Q: Tell me about the writing. What are the roles of the teleplay writer, story editor, and staff writer as
credited on each episode? Tell me what 'beats' and 'beat sheets' are? [Linda in Florida, John in NYC, Barry Howell]A: Teleplay refers to who actually sits down and bangs out the first two drafts of an episode. The story credit is taken or shared by those chiefly responsible for conceiving the elements of the story. On the first three seasons, I shared story credit with the writer of the teleplay, indicating that it is an organic process and all of the writers deserve some share of story credit. For this season, it is Ed Burns who shares story credit with all of the teleplay authors -- a measure of how much this season, reflecting as it does his experience in the city schools, owes to Ed. These are in some ways arbitrary measures of influence: Ed will develop major themes in an episode on which his name does not appear; Eric Overmyer will rewrite a scene and be uncredited; I will add a scene to a Pelecanos script; George will improve the story arc in an episode by David Mills. Mills will argue for changes in a story arc, and so forth. The writer's room is, again, fluid and organic.
Beats simply refer to plot points in a given episode. Elements that the writer must cover in order to achieve the story. A beat sheet is a memo chronicling the beats in a particular episode.
Story editor is a job title, defined by the WGA contract. It means, basically, a writer with other duties. These are writers who have progressed to the point where they can be relied upon to help in certain production capacities, say episodic casting, or location scouts, or set coverage, etc. Staffwriters are writers who are, basically, not yet story editors. At some point, when a story editor shows himself or herself to be accomplished enough to help produce episodes as a whole, having mastered various aspects of production as well as writing duties, they become, for better or for worse, producers.
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