Intentional Storytelling: A Conversation with ‘Black Cake’ Creator and Showrunner Marissa Jo Cerar

Based on The New York Times-bestselling book by Charmaine Wilkerson, Black Cake is a family drama wrapped in a murder mystery with a diverse cast of characters and a global setting, from Marissa Jo Cerar, Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Films, and Aaron Kaplan's Kapital Entertainment.

Bold storytelling, with a dynamic cast of characters - I wouldn't expect anything less from writer and storyteller extraordinaire Marissa Jo Cerar with her latest show Black Cake. She's passionate about the craft of storytelling, leaving no stone unturned, or in this case, no letter untyped when she approaches the blank page. Every line of dialogue to every piece of music has an intention to drive the story and these character's journeys. 

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: The last time we spoke, you had hinted at that you were working on a new project and here it is! This book was published last year as well, how did it fall onto your radar and what about it struck a chord with you as a storyteller and wanting to adapt it for TV?

Marissa Jo Cerar: Well, I received it three years ago—almost to the day. I was actually scouting, driving across the country because I was too afraid to fly (during the early days of the pandemic) and I was also being responsible, [laughs]. I was scouting locations for my first show as a showrunner, Women of the Movement, and I had a lot of time to read while my husband was driving. My feature agent had sent me the manuscript of Black Cake. The moment I stopped reading whatever the last word of the book was, I just called him and I said, ‘I have to do this, but it's not a movie. It’s a series. There's so much going on here.’ These characters, the backstory, the timelines—I don't even know what you would do in two and a half hours.

And I said I wanted this project specifically because of my life and who I am, and my identity as a mixed race mom from this very small town in Illinois, and Covey being this mixed race girl in this rural community in Jamaica. I just saw 16-year-old me in Covey and I see my daughter, who is also mixed race. I just wanted to be the person to protect the characters and to pitch a very premium, big-budget epic version of this novel, because it just struck me as just so beautiful.

It's obviously tragic, mysterious, and haunting, but these types of series are generally reserved for white women as the main characters. Maybe there are some Black women or brown women, or Queer people as supporting characters, but it is rare for all of the main characters to be women of color or people on the margins.

I was just so excited about Charmaine’s novel, because I'm so invested in everything I do. I was just like, ‘I have to do this.’ [laughs] I can't let someone else do it because I love it so much and I know that I'll bleed for it. So, I contacted all of my team, contacted Charmaine's team, and Charmaine and I met on Zoom. And I just gushed over it. And I told her how much I loved it and why I needed to do it and also how I didn't see it as a limited series, because there's just—again—there's so much going on. One of the characters, Mabel, for instance, who we meet in Episode Five: we intentionally don't tell her full story in Season One because she deserves a full season of her own. I want the time to really get into what it means when she learns she's been living a lie, unbeknownst to her her entire life.

So, I talked to her and then when I got the 'OK,' it was a year, or probably almost not even a year after I first read it because I was about to go film my first show. We got the rights to it, and then, like a month after I wrapped production on Women of the Movement, I just locked myself in my office and wrote the pitch. I wanted to write a very, very detailed pitch, same thing with Women of the Movement; I pitch essentially the format or the Bible so that I can answer all of the questions that I know executives and potential buyers are going to have, so I have it all there and so I don't really leave them with a lot of questions to be honest. [laughs] There’s very little Q&A after I pitch. And that's intentional though, it's just my own anxiety as well. I like to just cover all bases.

