When Do You Get Paid?

Q. All of the sudden it kind of hit me, after spending years learning everything I could about writing, there's one thing I've never seen anyone talk about: getting paid.

If you wouldn't mind; when the heck do TV writes get paid? Before you "lay pen to paper" so to speak, when you hand in the final draft, when the episode airs, right after the studio goes bankrupt?

There are multiple payments due on signing, delivery of treatment, delivery of first draft and second draft.

Note that the checks are due upon delivery, not "approval." The WGA and WGC take care of issues like this but if you're pre-Guild, watch out for anything that ties payment to "approval." They will have you rewriting endlessly for free.

On a working television show, checks come pretty fast. You let your agent know when you've been given a script, and they start invoicing. The contracts are standard, so there's nothing to negotiate. Your staffing salary gets paid every two weeks same as the rest of the world.

Outside of a production, payments are almost always late. It's rare that you can wait for the completed contract to start writing; you usually wind up having to trust producers. Which is awkward, since they sometimes do not deserve that trust.

With professional producers (by which I mean producers who behave like professionals), you usually get paid for each step within two or three weeks of invoicing. More than that, and there's a problem, and you should stop writing until the problem clears up. Every now and then I make the mistake of continuing to write for a producer who owes me money. There's a respected Canadian producer who owes me about $33,000; he would owe me less had I ignored his constant pushing to be writing, and had waited to make sure that he was living up to his obligations. I went ahead because I trusted him and because I hate to stop working in the middle of a project. Ah, well. Part of the reason you get paid so much in this biz is that you don't always get paid what you're owed. Over the course of my career I'm probably out about $75,000. It's rarely worth suing over, so you just go on with the next project.

Producers also often pay options late. However this is risky business for producers. If their option payment comes late, you can refuse to cash it, and notify the producer that the option has already expired. (You are not obliged to notify the producer of the option's expiry; the fact that he failed to pay the option renewal payment triggers expiry. Unless your contract says different, of course.) That's the moment where you can clear up any ambiguities in the contract in your favor, or flat out ask for more money, if the project has become much more valuable due to studio involvement, bankable elements, commencement of pre-production, etc. (If it hasn't become more valuable, don't try to renegotiate it!)

Why TV?

Kira Snyder tagged me with the why do you write tv? meme.

First of all, I'm both a TV and feature writer. Whether I write TV or features depends on the story I want to tell. If I get a feature idea, I write a feature. Sometimes an idea wants to be both and then I try it both ways.

I write TV because it is the dominant medium in our time. It is where the best stuff is being done. It is what the most people are tuning into. It is the biggest lever to move people's hearts. If this were the 19th Century I would probably be a novelist, and this would be a diary. If this were the 17th Century I would be a playwright and this would be drunken rantings in a pub. If this were the 6th Century BC I would be a poet and this would be drunken rantings at a private dinner.

The medium is artistically rewarding because you get to create a world and a bunch of characters and then keep telling stories there and about them until they pull the plug. As I say in my book about TV, a TV show is a relationship. A movie is a one night stand.

The medium is also artistically rewarding because TV writers have way more control over their work than movie writers do. On the other hand they have far less control than novelists or songwriters.

The money's nice, but I didn't get into this for the money, and I don't know anyone who got into it for the money.

I have a longer explanation in the intro to my TV writing book. It boils down to "You get to run the asylum."

I don't think there was a specific moment I wanted to become a TV writer. At some point I noticed that I write pretty fast, and that's a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for being a TV writer. So I wrote some specs and tried to get hired. I had more success in movies in LA; I didn't break into TV until I moved north. But in terms of wanting to write TV over movies -- it's been a slow process -- as TV gets better, it becomes more and more exciting to write in the medium.

I would say I'm always open to writing, in whatever medium...

Crafty Writing Groups

Q. How can I find a writing group?

I've posted a section of my book about writing groups and how great they are.

Are you looking for a writing group in your home town? Please consider this post page a resource. If you're starting a writing group, or looking for fellow writers to get together with, please leave your info in the comments below. Be sure to include your home town, your eddress, and your rough level (aspiring / emerging / pro -- it's usually best if everyone's in the same place more or less in their level of craft).

An Oldie but a Goodie

While we're on the subject of speeches, a fella gave a pretty good speech exactly 45 years ago. It's worth a listen.

This Will Almost Certainly Suck

And I will almost certainly watch it.

UPDATE: My friend Kay Reindl is working on it. So it may in fact not suck!

CJ Podcast

My podcast for Charlie Jade episode 112, "Charade," is up at Slice of Sci Fi. 114 and 116 will follow. Denis has done 110 and 113 (they'll be uploaded shortly); Sean has done 111 and 115.

Let me know what you think!

Biden and Bill

I don't have a lot to say about Bill Clinton's speech. It was superb. The line everyone was waiting to hear -- and he knew it -- was "Barack Obama is ready to be the next President of the United States." Because, you know, he had dithered a bit about that, and Hillary had not exactly taken back her claim that Obama wasn't. And this line was brilliant:

"People around the world have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."

Clinton has the ability to make a speech and make it sound like he's just speaking. You could see him pause to let a thought enter his brain -- even though you know that the thought is there in glowing light on the TelePrompTer right in front of him.

I think he was having fun. "Y'all siddown, we got some work to do!"

Biden's speech was great too. He's going to be the attack dog of the campaign. And he's going to make Barack Obama seem a little bit less like a space alien. The convention is all about validating Obama. If Michelle Obama is a TV-ready all-American mom and wife; if Hillary and Bill says that Obama stands for everything they stand for; if Joe Biden says Barack gets it; why then, he's no longer a mysterious charismatic character. He's been vouched for.

Tonight, the patron saint of the Left, Al Gore, will say anything left unsaid -- I'm not really sure what that might be. And then Barack will rock Mile High.

I think the Democratic convention's going rather well, don't you?

The Roll Call

We just tuned into the roll call vote for the Democratic nomination.

There is such a fine line between hokum and majesty. A travel agent talking about the rolling plains and majestic mountains of Montana is hokum. But put it in the mouth of a delegation:

Madam Secretary, the great state of Montana, which spreads from the rolling Great Plains to the majestic Rocky Mountains, home of William Jennings Bryan... casts all 35 of its votes for the next president of the United States, Barack Obama!

... and it is no longer hokum. It is grandeur. It is the People itself speaking through their elected representatives.

It is political theatre. But it is great political theatre. I watch, and even though I know it's hokum, I'm weeping and laughing.

And then New Mexico yields to Illinois, Land of Lincoln and home town of the next president of the United States ... and Illinois yields to New York, and Hillary is on the floor. Why? To move that the convention suspend its roll call and nominate Barack Obama by acclamation!

And the convention roars its approval, and Barack Obama is their nominee. And Hillary is hugging her friends like the woman at the wedding who didn't get to marry the groom but has to be there because he considers her his best friend.

You can rarely justify anything so operatic in a screenplay. And when you try and fail, you fail big. Sorkin is probably the master of the high pitch moment -- he makes protocol into something chilling and moving. ("Mr. President, you are relieved, sir.") He can also flop big: "I serve at the pleasure of the President." "I serve at the pleasure of the President."

When you have a legitimate moment, don't be afraid to spend the time it takes to do it right. No one complained that it took too long for Luke and Han and Chewie to get their medals.