script advice newsletter – Spring

SCRIPT ADVICE – NEWSLETTER 08

·        Spring is here!

·        Story telling for Telly

·        Short Courses from SCRIPT ADVICE and other interesting stuff

WHAT THE SCRIPT FACTORY SAYS ABOUT SCRIPT ADVICE:

“We can heartily recommend Yvonne’s workshops – she unravels television like no one else! www.scriptfactory.co.uk

 

Find out if I can help you with your current project@
http://www.scriptadvice.co.uk
offering writers mentoring, training and script editing services in order to develop their work and talent. Please pass on this link to your fellow writers.

Or you can join SCRIPT ADVICE WRITERS ROOM@
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=237330119115&ref=mf

SAWR is all about writing and writers. Here you can share your thoughts about writing; the creative process, the highs and lows of it all. You can also access this group for information about writing workshops that I am currently running, also script editing and mentoring services that I offer. My expertise lies in Television drama but any writer is welcome to share their experiences and their aspirations here.

Or to see my newsletter online, access my Blog@http://www.scriptadvice.co.uk

SPRING IS HERE!

At long last I can see grass where formerly there was mud and the Magnolia is about to burst forth with such a gorgeousness of budding flowers that, typing this and looking out of the office window at the unfurling creaminess of each folded petal, I feel the urge to go all Robert Frost and wax lyrical about sap rising and the strangely lyrical sound of a wood pecker hammering the heck out of the oaks in the nearby wood.  It’s been a long winter but at long last the air smells like the soil is beginning to do it’s job and get stuff growing again, and in this vein of re-birth and new growth – on with SCRIPT ADVICE NEWSLETTER for SPRING!

STORY-TELLING FOR TELLY

If you have ever sat across the table in a restaurant, pub or bar, and listened to a long, boring, interminable, flat, dry, tale told in painstaking detail by a relative, friend or just someone whose chair leg is intertwined with yours, and found that you can not escape this hell because either a/ you are linked to this person by bloodline and gene pool or b/ you can not get past without taking their shin bone marrow with you, then you will no doubt agree with me, that telling a good story is a skill not everyone possesses.

And amazingly, the truth is, that this is even the case amongst writers.  The skill of telling an engaging, teasing, compelling narrative within the pages of a script and in scene form, with a beginning, middle and end which delivers a connective cohesion from the first scene to the last, is very much what the business of television story telling is all about and a particular craft that all writers wishing to get on in television, to pay their bills by writing and to ultimately get commissioned, should definitely get their heads around. Being creative and having a good idea is no longer enough. Being able to creative characters and write good dialogue is also a must, but having the confidence and skill to handle a layered narrative which rattles along and produces the pre-requisite peaks and troughs of an accurately timed television episode is where the real job lies.

Where can you learn this rigorous, exacting skill? Writing for series and soaps, that’s where. I firmly believe that once you have earned your stripes on programmes like EASTENDERS and HOLBY CITY you will be able to tackle absolutely any writing challenge you may meet in the future.

This is not to say (and I must stress this) that our series and soaps much loved by television audiences, are mere training grounds for writers, but they are, by nature of their format and disciplines, excellent arenas within which you can hone and develop your story-telling skills and where you will learn how to structure, pace and deliver a compelling episodic story which will be enjoyed by millions.

Soap-land is where great writers grow up.

Lisa Campbell from Industry Bible, Broadcast Magazine on the value of Soaps –  with which I heartily concur:

It may be going too far to suggest that without EastEnders there would be no King’s Speech, but director Tom Hooper is just one example of the scores of people who have worked on the BBC’s continuing dramas and honed their skills.

And it’s not just directors, writers, producers and commissioners; we can add Kate Winslet, Aaron Johnson and Orlando Bloom to the list.

So it is no doubt with some relief that the BBC greeted the largely positive findings in this week’s National Audit Office (NAO) report into the costs of producing continuing drama.

