Every show is different. But in my experience, I think I got hired to write for LONGMIRE primarily because 1) I grew up in a similar environment as the show, and I knew that world, 2) as an out-of-town beginner freelancer, I was cheap. https://twitter.com/ZoomPianoTutor/status/1361121984029990914

LONGMIRE had an unconventional room: the showrunner, the head writers (a writing team), & the writer for whatever episode we were working on -- these were the only ones in the room at a given time. Then the writer of the ep would go off & outline & eventually write the script.

Of course there were notes and revisions at each step, and then the showrunner & head writers would do their own pass on the script before it went out for production. And then further changes to accommodate realities in terms of schedule, locations, etc.

So, there weren't specific types of scenes that I would write. That said, gradually over 5 seasons, I did develop specialties: I usually wrote the 2nd ep, which would usually be a self-contained mystery after the head writers' established the bigger story in the season premiere.

I also gravitated to writing stories set on the Cheyenne Reservation, a storytelling space I loved working in. And I maybe specialized in introducing interesting supporting characters to step into the show's world (Hector, Joe-Mega, Deputy Zachary, etc).

When I got to hire writers for my own show, I had a more traditional writers' room, where everyone was in there every day together brainstorming. But when I was hiring, I was cognizant of trying to collect as many different specific skillsets & perspectives as possible.

One writer stood out because he was also a director and wrote visually compelling sequences in his writing sample. Another writer melded religion with character & emotion really well in her sample. Another writer was great at action sequences, etc.

When I got hired for THE TERROR: INFAMY, I think I was mostly hired because 1) I had showrunning experience, so I could help the showrunner, who was very experienced & capable but hadn't run his own show before, and 2) the showrunner liked the idea of having a poet in the room.

In my experience, putting a room together is more art than science. You're collecting skill sets, personalities, experience levels, etc, plus hopefully also bringing in a diverse range of life stories and experiences and perspectives all together as (ideally) a single organism.