Breaking Into TV Writing: How to Get Your First Job, Build Your Network, and Claw Your Way Into the Writers’ Room

The old screenwriting motto is, ＂Work on your script, and the jobs will come.＂ This is false.

A great script is only as good as the effort you put into your career, but there is little information for the aspiring screenwriter about how to break in. Even those who study TV or film in college are taught to simply ＂get a production assistant job.＂ But then what? And how do you get that job to begin with?

Breaking into TV Writing contains all the crucial information left out of most screenwriting books, like:

• How to get your first job in TV
• What TV writing samples you need
• How to break into the elusive TV writers’ room
• How a writers’ room creates an episode of TV
• Which assistant jobs are worth your time (and which you should avoid at all costs)

Anton Schettini provides a rare insider’s glimpse of the modern-day network and streaming TV writers’ room. Here, you will find practical advice, career-path strategies, and first-hand accounts for how to establish your network, grow within it, and acquire the necessary tools to become a TV writer.

The industry would love to tell you to put your head down, work hard, write a lot, and pay your dues; Schettini will show you why that hackneyed mantra is misleading, and how you can put yourself in the best position to break through the barriers and see your work on the TV screen.

Anton Schettini is a screenwriter, producer, and author. He has worked in 14 different TV writers’ rooms, which has included writing scripts for primetime TV comedies on CBS and writing/producing a series on AMC Networks. A native New Yorker, Anton betrayed his East Coast roots and moved to Los Angeles to pursue TV writing, slowly and steadily rising up in the industry. This provided him with a deep knowledge of the various paths, obstacles, drudgery, and opportunity that together make up a TV writing career. He hopes to share this knowledge with the next wave of TV writers.