It showed that the cost per hour has tumbled by 20% over the past eight years at the same time as audience approval has increased – testament to the dedication of BBC in-house teams and the many freelancers who ensure that the continual squeeze in budgets hasn’t led to a continual decline in standards.

The Trust-commissioned report concluded that costs were tightly controlled, but – and it’s a big but – said it is impossible to tell whether the shows represent value for money. This was exactly our reaction when we saw the figures, which are published for the first time.

Without any context or comparisons, they are pretty meaningless. A 2010-11 budget of £29.8m for EastEnders – 3.5p per viewer – sounds like a bargain, but without any benchmark, without any figures from other broadcasters, how can we tell? I can’t see ITV rushing to provide the numbers for Corrie any time soon.

While the report made some sensible recommendations, the Trust has rightly rebutted one: that the series should have some ‘audience-related performance objectives’. This is exactly why bean-counters’ scrutiny of output sets creatives’ hackles rising.

While it is right to expect channels and genres to have key objectives, trying to apply them to individual programmes risks hampering creativity and reducing it to nothing more than a box-ticking exercise. Bafta award-winning series need creative freedom to flourish, and as we’re constantly hearing, there’s quite enough red tape at the BBC already.

The NAO acknowledges that purely financial and quantitative measures only tell part of the story. It fails to mention, for example, the series’ role in our national culture, in refl ecting contemporary issues or in fostering talent. Series such as Holby, Casualty and Doctors are as relentless as they are rewarding, but those who have served their apprenticeship always acknowledge that without it, they wouldn’t be where they are today.

It was a similar story with The Bill, hence the strength of reaction among the drama community after its demise. Its loss places even more responsibility on the BBC and, as continuing drama boss John Yorke asserts, without such series, there wouldn’t be enough jobs in the UK drama industry to sustain it, nor enough trained people to man it.

So to put a value on that? Priceless.

OTHER INTERESTING STUFF

SCRIPT ADVICE COURSES:

Announcing 2 new courses designed by yours truly and hosted by those lovely people at the NFTS.

National Film and Television School: www.nfts.co.uk

Storyline Plot & Development

31 May 2011 to 03 June 2011

This is a four day course exploring the business of creating, plotting, shaping and developing  storylines and ideas for long-running dramas.

SUMMER SOAPS HOW TO WRITE FOR SERIES TELEVISION

I am so looking forward to running this one, it will be intensive, collaborative and challenging and there will be great guest speakers to give you the chance to put your questions to professional writer/developers currently working in the industry.

The dates are July 4^th – 8^th and then a three week gap for writing. Followed by another two days for script editing.

Check out all the details of both courses on the NFTS website. And if you have any questions, email me at Yvonne.grace@scriptadvice.co.uk.

Hope to see you at one or both!

LONDON SCREEN WRITERS FESTIVAL:
http://www.londonscreenwritersfestival.com/blog/2011/04/send-in-the-clowns/

This is an informative and all round jolly nice blog from Hayley McKenzie, Script Editor and Script Consultant – what she says here about the need for writers to get their head’s around comedy writing is very true – read and take heed! (Also, if you can, I would check out the London Screen Writers Festival – an excellent place to network and get inspiration!)

I chaired this forum a few years back for the Script Factory and would recommend a visit – they are generally great all round drama types and are always appreciative of the courses I have run for them check it out:

THE SCRIPT FACTORY:
http://www.scriptfactory.co.uk/go/Training/Article_963.ht

The Script Factory TV Forum

…is a two-day training and networking event devoted to writing for the small screen (or even the plasma HD-ready widescreen…). While Film and Theatre traditionally require the audience to come to you, television reaches them right where they sit. If you are serious about a career writing drama – and want to actually make some money doing it – then spend two days with us finding out how to get your work into living rooms across the land.

