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Wanted: decent female characters for long-term relationship with writers
“Jane is simultaneously beautiful yet plain, assertive yet vulnerable, and strangely charismatic for a woman who has very little to say.” “Tara is a gently hysterical, workaholic drone – a highly...
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A prostitute in a library or a pregnant woman with an AK47: What exactly are...
“Something must be done,” people on stage are saying to people in the audience who are saying it back to them. I’m at a post-show discussion. It follows twelve short plays aiming to depict women in new...
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Writing Soaps: Can anyone do it?
“Soap operas are rubbish. Anyone can write them.” People are often saying things like this. However, viewing figures for soaps and medical dramas – as some should actually be called – are regularly far...
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Tackling Issues or Talking About Issues: Scripts at the Edinburgh Festival
At this year’s Edinburgh Festival I’ve seen over 100 plays, written up 82 of them as reviews for The Scotsman (which you can read here if you like) and heard about lots more which sound interesting...
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How to get an agent: Advice for writers
“They’ve probably given my script to the receptionist to read,” I once heard a writer say after sending his work to an agent. He was right. I was that receptionist, and his script, along with many...
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What is the point of feedback – and how should writers deal with it?
The most recent BBC Script Room deadline has passed and at some point over the coming months around 5% of you who sent in scripts will be getting feedback from us script readers. And, unless you’re one...
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How to become a successful writer – and get paid
“Are you quite sure you want to write for television? Well, of course you do. You are stuck in the endless tedium of an office, factory or behind the kitchen sink.” This is how Eric Paice’s 1981 book...
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What qualifies us to be script readers?
People are often asking what qualifies us to read their scripts. Why are we script readers for the BBC Writersroom and not you, or someone else? Have we been to university? Do we have nine GCSEs at...
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Should writers ever give up?
“Never give up” is the kind of thing you often hear people say, whether it’s Sylvester Stallone in Rocky Balboa, Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness or someone who likes your script but not enough...
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Enthusiasm, Brent Forrester and the 344 bus
“Sally Stott is more enthusiastic than experienced… and probably isn’t being paid very much.” This is what someone who is very experienced and not especially enthusiastic said about me when I first...
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My trip to UCLA, California
When I was 21 I was pretty sure that I would win an Oscar, probably by the time I was 25. This never happened. However, it does still sometimes lead to conversations with people I haven’t seen for a...
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Seven ways to become a Hollywood screenwriter
In 2001, I was lucky enough to go and study at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Televisionin Westwood, Los Angeles. The campus, which was bigger than most towns I’d been to at the time, was like...
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What’s Funny? An Update from the BBC Writersroom Comedy Script Room (May 2015)
Dave sits typing at his computer in the dusty, corporate grey of an open-plan office staring into space. He wishes he was writing a script, but instead he’s doing something monotonous and soul...
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Thanks but no thanks: how writers deal with rejection (June 2015)
It was 10.30am and Dave had been typing the number seven into Excel for the past three hours. He was wondering if his fingers or the keyboard would be the first to break, when an email arrived: “Thank...
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