were always looking for. We always prefer their editors cuts to be super, super long and have everything. So for us, it was really that kickoff of tone mattered so much more. I even hate to say this cause it sounds so laws I fear, but we didn't really have a lot of this episode is about this connection. Our show was really what's funny, what rings true and what's the quickest way to deliver these ridiculous scenarios. So that we didn't have a lot of kickoff per episode things, but we would sometimes before they'd really start getting into the editing.

I would talk to them and be like, look, these are the scenes that we had a problem with onset where we felt like we didn't get a lot of great takes. So it might be a lot more cutty or These are the scenes that really matter and I want this scene to be as long and awkward as possible. We had through lines that we were setting up with different characters, where it's I know it might not seem like the scene is important, in this episode.

By episode nine, they get into this whole, so like I give them that kind of roadmap in, in hopes of just setting them up to, to know what was important. But I wouldn't do a lot of Oh, this character is, this episode is really about this emotion or anything. Cause it all felt very similar in that way, but that, and then, yeah, he was always watching that editor's cut and then just diving in take by take.

We were brutal.

Lorien: I love being in post. I love it so much.

Joey: It's the least fun in some ways. You watch them say this line one more time, but then you get the one that they read it, right? And you're like, that's it. Now the whole scene works. Thank God. So you get a lot more of those like dopamine hits.

In the Than you do on set . Everybody's having a great time. Everyone's excited to be there. The actors are feeding off each other. Everything is this is the best thing ever. And then he gets the edit bay. You're like, Oh, fuck. We never got that thing that we thought this whole episode.

Lorien: Then you find it in a different way.

And it's like the final edit of the script. And it's, it all comes together in the way it was supposed to have been. If you're lucky. Or you find a way to cut something new. And it, for me, it's just such a magical, fun, final rewrite. I love it.

Joey: And I actually learned how to edit from Mitch Hurwitz on Arrested Development.

I was fortunate enough to stay on that show through the editing process. And that we edited that season for months and months. And then I actually re edited the season completely in a later project. So I spent so much time with the footage of that. And you can see how Even actors who are so precise with how they said lines, the different angles, the different timing, what other people were doing in the background you can make a whole new show.

I always thought that would be such a great idea for a show is give four different types of editors the same exact footage from a scene And just see it be done.

Lorien: I think you just pitched the new Hollywood reality show. Is that it? Is that the one? You did it, sold. Yeah, that's the one. I love that I sold it in the room.

That's, it's been so long since that's happened. Selling in the room. Does that even happen anymore?

Joey: Oh, it doesn't because it's all over Zoom, and Zoom is the worst.

Lorien: I know. Okay.

Joey: And I say that because of Zoom.

Lorien: Zoom is so great. Yes. Okay. What I love about you is how direct you are. I love other things about you too, but I appreciate your confident, direct delivery.

What advice do you have for emerging TV writers? And people who have not been in a staffing room, but have written some pilots. And are trying to figure out how to break in, maybe not necessarily right now because the industry is going to say that's a tricky thing right now. It's a tricky thing, but generally speaking as a human writer, what advice do you have for them?

Joey: Yeah, it is a tricky time right now, which I hate even saying because I don't want to be the Debbie Downer of find something else. But beyond right now, I would say figure out what you're good at with writing. Because people tend to want to be a jack of all trades. And I hate even, that's like the most first drafty thing to say, but figure out what type of writer you are, what comes easiest to you, and write things that showcase that, and then in those meetings with showrunners, pitch yourself as that.

Don't try and be the one who can do, because every writer should be. Being a story, dialogue, characters, world build it everyone should have those skills. But what are you really good at? Because that, as a showrunner, is what I'm looking for. Who's gonna fill out the room? Because I'm not great at X, so I need to hire writers who are good enough to make that work in the show.

So figure out what you excel at. Because I feel like a lot of people are told Be great at everything. And that's just not how the human brain works. I've written with two writers probably who are good at everything in my life, in my career. It's great, but it's also very detrimental in other ways because they have other things that they might struggle with.

But I'm really good at story. I'm really good at fixing a story and making a story work, at figuring out where the problems lie and coming up with a million different creative ways to solve those. I'm not great at dialogue. It's why I liked working on I'm Sorry so much because so much of that dialogue was real life.

And I can write dialogue. If I'm on a show, I'll write dialogue. If That would be insane if I didn't write it, but I've worked with writers who can craft a dialogue joke in a heartbeat, and those people are geniuses in a way that I will not be. Jim Vallely, I worked with on Arrested Development. He's been a writer since Golden Girls, since before Golden Girls.

He is a joke writing machine. He will in, he will come up with a twist of phrase that will kill the entire room off the top of his head. I can't do that. I can come up with a joke that'll pay off in five episodes if anybody's interested in that, hire me. But, I feel like knowing what you're good at and then writing a pilot that doesn't push yourself too hard, and I feel like that's a little bit of what I'm doing now, especially and I'm rediscovering is you want to write something that showcases all these great skills, and you're like, I'm going to write this pilot that's going to be the funniest, best, blah, blah, blah, blah, don't just write a pilot that has It's good jokes or has great characters or has weird specifics, but overexerting yourself, you'll end up getting lost in this mushy script world.

And I feel like I've read a lot of those mushy scripts.

