Doctors: My inspiration for the stalker plot

If the GCHQ ever took an interest in my internet search history, they would be very alarmed.

Recent searches have involved how best to dispose of a corpse, how to traffic a baby for illegal adoption and, most recently, where best to install surveillance cameras.

That’s because as the storyliner on Doctors it’s my job to write pretty much everything that will happen to our regular characters on the show across the year.

If I ever sit down and think about how many episodes there are in any given year, how many clean white pages will need to be filled with drama, intrigue, conflict and comedy my head starts to spin.

I tend never to do that.

Fortunately I don’t work alone. Roughly once a month I meet with my lovely colleagues and we spend a day kicking ideas around.

Sometimes those ideas are kicked right out of the window but usually even a crazy left field idea has the germ of a good story in it.

One of our major storylines unfolding on BBC One over the last month has been the Jas and Al stalking story.

This story grew from my overhearing a casual conversation over coffee about the topless photographs of Kate, Duchess of Cambridge at our long term story conference.

Those particular circumstances were different because while the Duchess was photographed unawares, she wasn’t stalked as such.

I got thinking about intrusion and immediately saw potential for Jas to be in a situation where her privacy was invaded. But who should the perpetrator be…?

I did a lot of research about stalking and how it’s done in the internet age (sobering stuff) but the most challenging aspect of writing this story was that we wanted it to be a slow burn.

Stalking is gradual by its very nature and many of the most satisfying soap storylines develop over a long period of time.

However, a story that unfolds by increments can be very challenging to write. Every incident, no matter how trivial, needs its own fully formed story with plot development and consequences.

The balance needs to be found where the story in each episode is sufficiently small to be just one piece of the jigsaw yet satisfying in its own right and significant enough to be memorable when rubbing shoulders with the medical story of the day.

Another challenge in this story was finding ways to prevent characters from talking to one another and exposing the truth. Secrets and misunderstandings are the fuel of a good serial storyline.

One thing I can tell you about storylining meetings is that you get to know your colleagues very well indeed and whenever anyone tells you an embarrassing story about something that happened to ‘a friend’, you know that really it happened to them.

The school playground is also dynamite for storylines and I’m always amazed by how happy strangers are to spill the details of their life (especially to a self-declared soap storyline writer) – it’s very true that the school gate is the new village pump.

The truth is stranger than fiction and we often can’t run true stories because they just don’t feel credible.

I am usually writing storylines around six months ahead of transmission so I always write Christmas in high summer – sometimes I even hang some tinsel around my monitor to get into the Christmas spirit.

When the story document is finally written and approved it is given to the episodic writers and script editors who match their chunk of my serial with their own medical story of the day.

And then each individual episode is born.

Every aspect of my job is collaborative and I love seeing my stories evolve in the hands of these writers and then be interpreted again by actors and directors.

And then my job’s done – except for the next white page and then the next 10 blocks of storylines that need to be written…

Loretta Preece is a storyliner on Doctors.

Doctors is on every weekday at 1.45pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. The climax to the stalker storyline will be in episode 91 on Friday, 6 September. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on Doctors

Digital Spy - Doctors' Vineeta Rishi: 'More twists ahead for Jas stalker plot'

Digital Spy - Doctors' Ian Midlane talks Al, Jas stalker mystery

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.