John welcomes Alison McDonald (Russian Doll, #BlackAF) and Ryan Knighton (In the Dark, Billions) to reveal the fundamentals and unspoken rules of working in a TV writers room.

How did they get the job? How much should new writers talk? What should you wear? How much money do you make? And what’s for lunch?

Our bonus segment is for everyone this week! John invites Ryan Knighton back to talk about travel writing and the mixed blessings of tourism.

Links:

• The original Episode 368: Advice for a New Staff Writer
• Alison McDonald on IMDb
• Ryan Knighton on Twitter
• The Case Against Travel by Agnes Callard for The New Yorker
• ‘Designing Women’ Creator Goes Public With Les Moonves War: Not All Harassment Is Sexual, a guest column by Linda Bloodworth Thomason for the Hollywood Reporter
• Succession on HBO
• Be My Eyes app
• UCB Training Center
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
• Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
• Craig Mazin on Instagram
• John August on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• John on Mastodon
• Outro by Rajesh Naroth (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our intern is Halley Lamberson.

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You can download the episode here.

The original transcript of this episode can be found here.