Confessional Poetry: An Interview with ‘Single Drunk Female’ Creator and Writer Simone Finch

Single Drunk Female follows Samantha Fink who, after a spectacularly embarrassing public breakdown, is forced to move back home with her overbearing mother to sober up and avoid jail time. In Season Two, premiering April 12, 2023, on Freeform and streaming on Hulu on April 13, 2023, Samantha faces the road to adulthood and learns that it's just as hard as the path to recovery.

Flawed characters are seemingly attractive in terms of writing about and watching. But when these flaws are intrinsically your own, perhaps it's not as attractive or fun to write. However, Simone Finch, writer and creator behind Single Drunk Female, tapped into her voice, with determination and passion to tell this story and her point of view on the path to sobriety from a female perspective. And the show, its characters, and its stories shine because of it. 

With the premiere of Season Two of the wildly popular show underway, Simone recently spoke with Script about the parallels between the pilot episode and Episode One from Season Two, character development, discovering her writer's voice, and so much more!

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: There are these wonderful parallels between the pilot episode and the first episode of Season 2, with how Sam enters the scene – was that intentional?

Simone Finch: It was intentional in the sense that we wanted them to speak to each other. It was a reintroduction into why this party means something. We meet her in season one in the pilot, she’s not sure she wants to live, right? And then in the first episode of season two, you see she does want to live, she has this great life that she's built while getting sober. And as Olivia says, that's something to celebrate. So yeah, I agree, they echo each other in that really weird way.

Sadie: With the first season it feels like we’re navigating through these characters breaking boundaries and with the second season it’s how to set boundaries responsibly. How do you approach your character development?

Simone: I knew that the fourth step was going to be a big deal, I read a partner's step four, I'm not proud of it. And I knew that that would kind of be the bomb that went off in the season. Carol and Sam are the heart of the series in my mind. Even though they both have other relationships and whatever. From there, everything kind of fell apart a little bit this season I think that in sobriety when you first get sober, you’re like as long as everything stays the same, I'll be able to stay sober. 

We're telling viewers like no actually you’re staying sober through some really hard stuff, like breakups and fights with your mother - and not just fights, they're not speaking, and they got pretty close, right? And I also wanted to just show that closeness was almost kind of tenuous and had done the real work together. And I think that now all that's by the end of the season, that's kind of what they're beginning to do and to process their grief which I think is been mostly unprocessed until this season.

Sadie: Right, there's no right or wrong way to process grief, but obviously when it gets to like that point where you’re not talking, maybe there is a wrong way.

Simone: And I've done it the wrong way. [laughs] I just want to say like with Felicia, we wanted to show her background with her child with James, we wanted to show that getting sober again is really hard. With Olivia, we want to just show that she had to give up her sponsees which was her lifeline so that she can have a baby, and what a sacrifice that is. 

With Mindy, I wanted to show growth there as well, and with Brit, you know, she's been so perfect for her whole life and the divorce just is a bomb that also goes off and she has to deal with it. So, I think those are the major players and just again, change is the only constant and you have to stay sober through all of the change somehow.

Sadie: In your writers’ room did you lay out a timeline of like, these are the emotional beats or turns that we have to hit by this episode for this character?

Simone: Yeah, we have to because we have quite a few characters now. So, we had to be like, ‘OK, this is the episode where this happens.’ Always by the end of the season, it gets a little more stressful because you're like, ‘Wait a minute…’ but we totally got there. And I won't spoil the end for you. [laughs]

Sadie: [laughs] Thank you, because I’m really looking forward to watching it. With your room, were there expectations in the sense of bringing new perspectives or personal stories for your show?

Simone: I think we used a lot of personal stories - not just mine in the show as well. My old boss Bruce Helford used to say, 'When you go in a room you bring your guts' and I believe that you have to bring your guts. I bring my guts a lot - my guts are on the table, my guts are in the world you know. 

And then also just getting the characters' voices right - which I mean we know them so well now and I feel like that was the first season was a little harder but the second season I think we really locked in which was great and I think we opened up the world this year too. So, just any way that they can help me with that.

Sadie: And just taking chances, which is fun to see.

Simone: Yeah, exactly.

Sadie: Sometime in the distant future when you’re a showrunner, are there things you’ve observed or clocked in a writers’ room that you’ll definitely carry over with you or leave behind?

Simone: I started learning from showrunners almost 10 years ago with Barbara Hall on Madame Secretary and Bruce Helford on The Connors and Roseanne. Barbara used to say, ‘We're all on the same side of the show’ which I love. Bruce would say, ‘You can create a show in hell, or you can create a show in paradise, which would you prefer?’ And I'm like, ‘Paradise, please.’ [laughs]

Here's the thing, when I'm at the helm, and hopefully I will be, I'm not gonna say I won't do XYZ. I'm gonna do it, too. You know what I mean? When you're a parent, you say, ‘I'll never do that to my kid.’ I think there's just certain things that, unfortunately, have to be done when you're in a position of power. And that's it. 

