Roger Wolfson – What is The Life of a Scriptwriter Like?

Roger Wolfson is one of the most outstanding scriptwriters of his generation, and a writer who has spent his career crossing boundaries within the field of writing. Roger has worked on massive TV shows like Law & Order and Saving Grace and he is the perfect example of what a great scriptwriter looks like. Many of you have been asking us of late what the life of a scriptwriter is like, and today we are going to take a deeper look into how the likes of Roger Wolfson go about their jobs.

What many may not realize is that as glamorous as this position may look, there is always more than meets the eye, and here is what the life of a scriptwriter entails, which you may not know about.

Hard Work

When you have TV shows which are running almost everyday, that means that the scriptwriters have to be in the writing room for multiple hours per day, coming up with new ideas and new plots for the characters. It looks like a great job, to write out the lives of on-screen characters, but the reality is that this is a hard working job which sees writers regularly spending 12 hours and more at the writing table, each day.

Ego Battles

Roger has alluded in the past to the difficulty which some others have, when it comes to working in a team. This is where people like Roger do so well, because he is able to work both autonomously and in the team environment. A great number of scriptwriters want to have their name in the lights and that is why so many face difficulties when it comes to working in a team and accepting ideas from others. There are often ego battles in this situation and that is something which the very best scriptwriters have to get around.

Emotional Drain

Something which few of us have considered is that these men and women go into work each and every day and are challenged with coming up with outstanding ideas. At some point or another the well is going to dry up and having draw on creativity and emotions each and every day is far from easy. Scriptwriters have to keep on digging deep to come up with new and exciting ideas for the show and for the characters. This is in fact why teams exist, because one person just cannot deliver at such a high level each and every day.

Rewarding

This is not a doom and gloom position by any stretch of the imagination, it is a challenging career choice for any writer, even those with the skills which Roger has. Ultimately however, this is a rewarding career and when those lines are uttered on screen and those big moments take place, it is the scriptwriters who can sit back and be proud of the incredible scenes which they have created.

This is what scriptwriting is really like.