On 2 May 2023, it was pens (or laptops) down for 11500 WGA members following an overwhelming strike authorization vote. Negotiations abruptly ended when AMPTP (the industry body representing the main studios) failed to counter an offer by WGA. Writers and their allies (including those from other entertainment unions such as IATSE and SAG-AFTRA) vociferously took to the picket lines and social media with witty placards and chants proclaiming they will not back down as they face an existential crisis in what was once a comfortable career in favor of increasingly poorly-paid gigs where professional writers could no longer support their families amid skyrocketing studio profits.
Similarly, the main actors&#8217; union SAG-AFTRA asked its members to vote on strike authorization ahead of its commencement of contract negotiations with AMPTP on 7 June. They have since secured that strike vote as a bargaining tool. The DGA, which represents directors, opened contract negotiation talks on 10 May with AMPTP, but its official support of the current WGA strike is unclear.
WGA and AMPTP haven&#8217;t reconvened since the strike began, so the issues are far from resolved. It&#8217;s likely, they won&#8217;t do so until after DGA and SAG-AFTRA negotiations are complete. The strike can legally last for three months, after which AMPTP can declare a force majeur and cancel all existing labor agreements with WGA. The previous strike of 2008 &#8211; 2009 lasted a hundred days and the current standoff appears likely to follow a similar trajectory.
&nbsp;
<h3>The Role Of AI</h3>
&nbsp;
The WGA negotiating team has highlighted two key areas of concern &#8211; the (ab)use of AI and TV writers&#8217; mini-rooms. The former is a concern to all writers especially in terms of valuing their craft and defining authorship of a film or TV series.
The term &#8220;creator of a literary work&#8221; has a specific legal meaning. A creator must be human and the work must be in a tangible fixed form such as a screenplay. AI is still in its infancy, so its ensuing capabilities are yet to be witnessed. WGA insists some ground rules on these technologies must be set during the current contract negotiations to protect its members from abuse. Otherwise, writers may face the same problems as cryptocurrency and social media users because these platforms weren&#8217;t subjected to early regulation. Cryptocurrency was never intended to allow the criminal black market to flourish and social media was certainly not created for the spread of disinformation and hate speech.
<div id="attachment_40679" style="width: 317px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-40679" class="wp-image-40679" src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/andrea-de-santis-zwd435-ewb4-unsplash-2-819x1024.jpg" alt="" width="307" height="384" />Photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash</div>
Writers also argue that AI and other large language models do not actually create original stories. They simply gather big data from a multitude of sources, then process, interpret, and repackage it. It&#8217;s a form of plagiarism.
Studios decry that writers are Luddites and will go the way of the horse and cart if they don&#8217;t embrace new technologies and modern business practices.
Writers are not inherently anti-progress or hate technology. AI, algorithms, and big data certainly have a role to play in the telling of stories. Much like a driverless car, AI gathers and processes terabytes of data to give the car instructions on how to drive. However, a human needs to drive the car in the first place in order for it to gather the relevant data.
AI learning is based on binary math. A red light means stop, a green light go, a speed sign means the car needs to check its speed and adjust if necessary. The more it drives, the more &#8220;human-like&#8221; its decisions become through &#8220;learning.&#8221;
In a possible writing scenario, a studio can ask AI to write a funny sitcom without actually hiring a writer &#8211; and it probably can, based on painstaking computer analysis of popular comedy shows, ratings, and the jokes it contains. But is it any good?
AI can only determine if a joke was funny or not based on the data it&#8217;s fed. There isn&#8217;t any inherent cultural context  or social nuance driven by a human in AI-generated scripts. It&#8217;s the difference between speaking to a live customer service operator and scrolling through a maddening menu of pre-recorded options. You might be allowed to speak to a live human after all other options have been exhausted.
The issue of plagiarism can also be offset by allowing random variables to enter the AI mix. Imagine if AI was asked to write a breakfast table conversation of a Mid-Western family with traditional values. Al can conceivably insert random dialogue from a magazine article to avoid the human writer interface. It may also swap out words with synonyms to avoid detection by the plagiarism police.
