We're going to be relaunching the site shortly... and we'd like you to help.
Do you have a favourite quote about writing that you'd like other people to know about?
If so, email it to us at [email protected], and we'll add it to the list of inspiring quotes for the site.
Can't really put this one in the opportunities page, as it's not primarily aimed at writers. But it's well worth knowing about.
Fortunately we have a blog for just such an eventuality.
The Wellcome Trust is an independent charity which funds research to improve human and animal health. It's got a fund of about £13 billion, and is the UK's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research.
More importantly, they also fund art, providing it has some kind of biomedical scientific input. Including creative writing and film-making.
They prefer funding requests from organisations, but it may be possible to gain funding as an individual.
Anyhow. You can find out more about how to apply here.
Part of the process of developing a programme idea is an endless series of conversations about what “works”. Does it work to set the whole series in a coffin? Does it work to tell the whole story in flashbacks? Or (in my case) does it work to have a lead character who only speaks Bulgarian?
The problem is, to paraphrase William Goldman, no one has a clue what works until the programme gets made. To remind myself of this I find it sort of therapeutic to think of successful TV programmes of the past and list the reasons why they could never possibly work:
THE OFFICE. No one wants to come home from a boring office job and watch other people do boring office jobs on television. It won’t work.
FRASIER. The two main characters are a pompous intellectual psychiatrist and his brother, who is also a pompous intellectual psychiatrist. There is no conflict. Therefore it won’t work.
THE WEST WING. It’s people talking far too quickly about details of the US legislative process. It is impossible to follow. It won’t work.
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS. It is about a sponge. It won’t work.
If anyone raised those objections at the time, they’ve shut up about them now. A few years ago, I was on a train and overheard a conversation between two electricians about a TV drama they were working on. The drama was about a policeman who is hit by a car and wakes up in 1973, not knowing whether he is dreaming or not. I thought it was pretty much the stupidest idea I had ever heard.
Phew - what a busy couple of weeks! I’ve missed a blog entry somewhere along the line. I’ve been in the writer’s fug where I wander aimlessly from room to room wondering what it was I was looking for .. my daughter asks what’s for tea and I answer .. FBC’s U’s and E’s and 4 pints cross match please…
Writing a treatment sets up an incredible amount of tension in my head and I can’t unwind until I’ve broken its back and got it on the table as it were. Then there’s the question of my episode music - not what music to put into the episode, but what play list to construct for when I’m writing the piece. I don’t write to music all the time - sometimes only silence will do, but mostly whilst editing or mulling over, I’ll choose music for my ep. My first Holby episode was written to a play list of Johnny Cash mostly. I like a bit of JC, I’m no country fan - but the music was apt - the A story was about a drunk nurse who finds her way to AA. The title of the episode “Dust Off Your Wings” was taken from the song To Live Is To Fly as sung by Johnny Cash as I tapped away at the laptop keys. My current Holby is being written to Talking Heads. My Casualty is finally being proofed to 50’s teen exploitation ditties (I was a teenage juvenile delinquent rock and roll horror type jive).
My Casualty is almost done. I have to come up with a title today. Usually this isn’t a huge problem and the title finds its way to the top of the page either from some dialogue or song. This time I’m struggling a bit, mostly because the titles I’ve come up with so far are a little outrageous or simply far too long. I like long titles for things, but I guess the Radio Times listings people wouldn’t thank me. I wonder how many people watching these shows take any notice of the titles thought up by the writers. At the Academy we were encouraged to title our Eastenders episodes - which I did do, despite these titles not appearing on the credits. Giving it name helps focus your themes.
And talking of names - I got a brief email this morning from Casualty explaining that a new character they’re introducing will have to undergo a name change and from now on will be known as “Y” instead of “X”. A trifling thing I hear you say, use the ‘find / change’ option .. after all, what’s in a name? Well, I’ve just spent 3 months writing a story for “X” as spoken by “X” and to suddenly call her “Y” just feels wrong wrong! Not only that, I’ve included a fair bit of word play around this characters name .. now substituting “Y” just doesn’t quite work. My editor is on the case. She’s in a meeting as we speak. Bless her.
