Showrunners’ Favorite Approved Shortcuts

I keep thinking about these “approved” shortcuts—nobody admits to them, but everyone uses them. Like, how did we finish that script in two days? Or cast a lead with a single phone call? Studios don’t hand out free passes, but sometimes they just look the other way.

Streamlining the Writer’s Room

How does anyone expect creativity in a room that feels like a Zoom tax seminar? I started sneaking in rotating outlines—no one upstairs noticed, even with WGA templates taped everywhere. My favorite trick: have staff writers pitch drafts out loud at 8:30 a.m., caffeine or no.

Glen Mazzara, legend, says, “First draft? Two hours, tops.” He uses a timer. I’ve watched writers cram a week’s plot into one lunch, then run it through AI for grammar. You get better scripts if you let the writers run wild, not the suits. I even let the assistant rewrite act three once—nobody fired me. Maybe more studios should try it.

Efficient Casting Decisions

Casting? Please, no more four-day chemistry reads. I once cast a future series regular because she improvised with the wrong prop dog. Studio called it “risky,” but we signed her in six hours. Apparently, this happens all the time. My shortcut: Zoom, cold read, decide. No endless email chains.

There’s also the “trusted reader” move. I text a writer the sides, and by noon, half the leads are at craft services. Staff’s secret Slack poll picked the winner 87% of the time last pilot season. No need for a casting consultant if you trust your gut (and I do). Sometimes the “name” star the studio wants can’t read a line. Nobody says a word. We move on, and I sleep a little better. Or at least, I try.

Case Studies: Successful Showrunners and Their Shortcuts

You ever notice how every showrunner swears they’ve got some secret hack, but then you actually work with them and it’s a mess of sticky notes, caffeine, and panic? I can’t even count how many times I’ve heard about “process,” and then someone’s frantically taping a new plot twist to the wall. Shonda Rhimes? She just powers right through chaos with table reads and this “no wasted pages” mantra. Murphy? He corrals the madness with his inner circle and a rainbow of index cards. Courtney A. Kemp? She’ll tell you it’s all about show bibles and plot grids, but I’ve literally seen her keyboard covered in scribbled backup plans. So, shortcuts? Maybe, but it’s mostly organized chaos.

Shonda Rhimes: Grey’s Anatomy and Bridgerton

She told The Hollywood Reporter, “The only shortcut that gets anything made is a bulletproof writers’ room.” I mean, sure, but “bulletproof” is doing a lot of work there. Grey’s Anatomy runs like a machine, but it’s a machine that eats writers for breakfast. She’s got this rule: don’t waste a single script page. Some ABC exec once blurted, “Shonda delivers first drafts good enough to shoot,” and honestly, how? I can barely get through a second draft without hating everything.

The Nashville Film Institute claims she can pull in $15–$20 million per show, which, okay, wow. Apparently, her team calls it the “Shondaland efficiency hack”—cross-rolling plots so one set covers multiple episodes. I’ve seen them build and tear down a set in the same week. Nobody’s sitting around waiting for a magical fix in post. If you’re looking for the big secret, it’s probably just relentless, slightly terrifying efficiency.

Bridgerton’s a whole other beast. The show bibles are thicker than my old law textbooks and no one outside her crew gets to peek. Character arcs? Locked. Choreography? One take, move on. I keep hearing about her “spaghetti board” and, yeah, it makes sense—her staff looks confused but the budget’s happy.

Ryan Murphy: American Horror Story

I’ve never seen a showrunner wrangle chaos quite like Murphy. Colored index cards everywhere, storylines zigzagging, and somehow it all lands on screen. According to a bunch of tired insiders on industry roundups, he lets the writers’ room go wild and then locks everything down—scripts, casting, catering—weeks before anyone else would. It’s not normal, but it works.

He casts actors for multiple seasons at once, so wardrobe, makeup, even craft services, all get scheduled in these weird, overlapping blocks. I once watched them wrap post on a finale before the premiere even had a press date. Makes zero sense, but Murphy splits his crew—half on this season, half on next. The show never really stops.

And then there’s his “open edits.” Every Friday, 4pm, he screens dailies for the whole team. Argue, beg, whatever—if you’re late, some random pet ends up in a scene. That’s half a joke, half not.

Courtney A. Kemp: Power

Courtney’s process? Sticky notes everywhere, plot grids color-coded until your eyes hurt, and a foam board outline that’s basically a mural. She once said (on some panel I can’t remember), “My shortcut is the plot grid—color-coded to hell and back.” Junior writers tell me about “character velocity rows” mapping loyalty shifts, but honestly, who’s tracking? I’ve never seen it in person, but the legend grows.

Her real move is the rolling table read. Every Tuesday, staffed or not, you’re in the room, cold reading, and notes fly from anyone—PAs, wardrobe, accounting, you name it. On big shoot days, she blocks scenes by location, cramming up to eight into one afternoon. I saw her leave set at 3:55pm, muttering about 6pm edit notes. Relatable.

She doesn’t do the big “thanks everyone” speeches. She trusts the process, not the ritual. Scripts go to network clean, or they don’t go at all.