Write On: 'Bridgerton' Showrunner Jess Brownell

“One of the main things I’ve learned from Shonda [Rhimes] is to
focus on what you really want to see, yourself, in a season. Not
necessarily what should happen. I remember on Scandal, in the
writers room, we would craft what we thought were these perfectly
structured stories. And Shonda would come in and pitch something
that was really wild, kind of out there and maybe didn’t fit
perfectly into the structure,” says Jess Brownell, showrunner for
Bridgerton Season 3.  “Ultimately, when the show aired, that
would always be the thing that Twitter would light up about. So
it’s taught me to work from that place first. Don’t just worry
about, ‘Okay, what are the beats that make sense to get from A to
B?,’ but ‘What’s juicy? What do you want to see?’”


On today’s episode, Jess talks about the friends-to-lovers
storyline with Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlin), and
Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton), why the show leaned into super
fun rom-com tropes this season and why sex scenes always have to
be character-driven.


Jess also shared this advice for writing period drama: “My advice
for approaching a period piece would be approach it the same way
you would a modern piece. Focus on: What are you trying to say
that’s new? And how are modern audiences going to connect with
these characters? You can always go back and do a regency pass at
the end. I often write a scene just like I would for a modern-day
show and go back and fix the dialogue later,” she says. 


To hear more, listen to the podcast.