Jonathan Stahl took a somewhat ‘traditional’ route to becoming a comedy TV writer. He’s worked as a writers’ assistant, script co-ordinator, and script manager on television shows like VEEP, Eastsiders and The Big C. All his hard work has paid off to a getting a writing credit on animated series Housebroken. Jon spoke with Creative Screenwriting Magazine about his experiences rising through the ranks.
It all started for him reading mountains of scripts for Apostle, Denis Leary’s production company, in New York. Stahl doesn’t have a hard and fast rule regarding how much he read before deciding whether a screenplay is worth pursuing to the end. “It all depends. Writers are pretty good at hiding their flaws,” commented Stahl. “Normally you can get a sense of a writer’s experience, talent, sense for story, and character pretty early on,” he continued. In the worst case scenario you can tell on the first page if a writer has no idea what a story consists of and how to even set one up. In other cases, Stahl can read up to ten pages and the character is well set up, but nothing has happened in the story. “Despite having a strong sense of character, amateur writers meander, there is dialogue which doesn’t lead anywhere or deliver any significant information. You can also get a sense of a new writer who uses strong expositional dialogue which sets up the story point blank and leaves no room for exploration or surprises.”
Raise the Stakes
Another issue Stahl has seen in under-developed scripts is that the stakes are often far too low. There aren’t any material consequences of not achieving a goal. “I articulate it as a situation where the main character doesn’t care deeply enough about it. High stakes are the source of their drive and are something they would die for. Stakes could range from saving the world to landing a love interest.” Writers need to give their characters something to latch on to, something they can’t live without, to propel their story forward.
Jonathan Stahl
Stahl recalled his experiences on VEEP. “I learned by watching the season arc unfold in real time in the writers’ room… where the characters’ motivations lie without being explicitly stated.” VEEP was written by seasoned writers who would frame the motivation question as where Selena Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) or another character is at a particular point in time. “What does she want from the current interaction with Tom James (Hugh Laurie) or Roger Furlong (Dan Bakkedahl)?” He described his VEEP experience as a “craft course and masterclass in comedy screenwriting.“
Jon Stahl’s background also extends into being a production assistant. “Being on set teaches you certain things about how a story is produced, while a writers’ room teaches you how a show is developed.” Stahl was fortunate enough to have been on the set of VEEP as shots where being set up to be filmed. “I’d watch the actors rehearse and if something wasn’t working, we’d go back to the writers’ room and figure out a solution.” It was this two-way feedback process that allowed Stahl to improve his writing skills. “If a scene wasn’t working, it was an issue with the characters.”
Serial Or Cereal
The TV writer has experience in writing for both serialized and series television. “VEEP was heavily serialized, so we had to plot the main story arcs over the course of an entire season. Housebroken is more of a series and each episode is standalone. There are characters introduced at the start of an episode who leave at the end.”
The key difference between series and serialized television is that the latter requires a central character to track for the entire season. “In VEEP, we needed to know where Selena was going to be personally and logistically by a certain episode.” Series television affords more flexibility even if there is a central character such as Honey (Lisa Kudrow) in Housebroken. It also allows the story order to be shuffled especially if one episode won’t be finished in time. The story logic won’t be interrupted because each episode is self-contained. Few TV shows are entirely one or the other.
Selena Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) in VEEP
Broadly speaking, TV writers’ rooms function similarly for both animation and live-action shows. “Rooms are surrounded by white boards as the writers break the stories for each episode as someone takes notes.” Jonathan Stahl has experience both in-house and Zoom writers’ rooms. “It took us about three weeks to become proficient in Zoom and figure out all the social queues and cadence of conversation while breaking stories.”
Although animated and live action television shows share many similarities, there are some key differences. Animated shows generally have more engagement with the artists than live action shows have with actors. Animated shows also have a much longer production period which can often be upwards of three months, as opposed to a few weeks with live action shows.
Once Jonathan Stahl watched a completed episode of any show he’s worked on, does he truly understand the tone and nuance of the showrunner’s vision. “During development, the show is partly in the showrunner’s head and partly on the page. You only get part of the picture.” As is frequently the case in animation, a script may be rewritten multiple times in the writers’ room before it’s locked down.
Once the stories are outlined, they are assigned to specific writers on a rolling basis. Moreover, not every episode is necessarily fully outlined before the series goes into script and subsequent production. Initially, certain episodes are assigned to writers. Later on, there might be a group rewrite or polish. “Stories are typically loosely broken as a group – three acts and a tag at the end. Writers are then tasked to write a more thorough outline of the episode they are assigned. Then we get notes from the showrunner and the studio before going to script.” Stahl’s Housebroken episode contained just under twenty scenes. He relished the creative freedom to write certain jokes within the comedic parameters of the show. These are often ‘punched up’ in the writers’ room to create better jokes.
Jon Stahl wrote his episode of Housebroken with his writing partner Rachel Leavitt. “I write in insane, broad strokes and Rachel has a more grounded sense of comedy.” These approaches are complimentary because leaning too far in one direction can dull the comedy – either making it too silly or too dramatic. Writing as a duo allows them to road test jokes on each other before committing to them.
In conclusion, Stahl advises comedy writers to get as much comedy into their first five pages to seduce the audience. “That’s gonna be your hook. That advice was given to me by VEEP producer Billy Kimball.” He also discourages writers from taking the “Write what you know” mantra too literally. “It’s not just about stuff you’ve experienced in life, although you should be inspired by it.” A show about politics isn’t really about politics. It’s about characters interacting in the world of politics. But it helps, if you’ve ever run for office or been involved in an election campaign.