I do think a script editor’s ability to read through all my words and simply know which ones can go in the trash is nothing short of amazing. I mentioned in my last blog that my Casualty script was too long and that I’d administered some cuts, well not enough it seems. My editor told me gently yesterday that I was in fact still 10 minutes over.
That’s an awful lot of words! People give me that awestruck look when I say I’m writing a Holby episode, ‘Wow,’ they say, ‘That’s a whole 60 minutes, no ad breaks, that’s tough.’ Well - no not really, I could probably fill a whole 90 minutes and still have some scenes up my sleeve.
I’m not succinct.
I use lots of words when two will do. I enjoy words. It’s not just dialogue either - stage directions can end up mini novels in my hands. Academy Boss used to complain about the amount of paper his printer had to spit out to accommodate my homework efforts..
So, for my editor to have found 8 pages worth of cuts for my Casualty ep was music to my ears. I sat down with a little trepidation to see exactly which priceless lines of scintillating dialogue she was suggesting I cut. But she’s found all the little excess lines and beats that, although pleasant, don’t move the story along much. It wasn’t half as painful as I’d thought it might be. I’ve cut a couple of scenes, lost a character, swapped some lines over and still the thing makes sense.
I’m going to see some filming of Casualty soon - they were location spotting this week. I’ll need to buy some wellies I think, and a warm coat..
I’ve a Holby treatment meeting this week - a little daunting. This is where I’ll see if my ideas for this ep are holding together or if I’ll have to ditch Talking Heads for Alabama 3, say.
Thanks to our pals at Kudos and writer Neil Cross , we now have the script for episode one of the new series in our script archive.
John Malkovich has a new laptop.
Whoopee.
Where it gets interesting to readers of this blog, is that there's a writing competition attached.
Kinda-sorta.
If you visit the John's Funky Laptop website (or whatever they've called it) and choose "Online Script Project" on the top left, you'll get details of how to write the next couple of pages of a script, the first couple of pages of which were written by Mr Malkovich his own self.
Then there's voting, and the winner each month gets feedback from Mister M.
Er. That's it.
Still, it's writing practice. And, hey! John Malkovich!
I'd link there directly, only the marketing wretches who created the site built the competition-bit so that it can only be accessed via Flash. So I can't.
But, y'know. Thought it was worth mentioning.
Danny Stack has recently been reading a lot of scripts for the Red Planet screenwriting competition.
And he's noticed that a lot of them start the same way.
So if you want to stand out from the pack, go read his list of common ways to begin a spec script.
And then do something different with yours.
Stephen Poliakoff is one of the UK's most respected writers, with television plays including Friends and Crocodiles, Gideon's Daughter, Shooting the Past, and multiple Emmy-winner The Lost Prince.
BBC writersroom in association with The Royal Court Theatre are holding an open and free event on the 19 November 2007 where Stephen will talk with Kate Rowland, the BBC's Creative Director of New Writing, about his work, including his new linked pieces for BBC One and BBC Two Joe's Palace and Capturing Mary.
The event starts at 5pm. You can book your place by calling the Royal Court Box Office on 020 7565 5000, or find out more about the event here.
My schedule has gone out the window this week. I’ve only just sat down and watched last Saturday’s Casualty (goodbye Josh, I’ll miss you). I’m not beholden to some fancy Soap tracking device that reads my mind and tapes my progs in my absence, I have to load the disc burner and remember to programme it. Now back at my writing table I have two separate piles of papers vying for my attention. Holby need my guest pitches in, Casualty need to see my finished draft 3. So I’ll watch some telly instead…
The Holby guest pitches are almost done. This is a very delicate stage of the CD journey - I have to want to tell these stories and tell them in a novel way, they’ll need nurturing and encouragement (tiny seeds into big strong oaks..). My editor does this job incredibly well, he enthuses and suggests tweaks that will merely strengthen my ideas, not change them irredeemably (it’s an art, this ability to illicit changes whilst leaving the writer in no doubt that it was her idea in the first place...).
These guest stories are going to have to play well against the serial element in the episode and support and illustrate the regular’s dilemma/journey. It’s no use me pitching the fascinating medical story I’ve been burning to tell for three years if it doesn’t help the serial storyline. Tough. These shows are by and large, about the regular characters - Charlie, Harry, Tess, Elliot, Connie et al. Their story arcs are largely out of my hands unless I have some input in the story conferences that happen a couple of times a year. Other people write these serial stories - I illustrate them through my particular episode with my particular voice. It’s not an easy thing to do.