Through a combination of training and guest speakers TV Forum aims to inspire participants to consider how their talents, ideas and aspirations may be suited to the wide range of TV drama opportunities, from soap writing to original single dramas or innovative sitcoms. Over two days, we aim to give screenwriters an essential overview of the current TV landscape coupled with the language, resources and industry knowledge required to further explore how to forge their own TV writing career.

BBC DRAMA WRITERS ACADEMY: Applications for the 2011 BBC Drama Writers Academy will be open on 11th April 2011.  Check out their website for more details
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writing/writers_academy.shtml

Script Advice meets IN DEVELOPMENT: I will be Guest Speaking at their first Development Meet in London April 12^th at the BFI Benugo Bar, where I will be most likely drinking a glass of something lovely while passing on some of my knowledge and experience of SCRIPT EDITING AND PRODUCING for Series Television. Details below in an email from Sarah:

Dear Development Friends!

Let’s celebrate Spring! April’s In Development drinks gathering is taking place on Tuesday 12th April, at The Benugo Bar, BFI Southbank, from 7.30 p.m.
Our featured guests this month are Yvonne Grace and Philip Shelley, coming along to chat with us about combining work as a script editor and producer in TV and moving between these roles. Both have an impressive list of TV credits on numerous hit shows which you can check out on their profiles.
If you’d like to come along and chat to them informally over a drink, gain some insight from their experience and share some of your own, then please RSVP to this email.
We’ll be in the bar until closing and look forward to seeing you soon!
Sarah and Hannah
In Development
www.indevelopmentuk.blogspot.com

BBC – About the BBC: The real value of Continuing Drama

www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc

In the BBC official blog, John Yorke writes about the benefits of getting your head around series storytelling

Here’s useful source of info for all budding writers of any genre:

http://essentialwriters.com/

Here is a link to Laurence Timms SAWR member blog NOONE CARES ABOUT YOUR BLOG LAURENCE – I think this link is really useful – thanks L!

http://laurencetimms.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/where-to-find-tv-jobs/

WRITERS GUILD OF GREAT BRITAIN

And a last mention to the WGGB because they do such a lot of work behind the scenes for professional writers

http://www.writersguild.org.uk/

I hope I can help you with your writing; be it a television script, short (or full length) film or screen play, treatment or outline, novel or radio play, I read and script edit them all and can definitely help improve yours.  Drop me an email@ Yvonne.grace@scriptadvice.co.uk and let’s get working!

BYE FOR NOW AND HAPPY WRITING.

Copyright Yvonne Grace Script Advice March 2011

SCRIPT ADVICE Newsletter – 5

Contents:

• Hello
• Breathless
• A Day In The Life Of George Jobbing Writer
• Interesting Stuff

Find out if I can help you with your current project @
http://www.scriptadvice.co.uk/
offering writers mentoring, training and script editing services in order to develop their work and talent please pass on this link to your fellow writers.

Or you can join SCRIPT ADVICE WRITERS ROOM @

http://www.facebook.com/group

SAWR is all about writing and writers. Here you can share your thoughts about writing; the creative process, the highs and lows of it all. You can also access this group for information about writing workshops that I am currently running, also script editing and mentoring services that I offer. My expertise lies in Television drama but any writer is welcome to share their experiences and their aspirations here.

Or access my Blog @
http://www.scriptadvice.co.uk/

HELLO

Pushing my son’s toy lawn mower up the garden at a run this morning, in pajamas and wellies I realised three things; 1/ It was only 7am and I was already in the garden playing dragons and dinasours, 2/ I shouldn’t be doing this without wearing a bra, 3/It was warm. Summer is finally here.  Not my favourite season; I was born in a snow storm on Christmas Eve so it won’t come as a surprise to know I dislike being hot, would rather wrap up than disrobe and am never seen outside in the Summer between 9am and 4pm without my sun factor 50. But the garden loves it and with the bees buzzing and the poppies nodding, I feel the urge to get creative and push on with my own script writing, as well of course, reading and script editing your work!

