This thing I'm writing... what the hell is it, exactly?

I'm glad to end the radio silence of the last week or two; there was a good reason for it - I was hard at work on my series pilot, which I'm planning to enter into the Red Planet competition. In fact, I don't know why I'm being so coy about it: it's called Life Support, it's a 6 x 60 minute contemporary drama TV series and it's one of those thingummy types of one that there isn't a proper term for, or at least not one I know.

I recently met up with a bunch of writers and bloggers for a few drinks in that London. I canvassed opinions then, and no one there could think of a convincing moniker either. This is my personal view on how the categories break down:

Soap (Coronation Street, Eastenders, Emmerdale) - in it's purest form a soap opera has a group of characters, each of whom will take the protagonist role in a running plot line, several of which will be running at one time, overlapping, and they'll never all end at the same time. Programme runs till it gets canned (and if they see it coming far enough in advance there might be closure, like Brookside or Eldorado managed). There are no guest protagonists coming in for one or more episodes. Corrie occasionally doles out guest roles for multiple episodes (e.g. Ian McKellan's stint) but they won't be protagonist of a plot in the same way as the guest(s) of the week in a Casualty episode.

Precinct drama (Holby City, Casualty, The Bill in most of its incarnations) - has running soap plots for its main cast ongoing, but also has guest protagonists coming in for an episode or more. These guest plots might well reflect on or complicate a main character's ongoing soap plot. Can be running all year round, or can run in series with breaks, like Heartbeat for example.

Drama series (Bonekickers, Ashes to Ashes, Doctor Who) - do often tell one loose story over a series, or one story over all their series, but each episode stands on its own merit, more or less. Might have guest protagonists, but will definitely have one or more regular main characters. Obviously it's a broad spectrum - some series' episodes will be more self-contained than others.

Series where one year's run equals a serial (The Wire, 24) - special case of the above, quite popular nowadays. Each episode of a series can't be taken on it's own, but there's closure for some plots every year, and something of a jumping on point at the beginning of any new series. Some UK drama series are experimenting with this form for their latest runs (Torchwood, Spooks).

Anthology Series (Tales of the Unexpected, The Twilight Zone) - Diametrically opposite to a soap, I suppose. No running protagonist, new guest plot every week. Not that fashionable on British television at the moment. Unless I've forgotten a really obvious example, which I might well have done. I'll kick msyelf, I'm telling you...

Drama serials (Criminal Justice, Burn Up). One off multi-episode dramas. Could be multi-protagonist, but is the most likely of any of these to be single protagonist, as they are generally shorter and more focused.

Telenovella (the original Ugly Betty) - a long serial with soap style plots for its protagonists, but it eventually will come to a definite end.

But what I'm writing isn't exactly any of these. It's another type of beast, something like The Street, currently, or historically Boys from The Blackstuff as well as many others. It's a series of linked, sole protagonist episodes, based around a connected group of people, one of whom is centre-stage each week. The leads of other episodes might be in the other stories, substantially, or as walk-ons, or not there at all (in Life Support, I've taken the decision that they will all appear in every episode, the continuation of their individual plots still hinted at in the background.)

So, what I'm writing isn't totally unprecedented (phew! I'd be worried if it were) but what's it called? Is there an industry or academic standard term? The best the London Meet could come up with is Character Anthology, but that doesn't encapsulate the connectedness of the protagonists. And does it really matter? Suggestions to the usual address.

Everyone's a Critic

I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes 'Bonekickers'. I've watched four of the episodes so far (not last night's yet), and read a lot of hostile reviews on the internet and some in the press too. But I love it. I thought I was missing something obvious that was wrong with what seems to me to be a fun adventure series. But I've asked other people (a lot of them writers, but some normal people as well) and they were all positive about it. And it's figures have been pretty solid, too.

The latest copy of the Radio Times (I buy it for the articles) has a piece laying into the series by their TV editor - and presumably no relation to Matthew or Julie - Alison Graham. (Oh, Alison Graham. My mother taught me that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all, so here's my thoughts about Alison Graham: .) She trots out examples of the show's 'terrible' dialogue, such as "Don't mess with me, I'm an archaeologist". Excuse me? Isn't that line, well, fab?! Maybe it's just me.

This all got me thinking about critical reactions in general. I remember asking Matthew Graham when I met him at the BBC writers' room event whether he was still (or ever?) brave enough to visit any 'Life on Mars' online forums. The worst he'd ever spotted was someone claiming he should "die" for something he'd done in a LoM script. He stopped looking upon finding that. I didn't ask what had prompted this reaction, but this was on a fan site for goodness sake. With fans like that...

Still, Matt can take anything in his stride: he had earlier told a very funny anecdote at that same session about having a very famous producer feign a heart attack during a recent pitch he'd done(his reaction - to persevere to the very end of the pitch, as the guy might think it got better, you never know).

