Vertical storytelling has established its dominance over our phone screens today. From homes to locals and metros, one can hear smartphones buzzing with short snippets of stories aka microdramas. But behind the boom lies a quieter concern: the exploitation of writers expected to churn out 60–90 minutes of content in less than a week. Poor pay, punishing deadlines, and unclear contracts continue to haunt many, particularly newcomers.

Screenwriter Sulagna Chatterjee is planning to take the issue up with the Screenwriters Association (SWA) through her group, Women Film Circuit (WFC). The committees are collecting an anonymous experience form, which will document the pay ranges, timelines and recurring patterns of the producers.

“I put up a social media post about it because this space is extremely exploitative. People are paid Rs 1000-2,000 per episode. Some sort of regulation is needed. The post went viral and many writers identified with it. But nothing happened after that,” Chatterjee tells mid-day.

Timelines, remain another major concern. She shares, “I got six days to turn around 50 episodes of one and a half minutes each.  And when I asked them to give me 10 days, they said, ‘Nobody gets 10 days’.”

- Writers got paid less than Rs 50,000 to write the entire show - 70%

- Between Rs 50,000 to 75,000    - 23%

- More than Rs 1.5 lakh at all: 0% - 0%

- Those who got between Rs 1 to 1.5 lakh - 1%

- ‘Gold Digger Kahin Ki’ (Story TV app)

- ‘Trials & Reposts’ (Instagram)

- ‘Shaitan Haveli’ (Story TV app)

- Amazon Mini TV show ‘Adulting’ (2018)

- ‘Firsts’ for Dice Media (2020)

- A segment of Netflix’s anthology ‘Feels Like Ishq’ (2021)