BREATHLESS

Which started me thinking about something I am forced to do on a daily basis. This is something is not necessarily an easy thing to achieve, but it is absolutely necessary and something that I do almost unconsciously in order to keep those plates spinning – I prioritise, organise and multi-task. This does not make me Super Woman. It just makes me, and every one out there who knows what I’m talking about, Able To Cope. It’s as if without any obvious surgery, I now have more arms than a Hindu Godess. It is almost Pavlovian; I log on to my Inbox and while my messages download, I put a washing machine load on cycle D. I am stuck on a dialogue sequence in my script, I ponder the problem whilst I give the bath a good going over. I set the microwave to defrost and finish reading the last scene in a script from a writer client whilst my son’s tea-time chop slowly rotates.

I juggle not only the physical activities in our life: script reading, housework, script writing, cooking, Script Advice admin, household bills but words too; my husband and I are usually having a 2 tiered conversation, the top tier between ourselves underscored by the lower tier nearer to the ground, coming from our son Michael.

It seems to me that from when the rabbit ears on our son’s alarm clock click upwards and the rabbit opens his plastic eyes at 6.30am, and Michael is finally allowed to get up and stop hitting the adjoining wall between our rooms repeatedly with his toy hammer, my feet don’t touch the ground until 9pm when the rabbit and Michael are asleep again and my husband Mike and I are literally pasted across the sofa, trying to talk without drooling from fatigue.

In between those hours I run Script Advice and write myself, attempt to run a household and look after the two Michaels in my life, my husband and my son. It would be great if there were more hours in the day, or less things to do, or more money so I could pay someone to do some of this stuff for me, but if I could afford it, would I ever be able to delegate? No I would not. Because all this comes from someone who gets an inordinate amount of pleasure from knowing that her washing line boasts a full load flapping in the breeze, that she has written a couple of engaging, slick pages of her script, that she managed to disguise a healthy portion of spinach in a meal for her son who will never know it’s there and that according to the feedback I get from my script reading and script editing work, I seem to be giving writers the help they need – so Script Advice goes from strength to strength.  I am a multi-tasker, who is not complaining. Just. Catching. My. Breath…..

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF GEORGE JOBBING WRITER

DEPRESSION

10.00am – SE London – My Bedroom – Under the Duvet

I think I am depressed. I might just be lacking in a vital vitamin, or need to do a cardio workout or have 8 solid hours of sleep. Or, it might be hormonal; if I had the energy I’d look up what the definition of depression actually is. It probably says something about not having the energy to do stuff, it might even mention the need to make lists of things you might be suffering from, it might say something like ‘’a sure sign of depression is indicated when the sufferer does not know what afflicts them and puts it down to hormones’ – God knows – I just wish I hadn’t agreed to go out with Westenders star Phlox Lane ‘for a few drinks’ last night.

10.15am – SE London – My Bedroom – Sticking My Head Out of The Window

Now that feels a little better – perhaps depression is alleviated by fresh air, pity about the pigeons though.  I was so chuffed she had asked me (well, Phlox didn’t actually, she’d Blackberried Hope, Westenders Nice Script Editor and Hope asked me because we were slogging away on my episode 3,957 at the time and she probably thought it churlish not to include me).  I was very excited and positive that it would be a fabulous, glammy sort of evening where us girls tripped across town, linking arms and giggling as the street lights lit our charmed way along Regent Street and into the trendy bars of Soho…but it wasn’t quite like that. I am too optimistic.   It’s a hard and sad fact but I think optimism makes you depressed.

10.30am – SE London – My Bathroom – Under Water My Head in The Sink

Good. This feels even better than the window, SE London pigeons are very protective of their window ledge and I was getting dive-bombed. Total immersion of head in cold water is good for

surprisingly sharp stabbing pains that have begun in earnest in what I think scientists call the frontal lobe. Depression is a seriously painful condition.  Right, time to breath or I think I’ll faint.