I don't know if I'd be able to resist taking a peek if it were me, though. And I'd probably be paralysed with fear an unable to write for weeks upon seeing the first page of bile. God bless the internet. Luckily I've worked mostly in UK film, so my work is generally unmade and/or unseen. God bless the British Film Industry. So double kudos to Piers for putting up his recent short film Fatal online, for all to see and form an opinion upon. Go see it, and comment if you like, but try to be polite and constructive. Spewing forth rabid reviews online or in the pages of the RT does not necessarily equate to having discerning taste.

Delete As Applicable

After having been working, then having my son's second birthday party, then being ill, then going to a screenwriting festival, being ill again, sleeping for an entire weekend to recover from said festival, then working again... this weekend just gone was my first chance to get a power unit for my PC. But I didn't.

This means I can't yet load up photos to do Jason's meme (I'm not sure of the verb here, does one 'do' a meme?) but I will in due time.

The reason for not fixing the computer, aside from sheer laziness, is that it's forcing me to fill lots of notebooks with longhand about my Red Planet entry TV series idea - character biogs, back-story, episode ideas, and so on. Despite a strong urge to do so, I can't fire up Final Draft and start typing a script. And because I don't trust my sense of discipline, I am holding off from fixing the computer for a bit to keep it that way.

This, if you don't recognise it, is part of Robert McKee's method. Predictably, McKee took a few verbal beatings in different sessions at the Screenwriters' Festival, but I like his book 'Story' - it has some useful practical advice, and it's clear and well-argued with good examples. I also loved the lampooning of some of his excesses in 'Adaptation' too. As, I'm pretty sure, did McKee himself.

I don't agree with anyone who says 'Don't read any of the screenwriting manuals'. Read them all: Vogler, Field, Parker, etc., etc. All of them. And ignore them all if you want, or ignore bits of them, and use other bits.

None of them holds a secret or formula, but I think a lot of (probably old school and self-taught) writers worry that youngsters are going to be unduly influenced by these texts, and write too predictably. But let me tell you this: if you read anything and take it all at face value and never question it - you will never be a good writer anyway. That's our job, isn't it? To question everything, to pull at the seams of the visible and obvious and discover what's hidden. Why should it be any different just because we're reading a book about screenwriting?

And anyone who thinks McKee offers easy options has not read his book. It proposes research, thorough, thorough research on all aspects of the world of your story, trying out various options and discarding them to insure you are not slipping into cliches. For a feature, I think he advises a minimum of four months amassing material before typing so much as a 'FADE IN'.

Whether this is a good idea or not is entirely up to you. But I always find my work is better the more prep I do, and the more notebooks I fill up beforehand. Of course, I'm planning out an 8 x 60 minute series and I only have two months. But that's deadlines for you.

It is possible to do too much research as well, I suppose: a whole room filled with books about Napoleon - that's just crazy/genius.

Thanks to Tony Jordan

I am currently working on a TV drama series outline for the first time. I've done pretty much every other kind of spec work - sketches, shorts, features, radio plays, sit coms, 2 x 90-minute part TV serials - but I haven't before sat down and planned out characters and story for 6 or more hours of popular drama.

I've been putting it off, I suppose - I've got a folder full of ideas, but it never seemed worth doing before. Until Tony Jordan told me to.

No one, I calculated, was going to commission a series from me until I'd done more sketches, shorts, features, radio plays, sit coms, etc. So, I felt my time was probably better invested elsewhere. But Tony Jordan just might. I saw that gleam in his eye during Cheltenham - he is just about crazy wonderful enough to produce a drama series by a newcomer.

So, it's worth doing now. But it always was, I think. As an exercise, it is very challenging - I am planning enough material for 4 or 5 movies, and I can literally feel myself becoming a better writer as I work to craft it all into a satisfying whole. So: thank you Tony, for the inspiration.

At the launch (read all about it in Lord Arnopp's jolly good write up here), Mister Jordan said something along the lines of 'Not many people will have a spec TV series ready in a drawer'. Whereupon I saw a number of people in the audience, most of whom I knew, visibly suppressing the urge to thrust up their hand and say 'Me sir, me sir! I've got loads'. And as I've said, even I have a stack of ideas. So, the question was: what to pick?

In a quiet moment at the festival (yes - there were a few quiet moments, believe it or not!) I took out pad and pen and wrote down every one of my series ideas. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, the sore throat, or the alcohol poisoning, but they were all shit. I couldn't see the legs in any of 'em. So, I have gone with something completely new that occurred to me, bit by bit, in the days following the festival and that I've been developing since. A gamble? Yeah, but it's all a gamble anyway. And I think Tony would approve.