An AI-generated sitcom will be more precise if the user specifies a workplace sitcom with a young, hot, urban, &#8216;nepo&#8217; baby cast that work in an influencer advertising agency, than simply keying in &#8220;write a sitcom.&#8221; But it will never be more than a simulated human interaction, no matter how advanced the technology becomes. If we reach the stage of &#8220;I can&#8217;t believe it wasn&#8217;t written by a human,&#8221; where are we as a species?
Actors are facing similar concerns with talent agencies increasingly requiring actors to submit to a face scan and digitized voice recording to expedite reshoots, promotion, or spinoffs without further compensation.
&nbsp;
<h3>Mini-Rooms</h3>
&nbsp;
This is the other major contentious issue that WGA is fighting to address. Mini-rooms are a means for the senior writers of a potential TV series to convene and present an extended pitch to a studio to give them a better visualization of a potential film or TV show.
Imagine if a local municipality requested tender documents to build a school or hospital. Typically, these require developers to submit plans, models, budgets, timelines and other pertinent information. What if if they were told to lay the foundations and erect the building frames to demonstrate they are capable of the job before being paid, without any guarantee of winning the tender? This is the crisis writers are facing in unregulated mini-rooms.
Writers (generally senior) in mini-rooms are often paid at WGA scale without any guarantee that the show will be greenlit or that they will even be staffed. Mini-rooms have increasingly become sweat shops where writers are expected to front load a TV series as much as possible. Sometimes, they are even asked to provide a pilot episode script or a comprehensive season outline in a matter of weeks so studios can assess a project&#8217;s viability while saving the studio money on development costs.
&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_40680" style="width: 780px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-40680" class=" wp-image-40680" src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/pexels-thirdman-5256525-1024x682.jpg" alt="" width="770" height="513" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/pexels-thirdman-5256525-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/pexels-thirdman-5256525-150x100.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/pexels-thirdman-5256525-250x167.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/pexels-thirdman-5256525-768x512.jpg 768w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/pexels-thirdman-5256525.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px" />Photo by Thirdman</div>
If a show is greenlit, studios argue that fewer writers are subsequently required in the writers&#8217; room since a substantial amount of work has already been completed in the mini-room. Again, this is another cost-cutting measure at the writers&#8217; expense. WGA is insisting on a minimum number of writers per TV show &#8211; one writer per episode for up to six episodes and two writers per episode after that until twelve episodes.
AMPTP is vehemently opposed to this archaic minimum staffing formula as being incompatible with the flexible and changing nature of creative industries. They call it &#8216;featherbedding&#8217; (an old union practice allowing members to get paid for doing nothing). This practice can conceivably reduce the minimum number of writers to zero per script with the help of AI, or one writer per multiple scripts to do a polish or rewrite as a work for hire rather than as a creator. They also posit that showrunners should decide how many writers they need, especially in the case of auteur-driven TV shows which are often created and written by one writer.
Television seasons are getting shorter &#8211; down to six or eight episodes from twenty-four per season and writers are increasingly being pushed into day worker rather than staff status. Studios also like the practice of contractually taking writers off the market in case rewrites or polishes are required, or a subsequent season is ordered. This is fine if they paid writers to be off the market, but they don&#8217;t.
WGA wants to set some guard rails and basic protections for their members to ensure that writing is a viable and sustainable career choice. Time will tell the final outcome of this protracted labor dispute.

WGA Strike 2023 – The Story So Far

It&#8217;s been a frantic year for selling short stories, especially of the horror kind to adapt them into films and television shows. Some have even sold for six-figure amounts during fervent bidding wars between studios. This is a refreshing departure from studios sourcing IP mainly from the New York Best Sellers list and popular comic books.
Sam Raimi recently optioned an entire collection of short stories called Every House Is Haunted by short story and novel author <a href="https://www.ian-rogers.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Ian Rogers</a>. The development deal finally came together when Raimi read The House On Ashley Avenue and saw its cinematic potential. It is being produced by Sam Raimi and <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/roy-lee-producer-of-barbarian-it-the-ring-offers-advice-to-horror-thriller-writers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Roy Lee</a>.
