# Writers’ rooms turn TV storytelling into a collaborative process

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/like-leading-brave-soldiers-to-certain-death-successions-jesse-armstrong-and-more-on-the-rollercoaster-of-tv-writers-rooms/
- Published: 2026-11-11T14:19:58+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-11T14:47:24+00:00
- Original publisher: The Guardian (publisher lean: Left)
- Original article: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/nov/11/succession-jesse-armstrong-writers-room-hunting-alice-bell
- Topics: Culture

## Key points

- TV writers’ rooms develop stories collaboratively.
- Showrunner David Baddiel has the final say.
- *Hunting Alice Bell* explores online paranoia and mob rule.

## Summary

Television writing is often collaborative, built around a writers’ room where a team develops plots and characters before individual writers draft episodes. A film critic who co-wrote and executive-produced the forthcoming Channel 4 thriller *Hunting Alice Bell* describes how this process challenged his expectations of writing as a solitary task.

The series follows a sports centre manager falsely identified online as the former girlfriend of a notorious serial killer, exploring misogyny, online paranoia and digital mob rule. The room’s writers work through story beats together, while showrunner David Baddiel has the final say; he says the shared ideas and energy can make the later work of writing each scene less of a slog.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.