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Children of Tendu

A Podcast About the Business of Writing for Television
Javier Grillo-Marxuach & Jose Molina ·2014 ·45min Watch / Read Source
“TV writing is as much about room skills, career management, and professional relationships as it is about craft — and nobody teaches the business side.”
Two veteran TV writers demystify the television staffing process — from getting hired to surviving the writers' room to navigating showrunner relationships. The most specific TV business podcast in existence.
Two veteran TV writers sharing specific insider knowledge about staffing, writers' rooms, career management, and the business of television.
Won't help with: screenplay craft, feature film, visual storytelling, or creative process. TV business and career management exclusively.
Topics craftpremise
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Key Insights
1 takeaway from this resource — click to expand
💡 Great writers get fired from TV rooms all the time. Not because their writing was bad, but because they couldn't read the room. ›
Grillo-Marxuach and Molina make explicit what most TV writers learn the hard way: the writers' room is a social environment with its own rules, hierarchies, and dynamics, and violating those rules has career consequences regardless of how talented you are. Pitching too much signals insecurity. Not pitching enough signals disengagement. Defending your idea too hard signals inflexibility. Agreeing too quickly signals lack of conviction. The sweet spot — knowing when to push and when to defer, how to build on the showrunner's idea without competing with it, how to contribute without dominating — is a skill set completely orthogonal to writing ability. Many brilliant writers never get staffed again because they misread the room's social dynamics.
Check Your Script
If you're preparing for a TV room, ask yourself: can you articulate another writer's idea better than they stated it? Can you build on someone else's pitch without redirecting it to your own? Can you identify the showrunner's unspoken priority in a conversation? These skills matter as much as your writing sample.
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How It Teaches

Encoding fingerprint and cognitive approach

Theory
Examples ›
Heavily example-driven through career anecdotes and industry experience.
Mechanism
Heuristic ›
Mostly heuristics. Practical rules for TV career navigation — when to speak in a room, how to pitch, what agents want.
Diagnostic
Prescriptive ›
Leans prescriptive. Direct career advice: do this, don't do that, here's how it actually works.
Global
Local ›
Balanced. Career-level strategy alongside specific room-level and meeting-level tactical advice.
Cognitive Mode
Te + Fe
Teaches through systematic professional knowledge (Te) — specific, actionable information about how TV staffing, writers' rooms, and production hierarchies actually work. Combined with relational wisdom (Fe) — understanding room dynamics, showrunner relationships, and the social skills that determine career survival.
The Te+Fe combination means the podcast teaches both the systems (how TV works) and the relationships (how to navigate it personally). Most craft resources ignore the business; this one makes it central.

What It Teaches

Central thesis and key premises

The TV writers' room is a specific professional environment with its own rules, hierarchies, and survival skills. Understanding the business of television writing — from staffing to room etiquette to career management — is as important as craft mastery.
Teaching Modality
Industry Insiders
Approach
Two veteran TV writers sharing specific, candid information about the television business. Each episode addresses a discrete topic (getting an agent, the staffing process, room hierarchy, spec scripts) with practical, experience-based guidance.
Premise
Writers' Room Dynamics
The writers' room is a specific social environment with hierarchies, unwritten rules, and dynamics that determine career survival. Understanding these dynamics is as important as writing well.
Premise
The TV Staffing Process
How TV writers get hired — the staffing timeline, what showrunners look for, how agents and managers operate, what makes a writing sample effective. Demystifying the most opaque process in entertainment.
Premise
Managing the Showrunner Relationship
The showrunner is your boss, collaborator, and gatekeeper. Understanding how to support their vision while contributing your own perspective is the core professional skill of TV writing.
Premise
Long-Term TV Career Management
TV writing careers are built over decades, not projects. Managing relationships, building reputation, navigating between shows, and surviving industry changes require strategic long-term thinking.
Premise
Room Etiquette and Survival Skills
When to pitch, how to pitch, when to be quiet, how to read the room — specific tactical skills for surviving and thriving in a collaborative creative environment.

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