Rogers spoke with Creative Screenwriting Magazine about the decade-long runway to get his short story to this point. He describes the genre of The House On Ashley Avenue as &#8220;supernatural noir.&#8221; &#8220;I&#8217;m an equal opportunity horror writer and fan.&#8221; says Rogers. &#8220;The type of horror that I tend to write is more of an accessible horror where it&#8217;s a take on every day events and then tweak them for supernatural.&#8221;
Rogers states that his key influencer is Stephen King because both his monsters and his characters feel so real. &#8220;Even though we know vampires and killer clowns in sewers don&#8217;t exist, the characters and the sets are familiar enough that we&#8217;re able to suspend that disbelief so they seem possible in this world.&#8221; It&#8217;s the same reason people look under the bed when they hear grunts even though they know ghosts don&#8217;t really exist.
<div id="attachment_40567" style="width: 329px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-40567" class=" wp-image-40567" src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Ian-Rogers-bio-pic-819x1024.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine" width="319" height="399" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Ian-Rogers-bio-pic-819x1024.jpg 819w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Ian-Rogers-bio-pic-120x150.jpg 120w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Ian-Rogers-bio-pic-240x300.jpg 240w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Ian-Rogers-bio-pic-768x960.jpg 768w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Ian-Rogers-bio-pic-1024x1280.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Ian-Rogers-bio-pic-150x188.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Ian-Rogers-bio-pic.jpg 1440w" sizes="(max-width: 319px) 100vw, 319px" />Ian Rogers</div>
Horror a way humans process irrational fears. Rogers believes writing horror stories is a matter of managing those fears and introducing them in a believable and entertaining way.
&nbsp;
<h3>Short Stories, Novelettes &amp; Novels</h3>
&nbsp;
Ian Rogers generally writes in three literary formats &#8211; short stories, novelettes, and novels. Short stories typically come in at around four to five thousand words, or roughly twenty pages (The House On Ashley Avenue is twenty-four pages long) and have the shortest page count of the three. These may be also considered the hardest to write because you a very limited amount of time and number of words to get your point across.
<blockquote>Short stories are all killer, no filler</blockquote>
&nbsp;
&#8220;It&#8217;s more concentrated horror. Short stories are the literary equivalent of a jump scare which is very fast and very potent.&#8221; In longer narratives such as novelettes and novels, you can still scare people, but you have more time to set up your scares. Rogers argues that short stories are the purest form of horror. &#8220;You don&#8217;t have the luxury of letting them meander in the way that you can with a novel.&#8221;
&#8220;Once you go beyond around ten thousand words, you&#8217;re going into novelette territory which is about ten to twenty-five thousand words long. A novella is about twenty-five to fifty thousand words in length. Once you go over fifty thousand words, you&#8217;re in novel country.&#8221; Rogers advises writers to consider any of these avenue to tell their stories organically. &#8220;Short stories are a flare in the sky to remind people that you still write.&#8221; A short story can be written in a matter of weeks, while a novel may take months or years to write.
Although Ian Rogers cherishes the shorter medium, he concedes that there are very few outlets that accept longer horror stories because publishers want to publish as many stories as they can. Furthermore, the demand and compensation is relatively low. Readers also generally prefer to buy and read novels which area also more likely to be adapted into films and TV series. That said, short stories are faster to write and they can help you hone your story and writing craft to decide the best format for your story. Rogers writes a few short stories to flex his creative muscles in between novels.
Roger looks at the main tropes of horror stories &#8211; haunted house, premature burial, vampires, ghosts and monsters. Haunted houses are Rogers&#8217; trope of choice. He infuses those with a parapsychological and supernatural twist to personalize them. X-Files and Twin Peaks are TV shows that greatly inform his writing.
The unifying thread of Every House Is Haunted is an insurance company that owns a collection of empty haunted houses. One was a regular house, one was a decommissioned fish processing plant, and one was an art gallery. &#8220;They&#8217;re all paranormally polluted and too dangerous for human habitation.&#8221; Rogers believes The House On Ashley Avenue is a good introduction to the collection of short stories and that&#8217;s why the book&#8217;s editor selected it to circulate in the industry. &#8220;Let&#8217;s start a traditional haunted house story and then just completely throw people off the kilter. The characters are different as is the purpose of the story.&#8221;
More recently, Sam Raimi optioned the entire collection of short stories presented Ashley Avenue to Netflix to develop as a feature, knowing that the remaining stories had adaptation potential. The producers also hired Ian Rogers as a consultant on these projects because he can add something to the adaptation process. He also wrote a bible for the series.
