John is joined by The Americans’ executive producer Stephen Schiff at a live Scriptnotes taping in New York! They discuss grounding an outrageous premise in character, suspension of disbelief, premium act breaks, and writing for a foreign language.
We also answer audience questions about New York writers rooms, expert consultants, expecting comparisons, first drafts, and how to write a period piece when history is full of spoilers.
Links:
* [Stephen Schiff](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0771496/) currently works on [The Americans](http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/the-americans). Its final season premieres on March 28th.
* Thank you, [McNally Jackson Independent Booksellers](http://www.mcnallyjackson.com/event/scriptnotes-live-podcast-recording-author-john-august) for hosting our live show!
* [Google Ngram Viewer](https://books.google.com/ngrams)
* Bookstore staff recommendations, which led John to [The End We Start From](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0802126898/?tag=johnaugustcom-20) by Megan Hunter
* [The Scriptnotes Listeners’ Guide!](johnaugust.com/guide)
* [The USB drives!](https://store.johnaugust.com/collections/frontpage/products/scriptnotes-300-episode-usb-flash-drive)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Find past episodes](http://scriptnotes.net/)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Matthew Chilelli ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_337.mp3).
**UPDATE 2-20-18:** The transcript of this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2018/scriptnotes-ep-337-the-one-with-stephen-schiff-transcript).