Besides, the Red Planet prize, as fun and important as it is, is only one target. Realistically, I have to be prepared that only the first ten pages will get read. But I will have a pilot and series breakdown to continue working on and refining. So everyone's a winner. Hooray and - if I might be so bold - marvellous!

Cheltenham Screenwriting Festival: Dont's and Don'ts

Number 1: Don't lose your voice halfway through the proceedings. It makes networking more challenging.

Number 2: Don't neglect the unobvious activities available. Like playing croquet. I met just as many lovely people while playing croquet at the festival than I did at the specific networking events. Some would stop and look at the group of us with our mallets and say "Goodness, you're playing croquet", and friendship and career success would then swiftly ensue for all involved.

Number 3: Don't expect to be able to get a decent Martini within walking distance of the Golden Valley Roundabout in Cheltenham.

But that's enough negatives...

Hello there. It's taken me days to recover, but it was wonderful! Cheltenham 2008 is being covered on many many blogs, but I'll add my two-penneth here in overview, and then some anecdotes and notes over the next few posts. Some of the highlights for me were as follows:

* The Scribomeet Social on the first night. Thanks and kudos to Piers and Jason.

* The psychiatrist who interviewed Ronald Harwood and started one question with the statement (I paraphrase a little): "Screenwriters can be divided into those with mild Aspergers and those with dangerous Aspergers", which became a sort of catchphrase when I reported it back paraphrased (a lot) to various people who weren't at the session as "I'd like to ask the Oscar-winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood: why are you so mental?". Said shrink also told us that his wife had told him off for always watching (and I don't paraphrase at all) "those Nazi films".

* Stephen Woolley and Kevin Loader's informative session on producer/screenwriter working relations.

* Finding out that I fancy Kate Harwood, Head of Drama Series and Serials at the BBC, to a degree that makes me feel just a little bit ashamed. I don't know quite why.

* Witnessing Dan Turner lose his KFC virginity.

* Being sat behind Mike Leigh in one session, and realising he's soooo tiny, you could fit him in your pocket.

* Tony Jordan's wonderful stories - including a lot about playing solitaire when you're supposed to be writing, snot in computer keyboards, and being bored enough in his hotel room to watch "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang". And why not.

* Piers and I stealing the leftover biscuits from the Screen Agencies abandoned room, dispensing some (rather good) advice about screen agencies to someone who popped their head around the door, and finally escaping through the window.

* Jane Tranter bringing a tear to my eye by showing a BBC drama showreel that was so good it was emotional.

* Laura Mackie doing the same with judicious clips from shows like Cracker.

* Meeting TV's James Moran and then witnessing him, The Turner and The Arnopp create Horror sequel "The Exorcist - The Fifth". Coming to a cinema near you... well, one day. Maybe.

* Meeting so many wonderful people, some for the first time, and some for the first time since last year.

* The live pitching event, Croquet, Terry Pratchet, Nigel Planer, Marks and Gran (who were turning up for a day just as screenwriters wandering around, not even to be part of any particular session), The Birth of The Dark Arrow...

...I could go on and on. But I've leave it for another day. See you soon.

Job Done

Well, I've completed work on the latest and last draft of the feature I was working on, and now it will go off to live a new life, maybe hitting a screen near you sometime in the future.

So I find myself back to hustling for a gig again. There's still a short project on the go, and a huge number of spec scripts, some completed, some works in progress, some just glints in my eye. It's a wonderfully liberating feeling to be able to work on whatever you like (albeit only with pencil and paper at the moment - Gah!) and I'm looking forward to networking my socks off at the Screenwriters' Festival Cheltenham, which is where I will be for the next few days. I'm hoping they have some PCs available there, so I can update the blog with a few up-to-the-minute entries, but - if not - I'll see you in just under a week.

Oh, and thanks to all who contacted me with hints and advice about fixing my PC - it was much appreciated.

The Machine Stops

Gah! My home PC is dead. As a stone. Choir invisible. Lovely plumage the Norwegian Blue. Etc. Etc.

This leaves me in a horrible state of techno-angst. No Final Draft. No iPlayer. No podcasts. And all the screenwriting work I've ever done, I can't get at. I may have to revise my "backups are for wimps" policy. It now seems a bit macho to have been playing chicken with entropy.

It's probably just the power-unit going on the blink, but I am a hardware dunce and am not sure I want to risk someone as inept as me fitting a new one. And then it might not be the power unit. What if the hard drive is wiped? Gah!

I can update the blog from work, so expect more entries here until I get things fixed. This is my only portal left to the screenwriting world.

Actually, this gives me an idea for a story about over-reliance on technology, and the brave struggle of an inept character to live without the internet. But I'm going to have to write it in a pad. Like last century. Gah!