Writing Hollywood

Book excerpt: The central focus of Scripting Hollywood is the television writing process for drama and comedy series. Patricia F. Phalen argues that the way writers do their jobs is heavily dependent not only on the demands of commercial business but also on the uncertainties inherent in a writing career in Hollywood. Drawing on the literatures of "Media Industry Studies" and "Occupational Culture," Scripting Hollywood shows how writers efforts to control risk and survive in a constantly changing environment affect the stories they tell and how they tell them. Using data from personal interviews and a two-month participant observation at a prime time drama to analyze the relationships among writers in series television, this text describes the interactions between writers and studio/network executives, and explains how endogenous and exogenous pressures affect the occupational culture of the television writing profession. Scripting Hollywood is written primarily for undergraduate and graduate courses in Media Industries and Organizations, screenwriting, television studies, and popular culture. It will also appeal to anyone interested in how media "work." "