Lorien: All right. We have three questions that we end with for every guest. But before we get to that, I want to ask you one last question is what is the worst advice you've ever gotten or some of the worst advice you've ever gotten?

Joey: To write dramas, to try and have a drama sample, to try and have a sci fi sample, to try and have a multicam sample, to try and have an animation sample.

Not because you shouldn't have those if that's what you want to write, but trying to write something because that's what you're told to write. I don't think is ever the best way to produce 35 or 65 great pages. So if you have a story, figure out the best way to tell that story, but don't worry about I do need a multicam sample.

So I bet I can cram this in there. I've done that before. It's never, it just makes the story.

Lorien: Let's figure out what you're good at and stick to it.

Joey: Figure out what you're good at, and eventually, and you will have ideas that might work better for animation, you might have ideas that might work, you can, I'm not saying you have to only write one thing, but don't try and write to fill this invisible box that you think you need to check if you have a story that calls for it to be more of a dramedy, write that, but don't feel like a dramedy because Fleabag came out, and now everybody wants the new single POV dramedy, do you know what I mean?

You're not gonna write Fleabag, Phoebe Waller Bridge already did that, and she, Crushed it. So if you have a story, write that story, but don't worry about doing the next anything.

Lorien: Yes, exactly. You're the first you.

Joey: Exactly. Yeah. People love that, right?

Lorien: People love that. I'm the current Lorien McKenna.

Joey: The current.

Not the future, but the current.

Lorien: Yeah. Okay. What brings you the most joy when it comes to writing?

Joey: This is so trite, but nailing it getting notes back where it's yeah, this is great. That works with an exclamation point, not a period.

Lorien: An exclamation point. Thank you very much.

Joey: No, getting to that finish line, feeling like I'm done with the project is nice feeling like I've gone over it 47, 000 times and I've gotten the best versions of these jokes that they're going to be that feeling of accomplishment.

It's very nice. Nobody likes writing, but everybody likes having written. So I like that's my best.

Lorien: And end. I loved writing the end at the end of my synopsis yesterday. I was like the end. Putting my name at the top with the title of the project and then the end and I was like the magical book ends.

Joey: Because you can always rewrite and you're always going to have to, but just getting to that like I have done the best I can right now, that feels great.

Lorien: I think that's such, that's really great to point out too, which is I've done the best I can right now, the end and stop, just stop. And move on to the next thing or get feedback that just says period.

Joey: Yeah. Yeah. Feedback. Cause again, nothing's ever going to be like, Oh, this was a first draft and it can shoot tomorrow, but just walking away from something for a little bit and a day, a week, whatever it is, a whole new perspective for better or for worse.

Lorien: All right, I don't know if we introduced Padi, but Padi's our co producer on the show.

Hi! And he has the second question for you today.

Padi: Yes. Hi, Joey. The second question is, what pisses you off about writing?

Joey: Working with people who don't have the same level level of love for television or features that I do. I find that always incredibly aggravating. When I'm in the middle of something, like, when I'm working on something and I'm like, Oh, it's like this episode of this, and they're like, Oh, I don't really watch TV, or Oh, I don't love comedy.

It's I don't, I'm not interested in that. You're not cool. You're not interesting. That's not, that doesn't make you impressive. We're all working in television. Let's, you have to watch every episode of everything, but let's pretend that we're excited about it. That pisses me off.

Jeff: I so agree. I'm just thinking about it because it has happened to me once or twice.

I felt so validated, Joey, when you brought up your love for Vanderpump Rules because that's a very important show for me. We were talking before we got on air, the only people I get starstruck are the cast of Vanderpump Rules.

Joey: Talk about it.

Jeff: Saw Tom Schwartz the other day, panicked. So it's, yeah, you're right.

The pretension and self selection of what's good and bad can be so frustrating. And...

Joey: I don't love everything. I don't watch every episode of television. But I can tell you what's on. I can tell you what's working. I'm not going to pitch a show right now about the three bodies. I know enough to know what's out there.

And you should be excited about it. You should like it. Otherwise, I don't know, write a novel. Or write articles. That's, you don't, it's too hard to, to get a job in this industry, to not enjoy it. Who's that for?

Jeff: Exactly. All right, Joey. The last question we have is if you could go back in time and have actually not go back in time, if you could currently go back and have a coffee with your younger self what advice would you give that Joey?

Joey: To start writing earlier to start writing earlier and more often and not worry about everything needing to be the one thing that's going to break you out because I feel like I spent a lot of time and still do to this day, which is why it took me a year and a half to actually put pen to paper and write something.

I get very bogged down and always have been in the. perfectionism of writing and what I feel like I need to be successful. And I feel like it prevented me from writing for a really long time because I would be like, yeah, but I don't know, friends did that better. Or, oh, I had this idea. I don't know.

It's like Brooklyn Nine, but whatever it was, you can always point to things that were so great. Which prevented me from writing for a really long time, I think.

Lorien: We're really glad you wrote the

Joey: pilot. The new pilot, your new sample. Yeah, exactly. A new sample, finally, after a million years.

Congratulations. Thank you.

Lorien: So that was it. Thank you for being on the show. We were super happy to talk to you about this.

Joey: Thank you for having me. This was so fun.

Lorien: Thank you so much, Joey, for being on today's show. For more support, check out our Facebook group where both emerging and professional writers are finding support and connections and writers groups.

And remember, you are not alone and keep writing.