Episode 7: Kelsey Calaitges

Home Town: Mechanicsburg, PA

Current Town: Los Angeles, CA

What are you working on now?: Currently writing for a Netflix series (it's unannounced so apologies for the vague cagey mysteriousness!) and about to start a copywriting gig. It'll be my first time in the advertising space so very excited/nervous to tack on yet another industry in which I get to experience imposter syndrome!

Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person: In second grade you got to publish a book (the word "publish" is doing a lot of work there. And also "book"). They were these 10 page-ish hardcover books with an illustration on one side, and on the other side those lined pages with dashes you'd practice cursive on when you first learning. I spent months poring over my story and coming up with this super high-concept snowman factory, JACK FROST meets WESTWORLD, something truly worthy of being forever immortalized in glossy print. But then the teachers were like "ew, these are picture books. Everyone's story takes place in winter with snow, these books will just be white and boring. Does not elevate the medium." So then they made us all scrap our VERY THOUGHTFULLY CRAFTED WINTER STORIES in favor of these COLORFUL TOTAL SELLOUT SPRING STORIES. We were suddenly on a tight deadline. I didn't have a spring story, but I did have an exchange of dialogue in my head where one character asks how long something is and another character responds, "what am I, A RULER???" and that germ of an idea became "Rosa and the Magical Roses", a not-at-all subtle ripoff of "Jack and the Beanstalk" but with roses and AT-TI-TUDE (and a dedication to my dead snake, Monty).

Sadly, this has also been a significant trait in my later, slightly less blatantly plagiarized writing where when I'm really stuck on a story, or an episode gets scrapped last minute, a joke/dialogue exchange catalyzes who a character is and what story we'll tell to show them off. Most of the time these jokes get cut, but before I outline or break down story beats, I inevitably start with quips and it really gets me in the right frame of mind. Also I always make sure to dedicate scripts to my dead pets.

If you could change one thing about television, what would it be?: The pipeline. Everyone has a totally different story as to how they broke in, but it's fairly common for people to start as assistants -- production, executive, development, agent, etc. It's also common for people to get stuck at a certain level, not because they're not talented or ready, but shorter seasons and episode orders and freelance only rooms make it a lot harder to move up or get a shot at a script. It's not uncommon to sell a show before you've even staffed -- which is amazing, but sometimes you're setting people up for failure to run a show/make high level decisions when they haven't gotten a chance to learn the basics. If you're an upper level in a position to mentor or at the very least have a conversation with assistants/coordinators about their career goals, you'll find they have aspirations to write/direct/storyboard. Invite those people to story breaks or editing sessions or voice records when you're able to. I've been incredibly lucky to have had bosses that knew I wanted to write and let me sit in on every meeting and allowed me to learn about almost every facet of production. That experience was invaluable and gave me a lot of confidence when I transitioned from working in development to writing full time. Please please please get to know the people who do all of your scheduling and printing and lunch runs -- you have an unbelievably valuable resource of future industry leaders right under your nose.

Who are or were your television heroes?: Angelica Pickles.

What kind of television excites you?: I love to be surprised. Writers are the absolute worst people to watch things with because we're trained to develop story seeds, so you can usually anticipate... everything (to be fair, this is not just a writer trait, audiences are usually very savvy because they too have been well-trained) Whether that's an unexpected joke, or a twist, or a well plotted reveal, I'm always delighted when TV makes me go "whoa, that's not at all what I thought would happen!"

I watch a lot of MARRIED AT FIRST SIGHT (Reality TV, strangers marry... at first sight, blah blah blah) and in the most recent season one of the couples actually KNEW each other before the show. You're anticipating they'll be disappointed because they know this person, there's likely a very good reason they never dated or married IRL, but they're genuinely so FULFILLED together and IN LOVE and they were each the one that got away in the other's mind -- they were just too scared to ever make a move! It took them each signing up to marry a stranger to finally be together (I haven't finished the season, so maybe it goes bad...) All of this is to say that it's a very predictable storyline, yet so entirely human and relatable. We willfully leap into huge, illogical, life altering decisions and do everything to avoid little, logical, vulnerable ones that could leave us unbearably hurt. If it were scripted, you'd think "obviously the two people who never got the timing right will live happily ever after", but because it's reality (which... is also fairly scripted) you think "uh oh, this is gonna be a train wreck..." Being human is so unpredictably predictable and my favorite TV leans into that.

What advice do you have for TV writers just starting out?: Be patient and live your life. Don't get so focused on getting repped or getting staffed that you aren't able to enjoy things. As soon as you achieve it, you'll IMMEDIATELY move your goalpost and start obsessing over the fact you haven't sold a show yet or don't have a development deal. Success is not linear, you'll have unbelievable months followed by years of not doing anything followed by a good day followed by etc., etc... Your greatest allies will be peers that are at your level or slightly above/below. Those tend to be the people who help advance your career. For me, quality of relationships is so much more valuable than quantity of relationships. Celebrate other writers' success and resist the all-consuming urge to compare yourself to others. You're doing just fine and are exactly where you need to be :)

Any Plugs?: Watch WOLFBOY AND THE EVERYTHING FACTORY on AppleTV+!

KELSEY CALAITGES is a current writer and former Development Executive for Frederator Studios who shepherded series at Amazon, Netflix, Nickelodeon and Sony. She was a writer on the series WOLFBOY AND THE EVERYTHING FACTORY as well as BRAVEST WARRIORS and is currently writing on an unannounced series for Netflix. You can learn more about her and her work at kelseycalaitges.com!