Screenwriting 101: Dana Coen

“Writing on a staff is very different than writing features by yourself. You’re beholden to so many people and levels of expectation. And you’re writing fast. In my case, the deadline was generally two weeks… With television, particularly one-hour episodes, there’s little time to reflect. You have to start with structure. I would develop the idea and then create the four act breaks, trusting that I would be able to figure out later how to get from one to the other. It was the only way to get a story approved quickly and prevent the possibility of writing myself into a corner.”

— Dana Coen

From Go Into The Story interview, October 2021

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