But I just saw the structure immediately. I just knew that it was going to differ from the book's structure—the characters are the same, the stories are the same, but how the story is told is different. When huge plot points are revealed, it’s definitely different. We wait in the series to reveal a lot of the big twists. I wanted every episode to end on a cliffhanger and to jump from different points of view, perspectives and times—to lose characters for a couple episodes, forget about them, and then bring them back. I pitched all of that in the summer of 2021

And then, luckily, there were a couple of buyers who were interested in it. We had a little bit of a bidding war. I feel like an idiot for saying that. [laughs] I'm not trying to be cool, it's just the truth. [laughs] And I did skip one big piece of this story - Harpo Films and Oprah. When I read the manuscript, I was speaking with Emily Rudolf, who is one of Harpo Films’ executives. We were just talking about a director for my other show Women of the Movement - getting a referral. And she said, ‘Have you read this book that's going around called Black Cake?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I'm getting the rights to it.’ And she said, ‘I'm getting the rights to it.’ [laughs] Like, ‘No, you're not. We need to make some phone calls.’ [laughs] We ultimately came together because I had adapted a book for Harpo Films a few years ago that was never made and never will be made, but we still left as friends.

And we all got together, Harpo Films and Kapital Entertainment, before I took it out to pitch it. We all decided to do this together because we all loved Charmaine's book so much, and we would all try to protect it. Hulu was the right home for it, we felt like it would get the most attention and stand out on the platform as the premium elevated streamer, which is the goal for this.

I love starting my writers’ rooms with the most detailed map as possible because I do not like wasting time. And I've been a staff writer, a story editor, and a supervising producer, my whole way up this ladder. I've been in those rooms where you're just sitting around wasting time all day and I will absolutely never do that to my staff, because there's really no excuse. So, I like to go in with everything. Where they're like, ‘Wait, why are we here? What is there to do?’ And I say, ‘It seems that way. But there's a lot to do.’ It's just a really detailed map. And it just gives a great place to start and allows us to explore because we aren't going to be racing, we don't have a clock that's ticking like mad because I am so prepared. And then we just say, ‘Does this work and what else can we do? Can we beat this?’ And then how do we fill in all the nuances, all the details and what new characters and worlds can we build? And I love doing it that way. That's worked for me both times, and I will continue doing it.

Sadie: It makes the most sense, especially from a producer standpoint.

MJ: And it's selfish because I don't like being put on the spot. [laughs]

Sadie Dean: Because of your successful TV writing background, for those with the opportunity to pitch their first TV show, what kind of questions do you need to answer in your pitch when you're putting these documents together and what do you do to best prepare yourself?

MJ: I don't have a formula, and I know there's one very popular piece of paper that goes around town [laughs] that tells you, because I've seen it, and I think it's a great starting place. But I always start with personal, immediately. But like really personal, not generic. I want whoever I'm speaking to, especially if they don't know me - which there's so much turnover; I might know some person at this network or streamer, and then the next year it's like a whole new batch of people - to know who I am and why I am the right person to tell the story before I even get into what the story is. And I go pretty deep. I also have a very unique background - I'm adopted, I have seven brothers and sisters that are adopted, I lived a sort of interesting life I guess, but I get into it that way to just sort of set the stage and why me. Why do you want to work with me? What are the details I'm going to bring that you're going to hear in this pitch today that you can only imagine from my background?

Then I get into the sort of logline mini-pitch of it, just reminding them, especially even if it's a book that they've read, or a book they skim through, or remake or reboot or whatever it is, just a reminder because it's the biggest thing you're doing today as the writer, it's like one of 65 things they're doing today. [laughs] So, I like to really remind them like, ‘OK, this is the story. This is the genre. This is why we're here today.’ And this is the sort of movie poster of it all. I use images. I have a deck that my amazing assistant Nora [Cawley] helps me with, and then I find ways rather than going in and pitching like, ‘OK, here are all the characters and I’ll tell you their backstory.’ Through the pitch, I tell the story and I introduce the characters as part of the story. And when I introduce a character in the pitch as part of the show, that's when I tell you everything you need to know for that moment, but I don't overwhelm with details—like the backstory of what happened when they were five years old. That's usually not important.

But also, I’m sorry, I'll be jumping all over the place, because really, this is something I love to help people with, because a really good pitch, it makes people really happy when it's not boring and you can tell that so much work was put into it.

I have a little grid if it's a huge ensemble cast like Black Cake, we have a grid with pictures of actors or human beings who could play them with their names always on the screen while I'm pitching. So, when I'm talking about Covey in Episode Seven and what she's gonna do with Pearl and Bunny, they remember who these people are, because there's a lot going on and I might be talking kind of fast and it just helps them so they don't get confused or they don't get bored.