I will say this, as an EP, seeing the world from this side of the street, it's definitely like, ‘Oh, that's why my bosses did that.’ And I used to be like, ‘Oh, I would never!’ And now it makes sense. So, I feel like I'm starting to understand not all decisions are good decisions, by anyone, but I will say I'm starting to understand certain decisions.

Sadie: Tell us about your writing journey from the inspiration, doing stand-up comedy, to getting to this point.

Simone: Well, I got really drunk for like 15 years. So that really helped. I started stand-up - I was drunk. And then I did that for about six months. And I was like, ‘This is a horrible life.’ I came to LA to write TV. I was drinking a lot - you can imagine - and I answered an ad on Craigslist to work for a showrunner. This was Lynnie Green, who was doing Masters of Sex at the time. And that was my first job working for a showrunner and a writer. And I was just her personal assistant, but I learned so much from her.

And then I bottomed out with my alcoholism the next year. I started working for Barbara Hall - that experience got me the job with Barbara - started working for Barbara and I was on Madame Secretary for two seasons. And seeing a show from the logline to two seasons was amazing. And Barbara's a fantastic writer and a fantastic showrunner. 

And then I decided to leave because I wanted to do comedy, because that's my bread and butter. I got the job with Bruce and Bruce is also amazing in a totally different way. And I did Roseanne, which you can imagine was completely insane. And did The Connors and he staffed me. I sold Single Drunk Female about three months before he staffed me.

Sadie: Wow.

Simone: So, it all happened at the same time. And all I can say is, I don't give up. I keep writing. I was passionate about the script from the very beginning. I kept rewriting it. I've probably done 100 to 200 drafts of the script. No kidding. Like, it's no joke. I will say once you get better at writing, you don't have to do so many drafts, but this was my first big, big script and I wanted it to be good. And I would show it to anybody that would read it and they would give me notes and I would take what I liked and leave the rest and that's kind of how this happened. 

I'm like a cockroach. You can't kill me, man. [laughs] I have a project that people said they'll never make it. And now it looks like it's gonna get made, because I just was like, ‘No, this is what I'm passionate about. This is what I care about.’ And people eventually, I believe will listen to that. But it takes time.

Sadie: It takes time. It's an overnight thing.

Simone: Yeah, I've been in LA for almost 14 years. It's been a while.

Sadie: When did you realize that you had finally tapped into your own voice, and then being comfortable with basically writing yourself on the page to a certain degree?

Simone: I just think at the time it was still new to show a woman addict – alcoholic - and a young woman at that. Nurse Jackie was kind of the closest thing at that time, I would say, which I loved that show, and she was on pills, which is kind of different. I mean, it's similar, but we don't have to go into addiction... So, I wanted to show that and also, my voice, I'll be honest, it was a one-hour script originally. I look at that script now and it's there. I knew what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. And I think the other thing is, you know Girls Gone Wild and all that stuff, like making fun of drunk girls?

Sadie: Yeah.

Simone: I kind of wanted to show like, this isn't funny. This isn't a joke. You know what I mean? These girls are preyed upon. I mean, some of them aren't, but a lot of them are. Even the whole Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears of it all that we're now reckoning with today, like, how do we treat these women? And we didn't treat them well, in my opinion. So, I think all of that kind of went into the project. And I love confessional poetry, and that's kind of where that also came from, where I was like, well, if they could put their selves on the page, maybe I can't too.

Sadie: Any advice for writers developing their voice and point of view – something they should lean into or avoid?

Simone: Well, I would say lean into it, because writing what you know, is so much easier than writing about what you don't know, for me. The other script that I'm working on right now, is about a totally different world. I've had to do a ton of research. Whereas all the research for Single Drunk Female is in me. [laughs] I don't have to go to any books, or any internet sourcing, or whatever. It's all there.

Sometimes I think a mixture is good too, put a touch of you and a little bit of the real world. Which I think is why my show in some episodes are more heavy on my experience than others. And I think that it helps because, real life, it doesn't always lend to drama. And drama doesn't always lend to real life. So, it's the story and sticking to the story, but seeing where things fit.

Sadie: Some people go a little bit too literal and then it's like, what's the connection? There's no universal thread here.

Simone: Sobriety is the ultimate redemption story, right?

Single Drunk Female returns to Freeform on April 12, 2023 10/9c, and the next day on Hulu.