Should Screenwriters Specialize or Diversify in the Age of Streaming?

Seems like a simple enough question, right? You write the scripts for the moving picture shows, case closed! In the broadest of terms, it’s never a bad idea to think of yourself as one who is interested in multiple genres and styles and who also has a portfolio of spec scripts to back it up.

As we look at the increasingly rough landscape of Hollywood, and the ability to break in (and stay in) becomes harder and harder, it certainly makes sense to diversify yourself as much as possible. Screenwriters must be jacks of all trades if they want to work. When the most valued skill in our arsenal is being efficient, being an expert in something often doesn’t matter

That said, there is sometimes great value in becoming skilled in a specific style of writing on top of this. While becoming a niche writer may be limiting in some ways, it can also frequently be the thing that allows work to find you.

The Type of Writers That Exist

Up until the last 15 years or so, there were, generally speaking, four types of screenwriters:

Comedy writers
One-hour staffers
Creators
Feature writers

Before the 21st century, TV and film were very much divided and there was very little crossover between them for writers.

While directors and actors could float between mediums and genres, writers tended to stay in their lane—some by choice, mostly because that’s just how it was and other opportunities rarely presented themselves.

Comedy Writers

Comedy writers worked on half-hour shows—sitcoms generally speaking. They made their careers pitching and writing jokes. Old school writer rooms for sitcoms were stuffed to the skills with comedians and joke-writers who would pitch dozens of alts for every set-up and punchline.

There are a handful of examples, like Carl Reiner or Garry Marshall, of comedy writers who ascended beyond TV to films, but for the most part, comedy writers stayed in the sitcom world.

One-Hour Staffers

One-hour staffers, similarly, worked on dramatic shows. The old-school screenwriter ways in TV started as an assistant or a playwright (or other form of dramatist).

Writer’s rooms have a rank/level system, and the more you worked, the more you made your way up the chain. While even the earliest days of TV drama had a handful of genres, staffers tended to bounce between them. There were outliers of course—like The Twilight Zone, a half-hour drama, or multiple one-hour variety shows run by comedy teams.

Creators

That said, writers who became experts in a certain genre often become creators. These are the ones who birthed the concepts and in most cases were the showrunners. For half-hour and one-hour-long episodes, if you ascended the room ranks and stood out, you’d potentially get the chance to pitch your own material to the studios. This is where being known for a genre was worth something.

Sherwood Schwartz and Garry Marshall in the 1970s are examples of uber-creators known for their brands of comedy, or Irwin Allen in the late 1960s, who created one sci-fi adventure show after another.

Feature Writers

Finally, there were feature writers. Again, aside from the occasional crossover super-talent, feature writers did not work on television. Much like TV, there was also not a lot of crossover between genres until the ’70s when genre films became more viable as award-fodder dramas and not just drive-in theaters or Saturday matinee shlock.

In the 1980s and into the 1990s, as directors began to lean more into sticking to a genre, writers were pulled back into known fields. Unless they had a diverse career established before then, it started to become harder for writers to work outside the genre they were known for unless they had a breakout hit in another one.

The New Era of Screenwriting

One of (the few) boons of the streaming age is that a lot of these walls were broken down. As somebody working solely in features, my television break came in the form of a streaming series with only six episodes. The showrunners wanted to craft the story like an extended movie, broken into parts. It was a horror series and they were looking for a horror feature writer.

The streaming age also made for lower budgets and studios took more control away from showrunners. While these things are not great in and of themselves, proving yourself on one project to a studio would get you on another, and the sheer amount of streaming shows made for many more opportunities.

We are now seeing this did more damage than good. In terms of writers moving between features and films or bouncing between genres, streaming set a new standard.

Tailoring Your Writing Career

So if this breaking down of the walls is a good thing, why am I here talking about being a specialist in something?

One, the older ways are slowly gaining re-favor as they were more stable and people made more money.

Two, the boundaries can now be whatever you define them to be.

You do NOT have to slot yourself into one of the old categories. You CAN—I certainly know people who have no interest in creating their own shows or working on features, they just want to staff on a show and be in a room.

Using myself as an example, I have fully leaned into being a horror writer. That is my category. Dark horror. Spatter horror. Comedy horror. Animated horror. I have worked in features, half-hour dramas, half-hour animation, one-hour dramas, for theatrical, for streaming, and for broadcast.

I’m not greatly interested in staffing on a show just to staff (because apparently, I don’t like stable income?), but I have sold pilots in hopes of creating and running my own show.

I’ve eschewed the old ways by bouncing between mediums purely because of two things—I specialize in horror, and I can write efficiently.

OK, THREE things, I also have a manager known for specializing in horror as well. I’m good with this because I love horror and it is core to my personal lore—also, it doesn’t hurt that no matter what the industry on the whole does, horror always does business.

Does this mean I don’t write other genres? No. I have specs that are sci-fi, thriller, and even a western. I actually just booked my first non-horror job. While it can be true that once your resume leans into a genre, those tend to be the job offers you get. But again, that was my choice. My other big headline, efficiency, has booked me to rewrite jobs in other genres because the producers know I can hit a tight deadline.

Lean Into Being a Screenwriting Expert

My advice here is not to choose a genre to be known for, I am saying lean into being an expert on something. It may be a genre, or maybe it is a style. Maybe it is a skill. Maybe it is a level of expertise in something very specific. David Simon was a crime reporter for over a decade before that led to the creation of Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire.

It is true that the business is retracting and old ways are being more favored but we are still in a space where producers and executives will recognize specific talents and voices and hire them regardless of their experience if the writer’s vibe is right for the job.

If you are a true writer, your spec portfolio will be diverse. Even if you love one style, genre, or medium, you’ve likely ventured away from it on occasion.

Don’t worry about a missed opportunity—you’ll likely still have samples for those rando opportunities. In the meantime, what sort of writer do you want to be?

In the corporate world, when applying for a job, one tailors their resume to fit the position they are applying for. As a screenwriter, you have the opportunity to tailor yourself for the role you want.