I talk about personally why me. I remind them why we're here, what the genre is, the tone, the main story, the logline, then I get into what is the pilot episode, and I pitch basically the whole episode. It's the longest part of the pitch. I want to really get them into how I tell the story. What are the terms, and who are the people, then when I sort of leave them on a cliffhanger ending, I like to talk about the world, and the other characters, but through the stories that we're going to tell over the course of the series and the genre and structure, because I love doing nonlinear structure. It's just something I'm gonna probably do forever now. It's a puzzle. It's a huge challenge, but I love it. And I just think it's a more interesting way to tell the stories I want to tell. So, I make it very clear, this is the way we're going to structure it.

And then you might not find out about this big twist I told you about until like Season Two or whatever. But I talk about the big storylines, the main characters, what their arcs are, in short, and then I come back in the end, sort of remind them again why this is the right time to tell the story. What are some other shows or movies like it or hopefully that there's nothing else like it, and also just again, remind them why I personally should be the one to tell this particular story.

My pitches are very long, and I do not recommend this [laughs] but it's just the way it is. Every pitch for Black Cake was an hour. It was very difficult for me because it's very personal. [laughs] I cried during my pitch—that was challenging. My new pitch that I'm taking out next year is like 45 minutes [laughs] so I was stoked. I want to try to get it down to 35 minutes [laughs]. Because it’s a long time to talk with nobody interrupting you. Regardless, my pitches are pretty long and detailed, but the detail shows buyers how much thought you put into it—how committed you are, how much work you've put into it and how much work you will continue to put into the project.

Sadie: Yeah, that is such great advice and just shows exactly like you said, you're just so invested. You kind of touched on this, but nonlinear storytelling and the use of flashbacks. Screenwriters are told again and again, never ever use flashbacks, but when you know how to utilize this storytelling device, it works well. Why do you think it works better and in television rather than in features?

MJ: I don't know for sure, but I think Orange is the New Black is responsible for the resurgence of flashback storytelling in TV. I don't know if it was the first series or show that sort of brought back flashback stories, but it’s the one I remember most. With regard to my career and my experience with flashback stories, I worked on 13 Reasons Why and The Handmaid's Tale, both relied heavily on flashback stories. And for me, in my own work, I love using them. Rather than vomiting up a bunch of backstory and dialogue, why not find interesting ways to juxtapose the past and present in order to either push the story forward or to reveal more about your main character or the worlds in which they live. And maybe because there's more time in television, we have seasons or at least eight to 20 episodes depending on what platform you're on to tell these nuanced stories, and we get so invested in these characters. We want to know more. We want to know where they came from. We want to know where they were before the main timeline began.

I don't know why it works better, but maybe it's just the amount of time. And with movies we want it to move quicker. Even though like Oppenheimer's use of flashbacks are so amazing in that movie too, done beautifully, but I think it's just because they have to be artfully crafted. The transitions have to be discussed. I mean, definitely written first, but then discussed with the director, and the whole crew to really understand why this particular flashback has to happen now, so that we don't just arbitrarily throw flashbacks in. I think it's rooted in the planning and the intention for me. And I love them. I swore that my next show was going to be set in present day, but it's evolved into jumping over 200 years and I was like, ‘OK, I think I just need to own it.’ [laughs] I really love the time jump.

Sadie: You’re practically a master at it. I’m looking forward to seeing what you do in the Second Season. And just gotta say, loved the placement and selections of Nina Simone songs in this first season.

MJ: Thank you! I am a huge music nerd. Music is so important to me. I will get into fights with people who don't get it, and so thank you, every time someone comments on the music, I feel like I've won a gold medal. Because I had to fight to get a lot of these songs. So, thank you for that. They are so intentional. They have multiple meanings, and I'm very proud of it. So, thank you for listening.

Black Cake is now streaming on Hulu.