Joss Whedon

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. — Every Monday for the past month, Joel Dahl has been getting up before dawn so he can hit the back gate at Universal Studios when the striking "Battlestar Galactica" writers show up to picket. Mr. Dahl isn’t a writer himself, though he would like to be one. He’s a fan.

Earlier this week, as he marched alongside "Battlestar" writer and executive producer Ron Moore, he seized the chance to ask a question. He wondered whether there was a connection between a mercy killing in the recent "Battlestar’’-related TV movie "Razor" and a similar incident in "Star Trek: First Contact," a movie Mr. Moore had worked on years ago.

"I never even thought of that," Mr. Moore said, laughing. He wondered whether Mr. Dahl really was asking: "Did you know that you’re stealing from yourself?"

The elbow rubbing seems to be fun for all concerned. "I really enjoy hanging out here," says Mr. Dahl, 23, who brings doughnuts in boxes he decorates with Battlestar themes. "I’m flattered and grateful," says Mr. Moore, who adds that chatting about the show and dispensing career advice is the least he can do for such loyal fans.

About 12,000 screenwriters walked off the job in early November in a money dispute with Hollywood film and TV producers. The big-name writers get the lion’s share of the attention, but on the picket lines, just about any working stiff whose show has a following is feeling the love.

All sorts of supporters are coming out of the woodwork. There are film students looking to make contacts and hoping for tips on breaking into the business. Neighborhood residents want to help out. And there are fans crazy about some show or other.

They buy snacks for writers who have a lot more money than they do. They help in symbolic ways. "Heroes" fans are sending origami birds to the Writers Guild of America because a character on the show once folded a thousand cranes for a woman he had fallen in love with.

And they visit picket lines. Tuesday afternoon, Leah Pender, 33, a luggage-store manager, grabbed a sign blaring "Honk!" and marched alongside a Universal Studios gate with a group of writers from "CSI: Las Vegas." She chatted with writer Richard Catalani about an episode showing a character stuck in a coffin with insects crawling on him.

Mr. Catalani gladly put in his two cents. He mentions that Quentin Tarantino, who is known for his creative use of violence, directed "Grave Danger."

"No wonder it was so uggghhhh," responds Ms. Pender. [Ron Moore]

CSI appeals to Ms. Pender because of its attention to detail, as when the camera follows the exact path of a bullet. Her visits to the picket line have deepened her appreciation of the show, inspiring her to check out Web sites like imdb.com to learn more about the writers she is meeting. She now thinks of them as "real people" who value her efforts to support the strike. "You can come down here, they’re nice, they talk," she says.

Some fans support the strike from far-flung locales. Jill Davidson sits at home in Memphis, Tenn., and tends to the needs of a group dear to her heart: the writers of the hit CBS television show "Criminal Minds." Ms. Davidson uses a fan Web blog she created, criminalmindsfanatic.blogspot.com, to drum up support for the group she calls "my writers." She runs online auctions to benefit the show’s crew, recently selling a poster signed by all the writers for $607.78, and a can of beef stew — a nod to a plotline involving body parts in stew — for $250.

Fans planning to visit L.A. are eager to be respectful. A Web site, fans4writers.com, offers an FAQ rundown on how to behave on the picket line. It advises that it is acceptable to ask writers to pose for pictures but probably not a good idea to collect autographs. "We don’t want to have it turn into a convention," says Adam Levermore-Rich, a San Francisco publicist who helped draft the tips.

Lisa Gerry, a Web-site designer in Long Beach, Calif., and the Web master for a fan site about the show "Moonlight," has even opened her home to fans who need a place to crash, although so far nobody has taken her up on the offer. She adores the show, she says, because "there are no angsty teenagers." On Wednesday, she and her son made the latest of several pizza drops at Moonlight’s Warner Bros. picket line. (See http://www.moonlightline.com/.)

Now, some of the writers are beginning to see how their fans can be put to use. On Friday, fans of Joss Whedon, the creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel," are descending on the Fox studios to show their support for writers. Brenda Lawhorn of Cincinnati, Ohio, is flying to Los Angeles to attend. (See more on the fan site http://whedonesque.com/.)

"It’s basically walking arm in arm, elbow to elbow, holding picket signs, just like them," she says. Heward Powell-Jones, a fan from Essex, England, is flying in for the event, too. "We’re very aware that the picket is to support the writers, not for us to get autographs and socialize," he says.

For some, visiting the picket is as simple as stepping outside the office. On Tuesday morning, Emily Silver, a production assistant at Paramount Pictures, ran out with cookies and fruit for the opportunity to meet Jane Espenson, a writer whose credits include "Battlestar" and "Buffy." "You and Joss [Whedon] are my heroes," she squealed. Ms. Espenson answered her questions about a past "Buffy" episode and posed for a photo with her. (See more on Ms. Espenson at http://janeespenson.com/.)

The writers must walk a fine line, however. If they get into discussions on future plot lines or agree to take a look at a script, they could open themselves up to legal trouble if an aspiring writer should decide that a subsequent episode seems too much like his or her own idea.

"You have to be a little guarded with that stuff," says Seamus Fahey, a "Battlestar" writer. "You should probably just talk about the [Star] Trek years, or episodes we’ve already done."