Reddit reviews Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad

>What's it like?

Working for him is great and it's been a fulfilling job for me. I'd say everything you've heard about him probably happened. He has a reputation for being one of the "Difficult Men", and he's aware of this reputation for being nuts. As you can see in the videos, he'll happily talk about his history. I should stress though, that when he's in the office, he is completely dedicated and focused on writing. The days of [throwing typewriters out of windows] (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/arts/television/steven-bochco-and-others-on-creating-hill-street-blues.html) are behind him. He's a charming guy -- funny, weird, and a genius. He's also incredibly generous with his time and the room is democratic. He invites story pitches from anyone in the office and all of the writers contribute scenes to the scripts.

> Does he write every day?

Yes. Seven days a week, including most holidays.

I think his workflow is probably unlike a lot of other writing offices. HBO has been his home for the last ten years, so he's not bound by the normal development season and has time to develop shows and write in his own way.

He does a lot of research and through that starts to form sketches of the characters. Once he has an idea of them, he'll write scenes. These aren't always in any particular order. Sometimes they won't even wind up in the episode he's working on. But they do help inform the characters and the story. Once he kind of figures out the story of an episode, then they start brainstorming scenes.

Mornings are spent revising yesterday's material, then everyone meets and goes over new potential new scenes. Writers go off to their desks for a little while and bring back those scenes. Then they figure out with David if the movements are right, where the scenes fall, and if they fit.

So, as you can gather from the videos of the lectures, a lot of the process is figuring out the story as you go along, much like a novelist or playwright would.

> Is he working on something now?

He is!

> Is there a way to see his scripts?

PM me your email and let me know what you want. I can't send anything that didn't make it to air (i.e. Last of the Ninth, season 2 of Luck, or The Money). There's some stuff that's lost to time as well. Last year we moved offices, digitized old scripts, and emptied out all of our file cabinets. Then our new office was burgled over the holidays, and our computers and back-up drives were stolen. Womp womp.

> Are you a writer yourself, and if so, has he helped you?

I am, and he has.

I received my MFA in Writing for TV and Film from USC. My last semester there, Milch's office contacted the writing division about interns. They hired four of us, each doing two days a week. That was right as production was ramping up on season two of Luck. Even though things were busy, he had us do his writing exercises -- sit down, come up with two voices in a room and write for 30 minutes without planning first. He gave me notes on my thesis and on another intern's pilot. Right after graduation, one of the interns moved right upstairs to work on the pilot for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, another moved over to CW's Cult and now works on Parenthood, a third did very, very well for herself, and I was offered the writers assistant job for The Money pilot.

While working there, I've kept writing and he's given me notes on most of my scripts, and sent a few out for out for me. I do feel that I've grown as a writer while there -- I won an award at Austin last month for a script I co-wrote, so that's something!

Outside of writing, the job served as an introduction to the basics of working in TV. I got to see a pilot produced. I got to see the how frustrating and fulfilling the entire process can be.

I actually just put in my two-weeks notice yesterday and I'm leaving to be a writers' assistant on an ABC show. Dave was very supportive and when I told him I was offered a job he said, "Well, you gotta take it!"

> What have you learned from being his assistant in general?

Writing is not a hobby. It's not something you do once a month when inspiration strikes. It's a job. You show up to work every day, even when there's no inspiration, find the characters, find the story, and that's how you write.

I've also learned a lot about the importance of writing from character and not relying so much on situation, which is what David says when he's talking about plot. If the characters don't track, the plot doesn't track.

> How do you interpret his advice, like the quotes mentioned above?

As I would anyone's -- Robert McKee, Blake Snyder, Film Crit Hulk. They're good if their style works for you and for your story, but they don't if they go against your process. I take with me what helps, put what doesn't to the side for a day it might.

Just as an example: like OP said, Dave hates to outline, though he will sometimes do it. I prefer to outline and working for him hasn't broken me of that. It's how I figure out the story.

Edit: Formatting

I'm honestly wondering whether I saw in in video or read it in Difficult Men. If it was video maybe it was his post-season-5 talk at a university somewhere … I'll try and find it.

EDIT: /u/kugfersez linked to a video here

I enjoyed this one... http://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Men-Creative-Revolution-Sopranos/dp/0143125699

Lots of interesting stuff on Chase and also a lot of inside baseball info about the TV industry if you're into that kind of thing.

Difficult Men by Brett Martin: http://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Men-Creative-Revolution-Sopranos/dp/0143125699

Great read on the emergence of high quality drama from the Sopranos onwards.

hey, that’s pretty apt. There hasn’t been too much of an auteur theory movement in TV yet. When that happened in the 60s with the french new wave, it really got things going.

Basically after WW2 a lot of french artists and intellectuals realized that they needed to figure out what the hell cinema was as a unique medium, and the thing they kinda hinged on was that, despite the very important communal aspect to filmmaking, there needed to be a singular vision behind the film, an auteur. Usually the director.

All this is laid out in Andre Bazin’s What Is Cinema? https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520242272

with television, it’s even more communal due to the long run time (both in terms of the length of the art and the length of commitment), the tradition of a writers room, etc etc. It kinda has to go through it’s own Auteur theory movement, I think, before it becomes as strong and cohesive and visionary as film.

Which clearly it has been doing, starting with the Sopranos and the Wire and following with things like Deadwood, Mad Men, BB, Mr. Robot, Fargo, etc etc.

The showrunner is the auteur.

(also since I like book plugs - Difficult Men, by somebody - let me edit this)
by Brett Martin
https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Men-Creative-Revolution-Sopranos/dp/0143125699

I suck at reddit formatting and linking and everything god

I was thinking it was work we'd be posting and the likely exchange of content would be 1-4% on a 1500 word script (so in the neighborhood of 15-60 words... a couple sentences or a phrase here and there).

And this process could even just lead to someone suggesting, "Hey, this section here... maybe you want to just add something... maybe with this theme or following up on this other thing).

And the book in question is called Difficult Men.

I actually found it at a Dollar Tree... so maybe try there first hehe.

http://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Men-Creative-Revolution-Sopranos/dp/0143125699

Maybe "Difficult Men": http://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Men-Creative-Revolution-Sopranos/dp/0143125699

Yup, Julian Fellowes wrote Downton, he was a notorious Anglophile, and I think some of the later seasons suffered due to the lack of other minds on the show.

David E Kelley wrote all seven episodes of Big Little Lies, and that worked so well because it’s based on a book, and he’s one of the all-time-great creative minds in TV with a ridiculous resume.

A couple other shows with showrunners that had a stranglehold on their shows are Junji Kohan with Weeds and Amy Sherman-Palladino with Gilmore Girls.

Dan Harmon is also super invested in his shows, but he does have writers rooms.


For more information on how Television is made, I recommend Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad

This book seems interesting for TV show lovers.