Lee unsuccessfully tried to set up the project for many years as a TV series at NBC Universal before asking Raimi if he saw it as a film. Rogers&#8217; representation at Story Driven also saw the potential in the book.
After reading the TV pilot, Rogers informed Raimi that it was one of twenty-two stories, so Raimi optioned the entire collection. Rogers has also written several film treatments for other projects. He describes treatments as &#8220;the situation of your story. It&#8217;s one part short story, one part pitch, and one part &#8216;scriptment.&#8217; It&#8217;s a document that stands on its own when I&#8217;m not in the room. I&#8217;m not really trying to sell myself or an idea. I&#8217;m trying to sell my own excitement.&#8221;
In conclusion, Ian Rogers doesn&#8217;t have a preference for one medium over another. He suggests studying the form and structure of the medium you want to write in rather than using it as a springboard to getting it adapted. &#8220;Short stories don&#8217;t all have a four act structure the same way that a film or a television screenplay might.&#8221; In any case, study the types of stories told in your preferred medium and which resonate most with you. &#8220;Use that to make your own magic.&#8220;

“All Killer, No Filler” Ian Rogers On Horror, Selling Short Stories and ‘The House On Ashley Avenue’

The Last Thing He Told Me, authored by Laura Dave sold over two million hardback copies before it went into paperback to sell another half million copies to date. Co-developed for Apple TV+ with writer husband Josh Singer, it&#8217;s making waves on the streamer and stars Jennifer Garner as Hannah Hall, Angourie Rice as Bailey Michaels and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Owen Michaels. Co-executive-produced by Reese Witherspoon&#8217;s former shingle, Hello Sunshine, the seven-parter is delighting audiences once again. It tells the story of a husband/ father who goes on the run after his company is implicated in corporate fraud. All he leaves behind is a note begging, &#8220;Protect Her.&#8221;
Co-writer Josh Singer (The Post, Spotlight) spoke with Creative Screenwriting Magazine while Laura Dave was working on her new novel.
The first consideration for the writing duo was adapting the novel while remaining faithful to it. &#8220;The twists and turns were pretty well laid out in the book,&#8221; explains Singer. &#8220;What I wanted to really be faithful to is Laura has this exceptional understanding of emotional intelligence and how humans interact with each other.&#8221;
Singer elaborates that a key reason the novel performed so well in his view is that it subverts and merges the thriller and mystery genres. &#8220;To me, it&#8217;s more of a mystery than a thriller.&#8221; Ironically, Laura is averse to both genres. &#8220;She&#8217;s really focused on the emotional relationship both between her stepdaughter Hannah and her husband Owen (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who recently left her.&#8221; Dave and Singer wanted to focus on the family drama since Owen left abruptly.
&nbsp;
<iframe title="The Last Thing He Told Me — Book to Screen | Apple TV+" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ti_OdGBwlBI?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The Last Thing He Told Me was never going to be a &#8220;damsel in distress&#8221; story, who against all odds, finds a resolution. &#8220;This is a story about a woman who is incredibly strong, incredibly active, and becomes the hero of her own life,&#8221; states Singer. Unlike similar stories where a woman in peril must tap into her inner strength to overcome her situation, Hannah is stoic and determined to find out where Owen is while living her life and raising her step daughter. &#8220;She takes control, and, as a result, creates this found family for herself despite the possibility that Owen may not be found. She creates an answer, she&#8217;s going to have to make sacrifices, but she also is going to find something, which is even more valuable at the end of the day.&#8221; It&#8217;s more about her journey than the result.
The story provides solid stakes for Hannah and amply opportunity for water cooler conversation as audiences debate whether they would make the same choices as her. The idea of  &#8220;found family&#8221; is explored as Hannah graduates from stepmother to Bailey&#8217;s primary caregiver.
The Last Thing He Told Me straddles two related genres. We asked Singer what differentiates mysteries from thrillers. &#8220;We live more in suspense. We ask, &#8216;What&#8217;s behind the door?&#8217; more than things jumping out and chasing us with knives and guns.&#8221; The writers aimed for a high degree of emotional realism in their story rather than forcing choreographed scenes.
