Editing Suddenly Susan (section)

===Original pilot===
In the show's original pilot, written by [[Billy Van Zandt]] and Jane Milmore and based on a dramatic script by [[Clyde Phillips (screenwriter)|Clyde Phillips]], Susan worked at a publishing house editing children's books. After breaking up with her live-in boyfriend Ted ([[Brian McNamara]]), Susan finds herself "single" for the first time in years. Concurrently, Susan faces even greater challenges at work when her boss, Eric ([[Philip Casnoff]]), assigns her the task of working as an editor with Charlotte ([[Elizabeth Ashley]]), a hugely successful and highly opinionated romance novelist. Always on hand to provide support is Susan's grandmother, Nana ([[Nancy Marchand]]), her co-workers, acerbic best friend Marcy ([[Maggie Wheeler]]) and Neil ([[David Krumholtz]]), who has a crush on Susan.

When the series was picked up, former ''[[Murphy Brown]]'' writers/producers [[Gary Dontzig]] and [[Steven Peterman]] were brought in to redevelop the concept, being appointed as the show's co-showrunners. Other changes between the pilot and the series included [[Barbara Barrie]] replacing Nancy Marchand in the role of Nana, and [[Swoosie Kurtz]] and [[Ray Baker (actor)|Ray Baker]] replacing [[Kurt Fuller]] and [[Caroline McWilliams]] as Susan's parents, Bill and Liz; the characters of Eric and Ted were reworked into the roles of Jack Richmond (played by Nelson) and his brother, Kip ([[Anthony Starke]]), whom Susan jilts during their wedding. (McNamara would later play Cooper Elliot, a friend of Jack's who briefly replaces him as publisher of ''The Gate'' through a poker game bet and takes Susan to Italy at the end of Season 1.) In the series, though the setting switches from a publishing house to a magazine, the main office set retained most of its features from the pilot; the most noticeable difference was that the elevator was at stage right. While the pilot's storyline featuring Elizabeth Ashley as one of the publishing house's clients was not used in the series, a cardboard cut out of Ashley that was featured in the pilot appears throughout the first three seasons of the show – it can be seen briefly behind Susan's desk, near the filing cabinets along the back wall.

The actual location for the exterior shots of the office was the Newhall Building at 260 [[California Street (San Francisco)|California Street]] in San Francisco.