Lennon Parham Quotes

When we are in pre-production, this is the best job in the world. Working 10 to 7, sitting around and brainstorming with the other writers, making things funnier and writing and rewriting scenes - that's as fun as it gets.

Lots of shows are written completely in the writer's room. And I wouldn't say 'The Walking Dead' is that way. There are three levels to it. There's us in the room. The writers going off by themselves. And me working with the writers on a finished script.

Unfortunately, the back log for writing for 'Walking Dead' is pretty backed up! Usually, we wouldn't see the scripts until the week before - or sometimes even the week of.

When you decide you want to become a television writer, you naively assume it's going to be like the writers on the old 'Dick Van Dyke Show.' You'll write something and they'll just put it on TV. But what you quickly discover is that American network television is television by committee.

Most TV shows are writing the next episode while you're directing the one you're doing, and they're trying to figure out what they're going to do, and they're putting it all together.

The real challenge in doing a TV show is in what I would call the maintenance energy. You take that creative energy and you use it every week, of course. But you then need to maintain the quality of the stories, and it's harder to do.

I'll always love movies. But there's something I love very much about TV, when you shoot episodes while other episodes are still being written.

Animation tends to have several different writers who serve different functions. I think, on a lot of animated features, there are a lot of writers who don't get credited. It's the policy at Disney, for instance, in deciding who gets credit. It depends on the writer's contract, so many things.

When you work in television, you're in the writer's room all the time.

I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general.

I have a notebook, and I know what decisions will be made in pre-production. Everything is pre-determined in the pre-production period. I visually design the whole thing, and I know when things will happen.

Hundreds of people who've never written before send in 'Dr. Who' scripts. They may have good ideas, but what they fail to realise is that writing for TV is incredibly complicated. They have no idea how difficult it is and what the financial commitment is.

I was fascinated with the writing process and seeing the evolution of a sketch and how it would change up to the minute before it went on the air.

I pitched a storyline, and as far as I know it's been picked up. It's for the third and final episode I'm contracted to do. But I can't give any spoilers.

For me now, it's about what you would write and what you wouldn't write, and that's how I select what I am going to do. It can be quite nice being brought a concept by a studio for me to work on.

When you start working on a series, it's almost too much work. It's like a movie a week.

The same issue is happening on a show like Everybody Loves Raymond now, which is in its eighth year and struggling to come up with good stories. It'll be interesting to see how they do. The bottom line is, it starts with the writers and ends with the writers.

'Game of Thrones' is shot on a very similar kind of schedule to a TV show, but there's a lot more time and focus put into the script.

Because I work in television, I always knew that I loved working with writers. It's very collaborative. You're always in a room full of writers.

I start with a beat sheet, which is more of an abbreviated outline. It hits all the major plot points. From there, I move to note cards. But the most important part of my process is my inspiration board.

The director in TV and the writer and the creator are working very much hand in hand.

We don't feel pressure of, 'Let's make this really raunchy.' It's more about making a good story, which is 10 times harder. The raunchy stuff's really easy for us.

Every day, I learn something new. I think one of the most exciting things for a writer is to work on a TV show. It's like a novel. You have a really long time to develop and learn about the characters, and you can just really keep digging in deeper, every week.

My father was a screenwriter, and I kind of grew up in that world. I always had a mind for characters and dialogue, and my head was filled with that stuff, so it seemed like a good place to start.

After preliminary research, I zero in on an idea, and then I spend at least four months exploring the topic and in plot-building. I jot down every single detail of the plot as bullet points per chapter, and only when the skeleton is complete do I start writing.