With fellow alumni of Florida State University who were starting a theater company, Swicord wrote and helped produce two plays. An agent named Merrily Kane who saw one of the plays asked Swicord if she had considered writing for film. Swicord gave her a script called "Stock Cars for Christ", which was sold to MGM, a job that required that she move to Los Angeles. Although the project was never produced, at MGM she was mentored by Lynn Arost, an MGM development executive who Swicord said gave her the experience and time during which she taught herself the craft of rewriting scripts. Another early mentor was Susan Froemke, an editor who often worked with the Maysles Brothers.