10.31am – SE London – My Bathroom – Curled On the Floor

So, Hope and I think we’ve pretty much sorted the problem we were having on episode 3,957. Basically, between episode 3,956 and 3,959 there is a tricky hiatus in the A story which explores the awful marriage of Connie Blaine and her brutish husband Sid. In episode 3, 956 Sid locks Connie in the cupboard under the stairs and episode 3,957 was supposed to be a tight, highly dramatic two-hander, focusing entirely on the characters of Connie and Sid which will explore, as Scary Producer commanded, ‘every nuance of their emotional landscape’.  I was terrified but optimistic (see, there I go again) that I would do a fabulous job and get massive brownie points and tons more commissions from Westenders as a result.

10.45am – SE London – Breakfast Niche/Office – Head on the Kitchen Counter

However, non of us, not even Scary Producer, had reckoned on the fragile ego and raging insecurities of Gordon Bland, the actor playing Sid.  When the rehearsal scripts were distributed to the cast, Gordon apparently blazed a trail to the Producers Office and in a spooky parody of his storyline, shut himself in her beech wood armoire and refused to come out. Apparently it took half a bottle of Bacardi to get him to even open the door, and The Production Office had to taxi his partner to the Scary Producer’s office from Gatwick Airport Terminal 2 where he was about to Trolley Dolly a flight to The Balearics before Gordon finally calmed down.

11.00am – SE London – Eating Toast at the Breakfast Niche

Gordon Bland basically didn’t have it in him.  A lot of soap actors will tell you, if you are more than 5 minutes in their company, that they love their character, but isn’t it about time they had a really meaty storyline to get their teeth into? And why couldn’t we writers come up with something especially for them that would showcase their talents?  Gordon was no different in this respect. Unfortunately for him, the Script team had delivered and he quickly realised what he thought he wanted was not what he really wanted after all. Nightmare all round.  So now me and my long-suffering script editor Hope have a storyline with Connie locked in the cupboard under the stairs by her nasty husband Sid who is now, not available to play out the rest of the storyline.  Fortunately, as often happens in Soapland, when a door closes, a window opens somewhere else and this time, the window was in the shape of Joan Brown, the actress who plays Janice, uber confident mother of Connie. Joan had been let go from the production schedule because of an in-growing toenail operation but apparently, her toes were twinkling again and she was keen ‘to get back in the saddle’.  So, we plunge into the unknown and give Sid a massive heart attack, just at the point in the script where he turns the key in the lock and shuts his wife in darkness.  Janice, played by Joan Brown, then gets her turn in the spotlight and plays a storming two-hander episode with her on screen daughter Connie. Gordon Bland never really lives down the shame.

11.30am – SE London – My Bedroom – Under the Duvet

I think it was because I was so relieved to be free of rewrite horror, that I got a bit over excited about drinks with Phlox.  Hope and I dived into the wardrobe department and the assistant turned a blind eye while Hope kicked off the trainers and took a pair of Louboutins off the shelf and I half inched a nude coloured bespangled number from Phlox’s rail to wear for the night.  Phlox takes us to The Ocean Bar. Very SATC. Phlox is wearing an absolutely tiny Victoria Beckham dress and with me in beige sparkle and Hope in sky scraper shoes, I think we are in for a really good night.  3 bottles of wine and several Tequilla slammers later, Phlox is looking less like a pretty young actress on the brink of her career and more like a 40 year old Amy Winehouse after a session with 60 year old Pete Dougherty. I regret cramming my size 12 bod into this 10 dress because it made me make a stupid decision earlier on in the evening, when Hope suggested food and I said no. Now the mirrored floor is confusing me and I don’t know whether I am looking at myself upside down, or if I am in actual fact on my back looking up at myself on the mirrored ceiling. It’s all too much and I know for a fact that I literally go green, before I manage to run outside and manage to stop being sick just long enough to get my head over the edge of a convenient skip. Not very Sex, more Sick And The City.

