Roger Wolfson is a TV writer who has worked on some of the biggest shows on television, what many don’t know however is that Roger actually began his career in law, and almost fell into the world of entertainment. Wolfson studied law and university and gained a Masters in writing, once he found a position in a law firm he most likely felt that his career was set. Roger was asked to advise on Law and Order and when they discovered his writing talents he migrated to the world of television.
This switch changed Roger a great deal and beyond a change in personality, his writing style too was forced to change dramatically.
Altering The Personality
Roger has given many interviews on how this changed his personality for the better and much of that came from the more relaxed way of life which working in television gave him. Law, as you can well imagine, is all very serious and proper, were as working for a TV network was far more light hearted. Another key change which he has spoken about is that the pressure was far greater in TV than in law, because there is always another episode to prepare end plan for.
Writing Style
Thankfully for Roger he had written some scripts during his course at university, which helped him a great deal once he made this transition. All great writers are able to switch their styles and adopt different ways of writing, but to go from the high standard of law to something like scriptwriting requires a great amount of literary dexterity. Although he did have some practice to call upon, Roger still had to learn very quickly about the key differences between the two writing styles. In the legal world he was writing within a core set of rules and regulations, when he got to television, the rules went out of the window.
Growth and Ambition
The biggest change for Roger was the way in which he viewed his career, having already decided that law would be where he’d remain for the duration of his career, he was now realizing the skills which he had in other areas, and wanted to pursue them as well. It didn’t take young Roger very long to get his eyes fixed on the prize of creating his own TV show and he made the decision to work on multiple shows first and gain his chops, before trying to launch his own show. Roger has contributed numerous shows to networks like Sony and his current show about the Roman Empire is gaining rave reviews.
Roger is proof of the fact that if you work hard and allow yourself to try new things, that you just may be able to find a new path which you didn’t even know existed, and it may very well be a path that leads you to great success, just like it did for Roger.