If the guest stories grow organically from reading story document, and a theme raises it’s head to connect all parties, then I’m usually on to a winner - the writerly part of me knows what has to be done and where the story should go. Sometimes it can be a real struggle, especially if your subtle and clever story is remarkably similar to one broadcast last week..
My Holby guest pitches will hopefully be signed off this week and I’ll be asked to write the Treatment.
Casualty feels almost done. My draft 2 was scrutinised by many bods in the Bristol Warehouse and as a consequence I had a nice bundle of notes to sift through to get to draft 3 stage. Some notes are simple - a suggested line change or cut (most often from the medics who know better than to call a piece of medical equipment an oojimaflip..). Whilst other notes take a bit more deciphering - just what is this person trying to tell me?
It’s important to remember notes are only suggestions, I don’t have to act on them. Any of them. And all changes are open for discussion. It’s important to have integrity and do the right thing by my script. If a writer is being pushed into a particular direction with a story and every sinew of the writer is resisting, then something is wrong. Sometimes a writer and her script has to part company if things are going badly awry for either parties. I haven’t yet been in this position, but no doubt it’ll happen one day.
Have I mentioned the Mac / PC page count discrepancy? I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I love it when a plan comes together - like for example submitting a script 98 pages long when the suggested script length is 100 pages. So why were all the editors asking me to cut .. cut .. cut ..? More cuts please, you’ve come in ‘over’. It was doing my head in (although to be honest, there are so many variables - page count is merely a guide…).
Typing a script in Final Draft on a Mac is ever so slightly different from typing a script in Final Draft on a PC, about 10% different apparently. For every 98 pages I produce on my Mac, once on a PC it will translate to 108 pages. Aarrgh! Now I have to incorporate maths into my script writing ..
I had to cut 6 - 8 pages from my Casualty 2nd draft.
This. Is. So. Hard.
When every line counts … when all the stories wrap up so nicely … when every joke is the best one yet …
I managed it though, and boy - was it satisfying!
Ok blog readers, now’s your chance to see some work I’ve penned. My (first ever) episode of Holby City will be on your telly boxes next Tuesday 13th November 8.00pm. Enjoy.
Paraphrasing wikipedia “A soap opera is an ongoing, episodic work of fiction… with an open-ended narrative often following the lives of a group of characters who live or work in a particular place.”
For many of us, soap can become cliched and dramatically unengaging ... On those occasions when a soap genuinely does rise above its own premise and engage you dramatically, it's almost always down to the quality of the writing.
And so it is with Deadwood. I missed it the first time around and had heard rumours of its dark qualities for some time so I got the first series on DVD to see what all the fuss was about. HBO have been changing the definition of what constitutes good television drama for a number of years now and Deadwood continues this tradition. It is extraordinary. The single darkest and most savagely compelling piece of dramatic television I have ever seen. And essentially it’s a soap! Storylines weave through several episodes, the focus shifts from character to character, there are no easy resolutions and the pace is pedestrian but you are drawn inexorably into the impossibly corrupt world of this fledgling community on the edge of civilisation.
The phenomenal amount of swearing and violence may not be to everyone’s tastes, and there are occasions when it can be difficult to watch, but I cannot remember seeing anything so magnetic, brutal and honest in a long time. Ian McShane is clearly having the time of his life trashing his Lovejoy past in the character of the intensely charismatic but utterly amoral Al Swearengen. He even manages to beat Malcolm from the Thick of It for the most inventive swearer ever on the small screen and his savage humour flashes across the darkest of episodes. This incessant darkness makes the occasional glimpse of warmth and humanity that breaks through all the more beautiful however and there are moments that will touch the hardest of hearts.
The show’s creator and chief writer David Milch (who also created NYPD Blue with Steven Bochco) has clearly assembled a superb team of writers and the coruscating scripts and superbly defined characters barely miss a beat. I cannot wait to get stuck into season 2 and would recommend this to anyone who wants to see what a soap opera can really achieve.
