Small Market Slammin'

I was in a small market newsroom the other day and it reminded me that not every producer has a huge cadre of writers. Or any writers, for that matter. With that in mind, here's some advice for cranking out a show solo.

When you are writing the whole show, you must write really fast. There is no time for dawdling over scripts. Just get a version out and then edit it. I only started paying attention to how fast I wrote after a bad experience when I was a young writer. A producer took a script I was working on and gave it to ANOTHER writer because he thought I'd been working on it too long. I assure you that never happened again-- because from that day forward, I started timing myself on how long it took me to write each script. I gave myself ten minutes for vos, 15 for vosots, etc.

Start writing from the bottom of your show.
Do the things you are least likely to change FIRST. For me, that meant writing the kicker first, then stories around weather and sports and b-block tease-ables. With the rest of the show out of the way, then you can focus your attention on the first block and the stories that are likely to change.

Try to do the easiest stories first.
Nothing gives you a feeling of satisfaction like cranking out a ton of stories. Read everything you can all day and listen to and watch every radio and tv newscast you can. This will make it easier when you sit down to write and also help catch little mistakes when you proofread. Were there three cars in that accident or four? If you've been listening to it all day, you're less likely to miss the mistake. Having all that info in your head also makes it infinitely easier to write a story than if you're just seeing and learning about it.

After finishing the easiest and least changable stories, then you can slow down a little and focus on some items that might take more of your time. Do this in managable chunks, So, for example, I might take my national or international wires back and look at the video for each of them and then come back and crank through those stories. Then I might take my local vos back to editing and look at and write those. Then vosots. And so on. You get the idea. With many newsrooms going tapeless and video delivered to your desktops, writing becomes even easier.

If your anchors write, that's awesome. It might make some sense to let them chose what they'd like to write. Another option is saving them for one big project, like the national story you want to package as a lead or local reporter piece you want to redo into a mini-pkg. Better yet, have reporters who turned the story leave a version for you, even if it's a vo.

NEVER hand off opens and teases. Those are yours and they are some of the most important parts of the show.

The best part of being able to write a show all by yourself is that when you get to a market where there ARE writers, you feel like you've been dropped onto another planet called "the lap of luxury." You may even catch yourself saying something stupid like, "It's just easier for me to write it than to have to read someone else's scripts and change them."