On his Not a Blog page, author George R.R. Martin discusses some of the reasons why Writer’s Guild members are striking, and relates it to his own experiences as a newly hired member of a writing room team at the entry level:
“The junior writers? They’re not there. Once they delivered their scripts and did a revision of two, they were paid, sent home, their salary ended. They are off looking for another gig. If the series gets another season, maybe they will be brought back. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they can’t, since they are off in another mini-room for another show. If they do get brought back, they may get a promotion… but that’s not guaranteed. I know writers who have been Staff Writer on half a dozen different series, and others who have been “Writer’s Room Assistant” (which is the new entry level gig, since no one buys freelance scripts any more) three or four times, never getting off the bottom rung of the ladder so matter how talented they are. And when a junior writer does finally get a better title, even one that will put a P-word on their IMDB credits, they still won’t have any producing experience. In many cases they won’t be asked to set even when the episodes they wrote are being filmed. (They may be ALLOWED on set, if the showrunner and execs are cool with that, but only as a visitor, with no authority, no role. And no pay, of course. They may even be told they are not allowed to speak to the actors).”
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