12 Noon – SE London – My Bed – About to Go Asleep

I am optimistic by nature, so it stands to reason I will often be depressed – unless of course predicting depression like this, makes me a pessimistic person, in which case, I am feeling happier already. Perhaps I just have a hangover?

Think I’ll have forty winks and live to write another day…..

INTERESTING STUFF

BBC Writers Room

It’s a tough one if you haven’t got representation and you are struggling to get your writer’s voice heard out there in media land. The BBC’s dedicated team of readers are poised to read your work and give you feedback.  Their website is pretty informative too and well worth book marking on your toolbar…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom

Follow the link below, on the BBC Writers Room website to Writing For Continuing Drama, and you will find plenty of juicy insights into this world from the King Of Soap John Yorke and other notable drama series writers like Jimmy McGovern. I particularly like John’s comment below regarding writing for long running series; truer few lines have rarely been said in my opinion….

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/writing_for_continuing_drama

‘It’s like being in an Emergency Department. You come across every possible problem and you learn how to fix it. And those tricks will stay with you for the rest of your career.’

Writing Competition

There is not long to the deadline on this one, but worth a go at if you are ’well on’ with a script that you are proud of – the guys at Red Planet are a discerning lot and this is a great competition to get involved in.

http://www.redplanetpictures.co.uk

This year’s competition is for an original 60 minute television script, either a single play or a pilot for a new series. You are initially required to submit the first ten pages along with a short synopsis.  The full script should be available on request, you may be required to submit this within a month of the final closing date.  As before, the winner will receive £5000, a script commission and the option of representation if required. Red Planet and Kudos will also mentor finalists for the Prize. The competition is open to anyone within the UK. The RED PLANET PRIZE will close to new entrants at midnight on 31st July.

Workshop From Script Advice – At The National Film and Television Studio

I have been chatting with those lovely people at the NFTS and in November I will be running a 4 day workshop covering 2 disciplines related to writing that you may be interested in. HOW TO WRITE A TELEVISION DRAMA TREATMENT and HOW TO STORYLINE FOR LONG RUNNING DRAMA. Just to whet your whistles, check out their website and see what’s occurring www.nfts.co.ukhttp

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I hope I can help you with your writing; be it television script, short (or full length) film, treatment, outline or full work, radio play or novel manuscript – I read and script edit them all and can definitely help you improve yours.  Drop me an email @ Yvonne.grace@scriptadvice.co.uk and let’s get working!

BYE FOR NOW AND HAPPY WRITING.

Copyright Yvonne Grace Script Advice June 2010

THE SECOND DRAFT EDIT

Welcome to the second instalment in the life of George, my fictitious enthusiastic writer, trying to make her way in the tricky world of television.

A Day In The Life Of George – Jobbing Writer

4.45pm – my flat SE London – Watching Deal or No Deal

Noel Edmunds knows how to milk his moment – he calls it ‘a crucial point in the game’ – we are ‘at 8 box’ and the middle-aged woman on screen is hyperventilating. She’s biting her bottom lip really, really hard. She strokes her lucky gonk, as the music swells beneath an unflattering close-up of ‘Jakki’ (why do game show contestants spell their names funny?) gurning away on National Television. Will number 22 box reveal £250,000 or 1p? Well, will it? I am on the edge of my seat now, don’t care if it’s tacky and television at its lowest common denominator – will Jakki be Deal Or No Deal’s second quarter of a millionaire?  The phone starts to ring – am caught in a vice-like grip of indecision – if I answer it I’ll miss out on watching Jakki either plummet into a penniless hell or instantaneously and without any effort, get very rich. If I don’t answer it I am giving in to the insidious toxin that is daytime television and something that all freelancers worth their salt know, should be avoided at all costs.  Also, I may miss out on a fab telly job or it could just be my mum – again. Noel’s saying some guff about Jakki being a brave contestant and how she’s given the Banker a run for his money – get on with it Noel! I grab the phone as Noel breaks the seal on box 22.

