Marc_Bernardin

Depends on whether you're working from an outline and how good it is. If there's an outline that you can road-map from, it's possible to write a 50-page script for a TV show in 3 days. I know this because that's how long I had to write my episode of Alphas. Now, if I'm writing a TV pilot from scratch -- with nothing but an idea -- that's probably a three-month process. Give or take depending on the quantites of beer and BBQ available.

You mean, like one that exists already? There is such a great movie sitting in the middle of Suicide Squad. Just make the Joker the bad guy. Why he's off to the side of that movie, serving no real purpose, is beyond me. No magic, no swirling garbage, just a buncha villains tapped to kill the worst of them all. And then, of course, Harley betrays the Squad from the inside. All for puddin'.

I have heard it said before by a lot of people -- the time it stuck with me was when Mark Waid said it -- that breaking into TV (or comics) is like breaking out of prison: No two people do it the same way, and they seal up the hole after.

For me, the process began with lots of work. Lots of writing. I'd written 7 spec pilots before my most recent one and I think each one is a little better than the last. And I have a select group of friends that serve as my First Readers -- people I trust to give me real feedback. One of them was already in the Castle Rock room and put my name forward. Much of Hollywood is about personal relationships...that's just the way it is, for better and for worse.

And I think I thrive in a writers' room. I love to collaborate, so it's second nature for me -- especially after long years as a journalist. I live to make stories better.

Not really. It's unique to every writer, since most of the time the outline is an internal document that no one but you will ever see... So whatever you need to get you through the writing process.

Hard to say, but I'll give you this instead: Michael Mann once directed a TV movie called LA Takedown. It's not good. It's really not good. But he loved the script so much that he remade it himself. The remake is Heat. Which is amazing. And there's a clip you can find on YouTube of the famous diner scene done with the cast of the TV movie and then with De Niro and Pacino reading the EXACT SAME LINES.

What a difference execution makes.