By Joshua Kazemi
Every aspiring screenwriter has their own version of the same fantasy. They move to LA, write their magnum opus, get discovered, and make a critical and commercial juggernaut like Dan Erickson’s SEVERANCE, Apple TV’s sci-fi thriller about employees whose consciousness is surgically divided between their work and personal lives. To the level aspiring writers indulge that fantasy is up to the individual, but part of trying to make it is believing that you can achieve a goal as lofty as that, even with the odds stacked against you.
A story like Dan Erickson’s only fuels those fantasies. While it is certainly an exception to the rule, it happened nonetheless. A first-time writer, with virtually no previous credits, wrote an incredible pilot script, got recognized for it, and actually got it made. It may sound like an example of overnight success, but it’s actually more of an inspirational story that every up-and-coming writer can learn from.
Where Did Dan Erickson and SEVERANCE Come From?
Dan Erickson studied television writing at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts before moving out to LA in hopes of breaking into the industry. According to an interview with Backstory Magazine, Erickson ended up browsing Craigslist for survival jobs, applying to several, and got hired at a door factory sorting through parts. The monotony of the job led to moments when Erickson caught himself wishing he could dissociate from the workday to get through it. But the idea of skipping parts of his life struck him as grim and haunting. Suddenly, the hours upon hours spent at the door factory became time to explore the earliest ideas that would become the original SEVERANCE pilot.
But producers didn’t come knocking at the door at the inception of a great idea. The script still needed to be written and rewritten, and Erickson still had bills to pay.
He went on to work more temp jobs and eventually landed a job writing for the preshow at LIP SYNC BATTLE on Spike TV. The lower-stakes nature of the gig allowed Erickson and his friends to explore weird ideas and bits, becoming an interesting creative outlet for him. Through it all, sorting door parts, food delivery, and preshow writing, Erickson continued to write original half-hour pilots, half-hour specs of COMMUNITY and SOUTH PARK, feature specs, and eventually, the first draft of the SEVERANCE pilot script. But even still, the feature-length script is what ended up getting him representation, and from there, Erickson started pitching his work.
What Happened When The Rubber Finally Met The Road?
After the SEVERANCE pilot made it onto the Blood List, a list of best unproduced horror and thriller scripts voted on by industry professionals, the script made it into the hands of Jackie Cohn, a producer working at Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Productions. She recommended the script to Stiller, who ended up loving it. From there, Stiller and Erickson met to discuss the script, hit it off, and decided to start developing the show.
At this point, Erickson had an idea for how the show would end, along with a few grand ideas for the lore behind it all. But he didn’t have specific answers to all of the interesting and weird questions presented in the pilot. Stiller insisted that a mystery box show like this would need to have all of those things figured out before getting too far along. This way, the writers would have a road map to follow. This approach led to several changes from the original script.
In the original version, Mark S., Adam Scott’s character, is the one who wakes up on the table instead of Helly R, Britt Lower’s character. In this iteration, Mark S. also emerged from a fleshy anus in the ceiling above the conference table. Erickson has described this version of the script as being filled with heightened ideas and visuals that a lot of aspiring writers fill their spec scripts with as a way to stand out and get attention. The pilot it would eventually become instead, doubles down on the grounded elements in the script in order to highlight the strength of the premise itself and its compelling characters.
This approach really feels like it comes from seasoned writers working closely with a young writer who was willing to follow their lead in all the right places. While Erickson serves as Showrunner for SEVERANCE season two and (upcoming) season three, he was just an Executive Producer in the writer’s room during its first season, which was being run by Mark J. Friedman (WAYWARD PINES, BELIEVE) and Chris Black (MONARCH: LEGACY OF MONSTERS, OUTCAST). This is standard operating procedure for first-time writers creating their first show.
But Erickson’s willingness to let his show evolve and be shaped by his collaborators is what gave fans something that feels personal, specific, and engaging, on top of it being a high-concept sci-fi commentary on capitalism.
What Can Aspiring Writers Learn From Erickson?
While it might seem like Dan Erickson came out of nowhere with a fully-formed TV show rich with complicated and compelling lore, he actually worked really hard for a long time to get noticed and finally create the SEVERANCE that made it onto our screens. He studied his craft in college and learned the basics. He moved to LA and started working wherever he could, and eventually, he got some lower-level industry work. But most importantly, he was writing all along the way. He drew on his lived life experience and wrote pilots, specs, and a feature that finally started opening doors.
When he got his shot to make his show, he was flexible and collaborative. On the darkest days in that door factory, questioning his place in the industry, Erickson used that dread to inform a story about awakening the humanity in all of us in the most grim, weird, and cultish of environments, like Lumon Industries. Erickson’s story might be an exception to the rule, but his work ethic and his drive are something every writer needs, whether they hit it big on their first try or not.
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