The Writer's Room offers the collective brain power of a room of screenwriters having input into a story development, structuring and plotting, and writing.
In 2019, Cinespace with the support of Film Victoria's Early Career Skills Development Fund ran a week-long Diversity Writers' Room facilitated by Jane Allen (The Secret Daughter, Love Child, Cleverman, Janet King, Crownies). Jane is one of Australia's most sought-after writer/script producer/script editors working across network and premium cable television with more than 140 hours of crime, mystery, science fiction and drama to her credit.
The task of this particular writers’ room was to brainstorm story-lines for a second
season of an established streaming television series, and to plot the first episode.
“Diversity is not just about color or gender, but about a wider range of ideas and characters.” - They Run the Show panel at The Paley Centre, U.S.A.
The Diversity Writers' Room also featured guest speakers Neighbours Producer Natalie Lynch, FremantleMedia's Jono Gavin and Producer Ros Walker on the Hollywood showrunner model (Ros also shared a summary of her TV Drama Series Development in the US - Ros Walker ISSI report.
During this workshop, observers co-ordinator Peter T. Nathan and Melbourne University's Dr. Radha O'Meara helped write this useful guide on running your own writer's room, designed for collectives of emerging writers working together on a project, such as a web-series. The guide also includes a template for note-taking during a writer's room by Erin Bretherton.
The guide is available to share under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You are free to share the guide with attribution to the original creators.