I am starting to make better progress with my TV script - though only 6 days to the rearranged deadline. I had a heartstopping moment this morning when the file I have been working on wouldn't open - in fact the Final Draft software which I work on seemed to have crashed completely. I forwarded the file to another computer, where it did open, but a whole scene that I had written last week had disappeared. Surely I had saved it. And if not the autosave feature should have seen to it. I felt a bit sick in my mouth. It wasn't a total disaster, but with looming deadlines and so much else to do this was the last thing I needed.
Luckily back on the first computer I fiddled about a bit and managed to open Final Draft and discovered that I had saved the recent work under a different name. So I had lost nothing except fifteen minutes of my day.
And whilst I didn't get too much actually written today it felt like I made some headway with the characters and where the script was going. I don't like to plan too much when writing a longer piece, but to start at the beginning and then work forward chronologically. In this way, hopefully, the plot will be more realistic and include surprises that even I was not anticipating (like life). I often feel watching comedy that the writer has started at the end with a big gag and then worked backwards in order to make that happen, or that everything is plotted so tightly that the piece becomes unrealistic or predictable. I like to see what occurs to me as I am going and to discover the comedy and the drama in a more organic fashion. This is though, I think, why it takes me a while to get going sometimes. Sometimes when you're doing this you will get an idea for something later in the script (today I pretty much solidified in my mind what one of the last couple of scenes would entail), and of course, once the script is finished I will draft and redraft and tweak things so that an action will lead more sweetly to its consequence. And really, in my opinion, the real skill of getting a drama right is to fully understand, inhabit and empathise with your characters. And it's only when you have worked out who they are that you can set them spinning and see where they end up. So it's not a matter of blindly launching into writing (as the last 3 months have clearly demonstrated), but mulling over what will make the drama happen. And yet even then as you get into the writing, new aspects of the character will be discovered and changes will be made.
I think it's fair to say that too many script commissioners are looking for an exciting new situation or job for a drama, when in fact the success of most shows is down to the characterisation. This is what will give a project longevity.
I think many writers would be appalled at my lackadaisical approach to the job, but I suppose what I like most about it is that if you don't overplan then you can surprise yourself with what happens. And if the writer is surprised, there is a good chance the viewer will be too. And as life is improvised, rather than planned, unless you believe we are all characters in a drama being written by God (or maybe it's more like a Mike Leigh piece where God has devised the characters, but then we, the actors, get on with it and create the drama).
I think ultimately though I am just a bit of a lazy sod and a chancer. I can't believe I haven't managed to get further with the script. Some days it feels like an impossibly difficult challenge and then others (like today) it feels achievable. I think the stability of now being at home (even if I am gigging in the evenings) is helping focus my mind. Although the Edinburgh show is a bit of a distraction.
Hope you enjoyed my useless writer's masterclass. If you follow my technique you too might have had the phenomenal success I have had at getting scripts commissioned and then not made.
