The Drama Script Room Results

The last of the Drama Script Room 2017 reports have been written and it has been a bumper crop of scripts this year.

If you are interested in the stats 3797 scripts were sent to us. Every single one of those had the first 10 pages read, of those 501 were then read up to 30 pages. 140 scripts then received a full read and script report. Of those, 33 have been recommended for the BBC Writersroom producers to read. They will then discuss and debate who to invite for interview, and then agree who will participate in the up and coming Drama Room 2017 development programme. It really is a rigorous process.

If you did submit to Drama Script Room you'll be receiving an email in the next few weeks telling you how far your script progressed (emails for scripts that were rejected at the 10-page read have already been sent). If you were not successful please don’t be disheartened, whilst this may be of no comfort at all, it is true to say that all the readers commented on the exceptionally high standard of submissions this year. There were a lot of strong, competent scripts from writers who clearly know their craft - and quite possibly in any other given year would have made it through – but this year, for whatever reason, the high volume of well-written scripts made the sifting process very difficult.

In order to shortlist, all the readers were very focused in finding new VOICES - that nebulous x-factor that's hard to describe but we know it when we see it. Voice is everything to BBC Writersroom. More important than formatting, structure and punctuation (although we love those too). In its simplest terms, our readers were looking for scripts featuring VOICE i.e. why YOU wrote THIS STORY, NOW.

Broadly speaking, the readers were looking for the voices which offered something relevant yet personal, displayed consistent clarity of style and intention, featured elements of characterisation which were exceptionally fine-tuned or opportunities to surprise were successfully exploited. The readers were looking for voices which resisted functional dialogue and familiar characters and plotting; instead being drawn to the voices which really sweated the small stuff - and by that we mean the detail – because it's in the detail that a unique voice is heard, a story cuts through, a new world beckons, a character grabs us. (See? Nebulous).

All writers have voices of course; it just takes time to carve out your right voice. If your script wasn’t successful, who’s to say your next script won't punch through, or the one after that? Many of the writers on our Drama Room 2016 scheme had submitted to BBC Writersroom previously. Maybe next year your voice will holler the loudest. 

However far you got in the process, thank you for submitting to BBC Writersroom Drama Script Room 2017.

Please keep submitting.

From everyone at BBC Writersroom

(Get some more detailed feedback and advice from the script readers in this blog post)