A great way to break into TV writing is through “late night” television. Daily Show, SNL, Fallon, Bill Maher, etc are regularly adding writers to their staffs. They usually do this though submission packets where writers who want those jobs have to submit a unique sample based on the prompts they send out. While all of these shows ask for different packets, I wanted to list some exercises that writers can do to (a) see if this kind of writing is exciting, and (b) practice so that you’re ready when you get into one of those packet guideline situations.
• Monologue Jokes: Most of those shows start with the host doing a monologue where they talk about current events. Practice reading the news every morning, and writing 5 great jokes. I suggest finding someone in your life that you have to send those jokes to by 2pm or 3pm every day, 5 days a week. The idea is not for them to evaluate them, although they can. It’s just to keep you accountable to getting that work done on time.
• Bits: Once you’ve mastered the jokes per day, I would suggest switching gears, and trying to come up with at least 3 bits per week. These can be desk bits or things that take place somewhere else, but try to write out a paragraph or two on each of these ideas. Some past examples are Carpool Karaoke, Lip Sync Battle, Jokes Seth Can’t Tell, etc.
• Sketches: If sketch comedy is more your lane, I would suggest trying to write one great sketch per week at the beginning. Can you write something that is funny quickly and doesn’t need too much setup? Can you write political sketches, pop culture, commercial parodies, etc.?
For all of these exercises, remember that a lot of people are watching late night shows the next day on YouTube, so what’s the joke or bit that you can see going viral? That is something that some hosts ask for from their staffs. If you like writing comedy, give these a try!
Happy to answer any questions.
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Hey Spencer Robinson great post - how important is social media in getting staffed on one of these network late night shows? do you have to have pages flooded with bits and sketches or stand up clips to stand out? also how much do network shows like these look at follower counts for writers they're looking to hire?
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Pat Alexander From my experience, not important at all.
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Spencer Robinson Thanks for the pulling back the curtain. Interesting.
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This is really valuable—especially the idea of preparing before the opportunity shows up. What stands out to me is how different this skill set is from long-form storytelling—being sharp, concise, and consistently creative under pressure. Definitely something I’m starting to pay more attention to as I develop as a writer.
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This is great! Where can we see the prompts they send out?
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Michael David Those get sent to agents and managers, but they also send to people they know, etc. They are all different and tailored to each show, but contain all the things that I suggested here.
Monologue jokes. Do you mean something like this : Trump wants Greenland because he believes there are so many greenbacks that he can pay our country's foreign debt. No, I don't live in USA so I don't know if the word greenback is still used as a synonym for dollar bills.
How long should the sketches be? I have myself filmed about 400 short jokes. And when I filmed modern urban legends (I have a gigantic collection, about 4,500), the result was typically one to three minutes long.
Göran Johansson Have you watched any modern sketch shows? SNL, Black Lady Sketch, Michael Che show?
No, to the extent I watch television, I watch Swedish television. I doubt those you mentioned are broadcast here. So I was not sure what you mean.
And the monologue jokes. Do I understand you correctly?