Figure 6.1 Scene from the pilot episode of Harry’s Law © Bonanza Productions Inc.
Harry wants a deal that will save her client from jail. Josh wants to expedite the case because to him, on the evidence, it is a clear-cut conviction. Josh’s speech pattern, the repetition of words and phrases reflects an inflexible but exasperated man who is under pressure but knows he has the power. Harry, in contrast, tries to make Josh see beyond the letter of the law and make a morally right decision. Harry’s language is deferential and polite up until the point she realizes she’s not getting anywhere; at that point she defaults to her smart alec riposte.
The outlook of the character can have an effect on the words and phrases that they use. Think about the following:
Is your character someone who loves talking about themselves and whatever the subject will turn the conversation to them?
Does your character always talk and answer in questions?
Is your character a man or woman of few words?
Is your character shy?
Does your character have an inflated view of themselves?
Does your character have a wide vocabulary and love to show off their love of words?
Does your character flirt with everyone they meet?
Is that flirting harmless banter or uncomfortably sexual or simply crass?
Does your character want to impress others?
Does your character have poor social skills?
Verbal ticks and context
People have verbal ticks. They may overuse certain words or use the wrong words. In our excerpt from Harry’s Law above Josh repeats certain phrases to emphasize his exasperation with Harry and her request. He does that each time he is being dismissive or making a stand.
Other characters may use certain favourite phrases for all sorts of reasons. Here are some examples to consider for your characters:
People may have phrases they repeat to seek validation – ‘Do you know what I mean?’ ‘To be perfectly honest with you…’
They may be someone who never uses names and refers to everyone as ‘mate’, ‘lad’, ‘son’ and so on.
They may curse or swear a lot.
They may have an idiom that is characteristic of their age group. How many times do teenagers use the word ‘like’ for example?
They may speak in sporting metaphors.
They may rely on banter and funny lines.
They may talk in a matter-of-fact fashion.
They may talk in a transparently manipulative way.
They may speak in a condescending way.
They may be cynical.
They may have a ‘glass half full’ attitude.
They may have a permanently sunny disposition.
They may complain about everything.
The context in which your characters speak also has a bearing on the character of their speech. The speech may be more formal in a work context. For example, when a police detective gives a press interview to talk about a particular case his or her language is very neutral and matter-of-fact (they are trained to do that). However, they will speak about the same case with their colleagues in a very different manner. Similarly, a teacher will teach a room full of pupils without resorting to expletives, but swear like crazy in the staffroom. Once again, here we have the difference between the professional and the personal.
When thinking about context, consider the following:
Where is the character?
Who else is present?
What are the circumstances of the conversation?
Is the character on the offensive or defensive?
What is their state of mind?
Good dialogue should do more than one thing. It should be more than the literal words spoken. When any character speaks there is always a reason for doing so. As a writer you should ask why does any character speak? What does the speaker want? Once you know that motivation, the words the character says aloud will colour their choice of words and their delivery.
Try and avoid clichés in speech. Where you see one, try and find a way of reworking the speech or rephrasing them. Dialogue on television is a construct so the audience expects it to be clever, erudite and insightful.
Try this
Who is speaking? Here is a list of characters from Life on Mars:
1 DCI Gene Hunt
2 DI Sam Tyler
3 DC Chris Skelton
4 DS Ray Carling
Here are the speeches for each character. Match them up.
A
Oh forget the mind-reading act, let’s get to the striptease.
B
They reckon you got concussion. Well, I don’t give a tart’s furry cup if half your brains are falling out.
C
All right… I want you to stow away this counter productive attitude, Dora, because it isn’t helping anybody.
D
Oh I get it, she’s your lovely assistant.
Answers: A = Ray; B = Gene; C = Sam; D = Chris
Try this
Exercise 1
Choose a fairy tale such as The Three Little Pigs or Little Red Riding Hood.
Choose your protagonist to retell that story in their own words to group of friends as if it was a real event.
Choose another of your characters to tell the same story in the same context.
