Write on Target

For five years, Oliver Queen was presumed dead. Unbeknownst to his family and friends, the billionaire playboy survived a shipwreck only to be stranded on a remote island in the Pacific. When he finally returns home, he finds his city has taken a turn for the worse. With a bow and arrow, he sets out to take down the rampant criminal element with vigilante justice.

So begins the striking television drama Arrow based on the DC Comics character Green Arrow. The series is now in its third season on The CW. Oscar Balderrama, who earned his bachelor’s degree in creative writing from USC Dornsife in 2005, has been hard at work writing the first novel in an adaption of the story for a book series.

Arrow – Vengeance will be published by Titan Books in September. Co-written with Lauren Certo, the book follows the villains of the Arrow universe as they scheme against Queen. The narrative provides fans with an alternate glimpse into events that have already transpired on the television series.

“It was fun coming up with the story lines for these characters,” Balderrama said. “I grew up reading comics as a kid, so the fact I’m now writing a book that taps into that universe is pretty incredible. Hopefully the fans enjoy it.”

Balderrama, who is script coordinator on the program, worked with the show’s staff writers to develop the outline for the plot.

“From that outline I had to turn the story into prose, which is a completely different beast,” Balderrama said. “But funny enough, that was the degree I came out of USC Dornsife with so it wasn’t exactly a foreign language.”

Balderrama got his start in television production when he was an undergraduate. A friend forwarded him an email about an internship opportunity with the writers of the show Everwood, which ran on The WB from 2002-06. He got the position and ended up taking a year off of college to work as a production assistant in the writer’s office. Greg Berlanti, the show’s creator — and the executive producer of Arrow — took Balderrama under his wing and helped him develop his experience behind the scenes.

“I started as the low man on the totem pole — I would run copies and things like that,” Balderrama said. “But I fell in line with a great boss who let me be around the writing process.”

He then returned to USC Dornsife to complete his degree, and was quickly scooped back up into the television industry, working on other projects with Berlanti and his colleagues Marc Guggenheim and Andrew Kreisberg.

“I was lucky enough that Everwood had an opening for me when I graduated,” Balderrama said. “I worked my way up. I basically worked every desk that was available to be worked and then my boss decided he wanted me as a script coordinator.

“I didn’t have any design to pursue this type of work, but I fell into it and love it.”

Arrow – Vengeance, co-written by Balderrama, is the first novel in a series based on the television show Arrow. The book will be published March 27 by Titan Books.

Following his work on Everwood, Balderrama moved on to the popular T.V. shows Brothers & Sisters and Eli Stone — both executive produced by Berlanti — as well as The Mob Doctor and Drop Dead Diva. Because of his experience in the writer’s room with Berlanti, Balderrama even wrote two of the scripts for Eli Stone, a dramatic comedy series about a young lawyer who suffers a brain aneurysm that leads him to have possibly prophetic hallucinations. As a result, he begins to take on cases for moral rather than monetary reasons.

“Eli Stone encapsulated a type of storytelling that I liked,” Balderrama said. “They were uplifting, heartfelt stories without a lot of violence.”

Balderrama noted that his experience studying creative writing in the English department at USC Dornsife set him up for success in his career. In particular, he credited the process of workshopping his writing.

“The whole environment of being critiqued and putting yourself in front of people helped me develop a thick skin,” he said.

He recalled how his professors T.C. Boyle and Susan Segal would communicate enthusiasm toward writing and a love of literature and storytelling. “Being in a supportive environment like that definitely instilled confidence in me,” he said.

In his role as a script coordinator on Arrow, Balderrama is responsible for connecting all of the different elements of the production. Once a script comes in from the writers, he formats it so that all of the different departments such as wardrobe, stunts, art and electrical can plan out the details of an upcoming shoot. He also checks for consistencies across the narrative, and tracks all of the revisions that might come in after a script has been disseminated. Because the show is filmed in Vancouver, Canada, and a new episode is shot every eight days, that’s no small task.

“I typically work 12 hour days,” Balderrama said. “When we’re in production I’m on call so I always have my phone on and I’m constantly checking my email.” But, the fast pace is part of what he thrives on. In fact, exciting moments continue to crop up. Recently, Balderrama was invited to co-write a script for an upcoming episode of Arrow.

“I like being on my toes,” he said. “Being in an environment where you’re working on something creative and collaborative is fulfilling.”

Last year Balderrama attended the Arrow panel at Comic-Con, a popular convention dedicated to the art and culture of comics. Fans got to see a tease of season 3 before it aired.

“You sort of work in a vacuum until the show is released so it’s easy to forget the impact it has on an audience,” Balderrama said. “To see how many people love the show was rewarding. Being at Comic-Con I saw their anticipation and how excited they were for the show.

“That was probably one of the cooler moments in my career.”