Untitled

This is so beautiful.

Ai gonplei ste odon

I get a lot of questions that start like this: “Do you regret [plot thing X]?” or “Do you regret killing [character Y]?” Generally, I don’t answer those questions, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about why. 

As a writer on a television staff, our job is to realize the vision of the showrunner. All the big story moves, all the decisions that are inevitably the subject of your questions, those are made by the showrunner. We writers absolutely generate stories, pitch them, have grand debates about them. Sometimes we even passionately disagree with one another, but at the end of it all, the showrunner has the final say. And of course every writer has his or her opinion about what’s great and what’s not, what’s the most dramatic way to go or the easiest way out. Of course. But our job is to realize the vision of the showrunner. If we did happen to disagree with him, it would be a breach of professionalism to say so publicly. 

Now, it does happen. I remember a rather dramatic instance of it not too long ago on a prestige drama series. You know why I remember it so vividly? Because I read articles about it. 

It was such a big deal for a writer to speak out against their boss, the television media wrote news articles about it. It was the most operatic version of the situation (and this whole discussion is all very inside baseball, I’ll grant you), but that should give you a sense of its rarity. And seriousness.

Which is as it should be. Our job is to tell the story the showrunner wants to tell, whatever that story is. That is what we are hired to do. 

And that’s not to say we can’t disagree or have those discussions; of course we can and do. That’s essential to the writing process. But sharing dissenting opinion publicly is another matter entirely. 

So I guess the answer to questions like these would have to be, “No, I don’t regret whatever it is because that’s not my place.”