We were lucky to catch up with Sam Watson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sam, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I graduated college with a Communications degree with a focus on Journalism. I didn’t go to film school or something. I took a couple TV production classes, some editing classes, and I wrote some sketches for these classes, but nothing that focused on screenwriting itself. So a few years after school, when I decided to truly focus on screenwriting, I became self taught. I listened to podcasts, researched online, did a ton of reading of actual scripts. This was how I learned to format and started to learn about structure. I also wrote a ton of bad scripts along the way. And honestly it wasn’t until I had found a group of people to share my work with and get notes that I finally actually started to grow as a writer. This was the most important thing to my development. I think it’s so, so valuable to find trusted peers to give you feedback on your work.

Sam, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a screenwriter who mainly focuses on writing television. I’m biracial and bi-cultural. I come from an African American and Ukrainian family, and so my work focuses around identity and the push and pulls of society on identity. I also write a lot about generational truama and family cycles. The Black side of my family faced a lot of obvious racism in America that led to poverty and all of those related traumas. My Ukrainian grandparents fled Ukraine during Stalhin’s famine and ended up in Germany where they were put into labor camps during WWII before coming to the United States as refugees after the war. Everything that shaped my family and has had a hand in shaping me shapes my work.

I mainly write hour longs that usually focus on genre- horror, sci fi, fantasy. But at the start of my screenwriting journey, I actually thought I was going to only write comedy. In fact, the first “good” script I ever wrote was a spec of the show COMMUNITY. But I had realized that I wanted to tell my stories through a more supernatural/genre lens, which made sense because one of the most foundational shows for me growing up was BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. Exploring themes and character through metaphorical horrors and science fiction just appealed to me too much. Though, most of work does come with a sense of humor no matter how dark things get. And I still love to excerise my funny bone with full scripts as I do have a dark comedy pilot based on my family and I recently wrote a spec that’s a crossover between ABBOTT ELEMENTARY and IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I think that writing can obviously feel so solitary. For a long time, it was me soaking up all the information I could about how to write scripts. And then writing pages over and over. I didn’t realize early on just how much I needed to be getting feedback from peers. It’s not that I thought my work was too good for feedback either. I have always been a huge reviser. The revision process is my favorite part. I’ll rewrite and rewrite and rewrite. The problem early on was that I simply didn’t have the skill yet to write good scripts even with being someone who loved to rewrite, because I didn’t have the knowledge yet of what it took to write strong scripts. I needed other peoples’ perspectives. I needed to learn from others over and over on why a story beat isn’t working, why a character doesn’t feel flesh out, why a theme isn’t shining through etc. I think the best way to be a better writer is to get that feedback, learn, and rewrite. And it’s a process that never ends no matter what stage of your career you’re in.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Well, for me as someone who is Black biracial, I think there are some very obvious things that society can do for voices like mine. On a very basic level, society could simply value minority voices a hell of a lot more than it already does. The voice that get prioritized are overwhelmingly white. White voices get the most jobs. White voices get the post positions of power. Stories- even ones about minority characters- are mostly geared toward white audiences. So the number one thing that society should do is give minorities money and space to tell our own stories. Believe that our stories have value and that there will be audiences for our stories- audiences that will be willing to spend money on us. Minorities have had to show up to watch movies, tv, read books about white characters since forever. And yet we still manage to relate to themes and find these stories engrossing etc. It isn’t a crazy thought that white, male, straight audiences can do the same for Blacks, women, those of varying sexualities etc.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sambwrite
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sam.watson.796
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/sambwrite