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In 1984, director [[Rob Reiner]], producer Andrew Scheinman, and writer [[Nora Ephron]] met over lunch at the [[Russian Tea Room]] in New York City to develop a project.<ref name="keyser">{{cite news | title=It's Love at the box office for ''Harry Met Sally...'' | work=[[The Washington Times]] | date=July 25, 1989 | last=Keyser | first=Lucy}}</ref> Reiner pitched an idea for a film that Ephron rejected.<ref name="dvd1">{{cite news | title=It All Started Like This | publisher=[[20th Century Fox]] | work=When Harry Met Sally... Collector's Edition DVD | year=2008}}</ref> The second meeting transformed into a long discussion about Reiner and Scheinman's lives as single men. Reiner remembers, "I was in the middle of my single life. I'd been divorced for a while. I'd been out a number of times, all these disastrous, confusing relationships one after another."<ref name="weber">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/09/movies/film-can-men-and-women-be-friends.html | title=Can Men and Women Be Friends? | work=[[The New York Times]] | date=July 9, 1989 | access-date=September 23, 2007 | last=Weber | first=Bruce | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091101095514/http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/09/movies/film-can-men-and-women-be-friends.html | archive-date=November 1, 2009 | url-status=live }}</ref> The next time they all met, Reiner said that he had always wanted to do a film about two people who become friends and do not have sex because they know it will ruin their relationship but have sex anyway. Ephron liked the idea, and Reiner acquired a deal at a studio.<ref name= "keyser"/>
For materials, Ephron interviewed Reiner and Scheinman about their lives, creating the basis for Harry. Reiner was constantly depressed and pessimistic yet funny. Ephron also got bits of dialogue from these interviews. Sally was based on Ephron and some of her friends.<ref name= "keyser"/> She worked on several drafts over the years while Reiner made ''[[Stand by Me (film)|Stand by Me]]'' (1986) and ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]'' (1987).<ref name= "dvd1"/> Billy Crystal "experienced vicariously" Reiner's (his best friend at the time) return to single life after divorcing comedian/filmmaker [[Penny Marshall]] and in the process was unconsciously doing research for the role of Harry.<ref name= "keyser"/> [[Tom Hanks]], [[Richard Dreyfuss]], [[Michael Keaton]] and [[Albert Brooks]] were all offered the role of Harry Burns but all of them turned it down, with Brooks feeling the movie was too reminiscent of [[Woody Allen]]'s work.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.vulture.com
During the screenwriting process when Ephron did not feel like writing, she would interview people who worked for the production company. Some of the interviews appeared in the film as the interludes between certain scenes featuring couples talking about how they met,<ref name= "keyser"/> although the material was rewritten and reshot with actors. Ephron supplied the structure of the film with much of the dialogue based on the real-life friendship between Reiner and Crystal.<ref name="lacey">{{cite news | title=Pals make "buddy picture" | work=[[The Globe and Mail]] | date=July 15, 1989 | last=Lacey | first=Liam}}</ref> For example, the scene depicting Sally and Harry in split-screen conversing with each other by telephone and simultaneously watching television and channel surfing was something that Crystal and Reiner did every night.<ref name= "lacey"/>
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