The W Files

Profiling Screenwriters at Work

Writing Together, Living Apart:
Myra Fried and Steve Wright

by Kenn Scott

Anyone who's ever worked as part of writing team knows it can be a daunting experience.

Sure, it's great to have someone to share in the burden of creating a screenplay, but in the midst of a gruelling production schedule, weary screenwriters often complain they're spending far more time with their writing partners than their spouses.

Unfortunately, as husband-and-wife writing team Steve Wright and Myra Fried can tell you, the problem can get even worse when your writing partner is your spouse.

"It was a romantic comedy about people who wanted to kill themselves," says the kinetic and self-mocking Fried, reminiscing about Dead By Monday, the first screenplay she tried to write with her husband. "That was a tough script. And we fought a lot in those days. We were newly married and newly writing together. Much yelling and screaming and throwing of laundry hampers. We did the Lillian Hellman-Dashiell Hammett thing, the only difference being I didn't leave for New York, get completely drunk and then come home. I threw laundry hampers in a completely sober state."

Eventually, things came to a head. "I realized that Myra got her first screenplay [Hurt Penguins] produced without me," says Wright, cheerfully picking up the narrative as writing partners (and spouses) are wont to do. "We were having trouble with this one, so I felt maybe I should step aside and let her sensibility take over."

"We went to see Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives," recalls Fried. "We came out and Steve looked at me and said, 'Okay, here's the deal–either we write together or we stay married.' And I thought, okay, we stay married."For years, the pair kept their careers separate. Fried did some acting and got writing gigs on The Zack Files and Girlstuff/Boystuff. She was also hired onto the teen animated series Braceface when Alyse Rosenberg was showrunner.

Wright, meanwhile, says he wrote "everything from puppet programs to soap operas."

But even then, the two weren't working entirely separately. "I used to have him look at my scripts before they went out," Fried confesses. "And I guess what happened is that working with him, my sense of structure got a lot better. I never took a course in it–apparently Steve gave me one while I wasn't looking."

Maybe working on separate projects was a good idea–after all, Fried and Wright are still married. Except that now they're a writing team again, into their second season as Braceface story editors. Which leads to two obvious questions: How are they making their partnership work this time? And are the Fried/Wright laundry hampers in grave danger once more?

Fried thinks trust–or lack of it–was at the root of the team's troubles the first time around. "I think it was a trust issue for me, because what did I know from writing? Structure? What's structure? I just wanted to have these characters talk. I was really nervous to mess with something that I thought worked, even though I really, really respected Steve's opinion and admired what he said."

Meanwhile, for Wright, there was another issue at stake. "It's ironic, because when we first met, we didn't talk about work at all–at all. Then at some point…"

"Work took over," says Fried.

"Work took over," he agrees. "Unless… isn't a couple-y thing, going out and watching a movie–and then writing a new one, no?"

The duo decided to make some major changes if they were going to survive. First, they will work together only as hired guns, rather than on projects they are developing. "Ultimately, by answering to a third party," explains Wright, "we can set our egos aside." Second, they decided to steal a page from American writers Robert Parker (of Spenser fame) and his live-out wife Joan Parker: "We're still married, but we don't live under the same roof," says Wright.

The arrangement may be unusual, but for Fried and Wright, it seems to be a comfortable fit. Talking about their writing, Wright explains, "The more we write together, the more we know each other. Although we definitely have individual strengths, there is a strong overlapping now. I consider Myra the dialogue person and I'm the structure person. But now sometimes she'll come up with great structure, and I'll come up with great lines."

"It's almost like we've had blood transfusions." says Fried.

And now that Fried and Wright work together but don't live together, they get along "extraordinarily well," says Wright.

"We're best friends," agrees Fried. "We're absolutely best friends. I'd throw myself under a train for him."

To remind them of how things once were, all Fried and Wright have to do is look over at the laundry hamper. "Steve makes me keep it as a reminder," says Fried with a laugh. "But it hasn't been damaged again."