The novel attracted the attention of Lauren Neustadter from Hello Sunshine who decided that it was going to be adapted into a six-part limited series. Team Lauren and Josh went to work and deconstructed the book starting with the &#8220;episode outs.&#8221; The mystery signposts were largely lifted from the book to ensure the story momentum remained intact.
The first episode of the series is ostensibly the most important. Dave and Singer must introduce the world, the setup, the characters, and the mystery. A successful mystery drip feeds measured scenes into a well-paced series. &#8220;Laura&#8217;s got such a sterling, procedural mind, which is really quite amazing when you see how she loads a dishwasher,&#8221; jokes Singer.
<div id="attachment_40523" style="width: 343px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-40523" class=" wp-image-40523" src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/image001-714x1024.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine " width="333" height="478" />Josh Singer</div>
During episode two, Hannah and Bailey decide to leave Austin. In the novel, it&#8217;s a simple matter of words on a page. &#8220;When you actually look at that for the screen, you need five more reasons for them to get on that plane. We need a few more clues to pop up in powerful ways so that they get on that plane,&#8221; articulates Singer. The twists and turns were already in the novel, but the TV series required that additional scaffolding to span seven episodes.
There was also more &#8220;character sculpting&#8221; in the series than in the novel. For example, there was a scene in the pilot episode where Hannah and Bailey go to the store which didn&#8217;t appear in the novel. &#8220;It felt like an active character moment between them.&#8221; It had to establish the friction between the two and the knowledge that Owen may or may not return. They may never find out his secrets.
The writers didn&#8217;t want to rely on flashbacks to keep Owen alive, but they needed to illustrate their relationship. One of the notes Neustadter gave Dave and Singer was, &#8220;We need to drive harder.&#8221; That&#8217;s when the scene of Hannah and Owen walking along the dock was written to establish their close relationship.
&#8220;There is an extraordinary amount of story that must be packed into a pilot episode,&#8221; recalls Singer. He believes that writing pilots is different than writing other episodes. Moreover, a pilot episode is more like a feature screenplay where you get to establish a world and its characters and set them up for their journey in thirty pages.
&nbsp;
<h3>Mystery Or Thriller?</h3>
&nbsp;
The screenwriters balanced the mystery/thriller genre mix. A mystery is more concerned with acquiring information and piecing together a puzzle to answerquestions. A thriller is a more active experience with heightened tension and stakes.
For Singer and Dave, genre comes down to exploring two people. In the case of The Last Thing He Told Me, it&#8217;s about Hannah and Bailey, how the information about them is doled out, what it reveals about each character, and how it brings them together. This is underscored by Hannah&#8217;s persistent question of whether she really knew Owen. Who is he? More importantly, who is she. These questions also apply to Bailey.
The Hannah and Bailey tug of war is also about parenting. Psychologists have posited the need for us to rebel against their parents when we&#8217;re teenagers before we eventually return to them. Bailey is going through a similar thing in a heightened way. Irrespective of the predominant genre, the story relies on its emotional girding.
Both Hannah and Bailey are creative souls. Hannah ponders life carving bowls and Bailey enjoys musical theater. They&#8217;re connected through art,
&#8220;There&#8217;s a patience and fortitude in peeling back and finding what is special, unique and interesting in a piece of wood. It&#8217;s a little bit like Michelangelo and marble,&#8221; adds Singer. &#8220;You create something new.&#8221; Bailey undertakes a similar path of discovery. &#8220;I think as we go through life, we all change on the surface, but I think there are a number of core things that stay true,&#8221; muses Singer.
The &#8220;peeling back of layers&#8221; is a core tenet of mystery stories. Despite not knowing Owen&#8217;s whereabouts, the thing that Hannah loved about him is still there. Hannah isn&#8217;t pitying herself or waiting for the phone to ring. She makes her own calls to find him. Her woodturning defines her character.
While Hannah&#8217;s occupation was fully defined in the novel, Bailey&#8217;s was engineered in the TV series. She faces an additional dilemma in concealing her identity as a performer in the public eye.
There&#8217;s something surprising about the finale of the series in that there isn&#8217;t a clearly defined conclusion.

WGA Strike 2023 – The Story So Far

“All Killer, No Filler” Ian Rogers On Horror, Selling Short ...

“Peeling Back Layers” Josh Singer On ‘The Last Thing He Told...

Subscribe for Updates