news George R.R. Martin Calls Out Mini Rooms for TV Writers: ‘The WGA Needs to Win on That Issue’

George R.R. Martin is taking issue with the “mini room” model behind writers’ rooms amid the WGA strike.

Martin, who recently voiced his support for the Writers Guild of America, shared his thoughts on the “abomination” of the mini room concept, which allows studios to hire fewer writers that are separate from the production process.

“Mini rooms are abominations, and the refusal of the AMPTP [Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers] to pay writers to stay with their shows through production — as part of the JOB, for which they need to be paid, not as a tourist — is not only wrong, it is incredibly short-sighted,” the “Game of Thrones” creator wrote in a blog post. “If the story editors of 2023 are not allowed to get any production experience, where do the studios think the showrunners of 2033 are going to come from? If nothing else, the WGA needs to win on that issue. No matter how long it may take.”

Martin added that getting rid of mini rooms is “the most important of the things that the Guild is fighting for. The right to have that kind of career path. To enable new writers, young writers, and yes, prose writers, to climb the same ladder…Streamers and shortened seasons have blown the ladder to splinters.”

He continued, “The way it works now, a show gets put in development, the showrunner assembles a ‘mini room,’ made up of a couple of senior writers and a couple newcomers, they meet for a month or two, beat out the season, break down the episodes, go off and write scripts, reassemble, get notes, give notes, rewrite, rinse and repeat and finally turn [in] the scripts. [The] show is greenlit (or not, some shows never get past the room) and sent into production. The showrunner and his second, maybe his second and his third, take it from there. The junior writers? They’re not there. Once they delivered their scripts and did a revision of two, they were paid, sent home, their salary ended. They are off looking for another gig. If the series gets another season, maybe they will be brought back. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they can’t, since they are off in another mini room for another show. If they do get brought back, they may get a promotion…but that’s not guaranteed.”

Martin credited his first Hollywood job as a writer on “The Twilight Zone” for changing his own career trajectory for the better.

“There is no film school in the world that could have taught me as much about television production as I learned on ‘Twilight Zone’ during that season and a half,” Martin wrote.

He hopes the ongoing WGA strike, which officially began May 2, will see the abolishment of mini rooms once and for all, with more up-and-coming writers having hands-on experience with productions.

The AMPTP offered the WGA an option for writers to “shadow” showrunners and producers, to which Martin responded: “Even that will not be an absolute right. Maybe they will be let in, maybe not. These are the people who wrote the stories being filmed, who created the characters, who wrote the words the actors are saying.”

Martin summed up in his previous blog post, “How long will the strike last? No idea. Maybe the AMPTP members will come to their senses tomorrow and offer some meaningful concessions, and the whole thing can be wrapped up next week. I would not bet the ranch on that, however. I have been through several of these since I first started writing for television and film in 1986. The 1988 strike, the first I was a part of, lasted 22 weeks, the longest in Hollywood history. The 2007-2008 strike, the most recent, went for 100 days. This one may go longer.”

Click here to see the updated list of every production affected by the 2023 WGA strike.
 
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