5.15pm – same place

It wasn’t my mum – it was Hope from Westenders – she’s the nicest Script Editor out of the lot but today sounded panicked and a bit pissed off. She tells me a complicated tale of why her script schedule has gone pear-shaped – I manage to catch something about Patty Faulkner (who plays Jessie in the soap) double booking a stint on a cruise-liner, a sorry tale about the main frame crashing and her producer’s smear test as the reasons for this upheaval. The upshot is that I have to come to Westenders Production Office first thing tomorrow for an emergency Script Edit on my second draft.

No Problem! I pipe enthusiastically while trying to swallow the huge lump that is currently crawling up my throat. The truth being (which I naturally don’t tell Hope) is that I haven’t written a word yet – having (I thought) 2 whole weeks to get it done.

Putting the phone down I catch a glimpse of Alan Tichmarsh on a garish sofa gushing away to a celebrity chef – bugger – Deal or No Deal has finished and now I’m wallowing in deadline hell and can’t even take solace in a complete stranger’s fate to boot.

2.00am – my flat – bedroom SE London

I am in bed but not asleep. I am drowning in a sea of paper, whole pages ripped and torn, ink stains from a handful of biros leaking into the pillow case (don’t know why, I like to write with a pen before I laptop my stuff) but at least it’s done; my second draft – in approximately 7 hours (allowing breaks for weeing and weeping) – not bad for a first timer and I am rather proud of the cliff-hanger I have come up with, whereby Stella (Laundromat assistant to the cruise-liner bound Jessie) and her secret lover Davey (on-screen husband of Jessie) get down to it during the spin cycle of his white wash. Done. Thank God. In my bedroom mirror a red-eyed alien stares back at me – whoever said television was a glamorous job was not a writer and did not work in television.

9.30am – Westenders Production Office – Hope’s Desk

I have a murky-looking coffee in a Styrofoam cup, I have blood-shot eyes, my mouth is totally without moisture and the coffee is sticking my tongue to the roof of my mouth. My script is no longer in one piece but approximately 5,000. Hope is ‘re-arranging’ my scenes – she says it’s not the dialogue that’s the problem – it’s the structure. She says it’s not the characterisation that’s at fault – it’s what the characters are saying (doesn’t that mean the dialogue’s no good?) Apparently not asserts Hope, it’s merely a matter of context – scene context – which is why she’s just ripped apart the best part of my third act, ruining in my view, the build up to the sex on the washing machine dénouement. But Hope is no longer listening to me. A Script Editor on a 4 x a week soap under pressure is a terrible sight to see and Hope is under more than most. I got here at 8.30am as requested and she has spent the last hour speed reading my episode so she can tear it apart to try and make sense of the pre-planned storyline centring almost entirely on Jessie and her brave fight to combat breast cancer, before Patty Faulkner who plays her, took herself off to sing ‘Memories’ around the Canaries. I really want to cry but Hope has just started so I do the decent thing and give her the floor.

1.30pm – Westenders – The Canteen

Well. Am I glad that’s over. The episode is now to length, it has characters in it that are available to play the scenes, it has 2 ad breaks and instead of a sexy dramatic cliff hanger, it has a comedy one, featuring Beckam, the laundromat’s Great Dane and his fatal attraction to the Pekinese from the pic ‘n mix next door.  But at least Hope is happy. Or I hope she is – the last I saw of her before I crawled to this over-lit, over-heated canteen for a bowl of something cheap but nourishing (I settled for just cheap) was her scurrying figure clutching my annotated second draft, with Jane H the scary PA trying to grab it out of her hands bleating about not having enough time to do a shooting schedule…I reckon if I get a wiggle on I’ll get back in time to catch Noel’s recap of yesterday’s episode of Deal Or No Deal and find out if Jakki got lucky or not….

Thanks for reading and WATCH OUT FOR THE NEXT INSTALMENT OF GEORGE THE JOBBING WRITER, SOON TO APPEAR ON THIS BLOG!