Do likewise with all your other major characters.
At the end you should have several different versions of the same story as told by each of your characters. The words used and the way the story is told will be different. You may have a comic character who tells the tale as a joke or another who dwells on the gruesome aspects or another who uses it as a warning to others.
Exercise 2
Two characters have a shared love for one another. Create a scene that shows that love in their dialogue (and actions) but without using the words ‘I love you’.
The voice of the show
The other aspect that affects the type of dialogue is the particular language of the show itself. From Buffy the Vampire Slayer to The Wire in the US, from Coronation Street to Top Boy in the UK, each show has its own language and language is context.
Key advice
If the story can be shown in actions and/or images rather than words, choose the former.
Keep your dialogue concise and sharp.
Remember: words hide at least as much as they reveal.
Keep in mind the context in which the dialogue takes place.
Create individual voices for every character.
Industry interview 3: the scriptwriter (I)
INDUSTRY INTERVIEW: LISA HOLDSWORTH
Lisa Holdsworth has written for a host of top British shows including Emmerdale, Fat Friends, New Tricks, Waterloo Road, Robin Hood and Midsomer Murders. Like so many writers she is also developing her own authored series. Here we discuss life as a working writer.
Nicholas Gibbs: How did you get your first break as a scriptwriter?
Lisa Holdsworth: I didn’t study. I never did a writing course. I did a degree in Film Studies down in London. Once I’d done that I came back to Leeds and worked for four years in factual television making science and history programmes but all the while I was writing stories. I’d written stories from being really tiny – I was a terrible liar as a child!
NG: A great way to make stories then?
LH: Yes, absolutely making stuff up! While I was working in factual, I met the son-in-law of Kay Mellor [UK scriptwriter well known for her work on soaps such as Coronation Street and Brookside]. I took my opportunity: ‘Would your mother-in-law read my script? And could you slip it into the bottom of the pile.’ He must have put it on the top of the pile, bless him, because she read it. Later on, actually at the head-wetting party for his new son, Kay took me off to one corner and told me everything that was wrong with the script. I’m thinking: ‘Well, obviously I’ve got no talent.’ Then right at the end of this speech she said: ‘Actually, I think it is a really good script. You
’ve got something. Let’s talk about you may be doing something for me.’
NG: How did Kay help you?
LH: At the time she was making a show called Playing the Field. She got me a scriptwriting trial on that. I was completely untried and all I had was this one script to show anyone. Tiger Aspect, the production company, said no but also said I did a really great script trial. About six months later I really didn’t want to work for the company I was working for anymore. I rang Kay up and she took me on as her personal assistant, which was a dogsbody job. I’d pack her bags and answer her phone and feed the cat and all that kind of thing. I worked out of her house. At the time she had just finished making Fat Friends which had been a massive success and she said she didn’t want to make another series and she had said everything she needed to say. David Liddiment, the controller at ITV at the time, rang up and suddenly we were making Series 2 and it was all systems go. That weekend I went home and wrote a treatment for an episode. I didn’t even know it was a treatment. I wrote what I thought was a story for an episode. At that time we knew Meera Syal wasn’t going to come back into the show and there was a gap for a new family. On the Monday I shoved it under Kay’s nose and said: ‘I’ve done this – is this any good?’ By the Friday Tiger Aspect said yes and I was commissioned on the understanding that, if I couldn’t handle it, they would take it off me and they’d give it to another writer. That never happened.
NG: So you had this one Fat Friends script. Did you expect new assignments to roll in?
LH: It was almost a year from that commission. I’d got myself an agent, Georgina Ruffhead at David Higham Associates, but she was selling an absolute unknown who had apparently written this Fat Friends. It could be rubbish. Everyone was waiting to see what it was like. I wanted something that was regular work because I was aware of how inexperienced I was. I said I really want to get on a soap and she said, ‘You’ll be lucky – they are closed shops at the moment.’ I ended up temping with the National Health Service for a while. When the episode went out, because it was Lisa Riley – it was her first straight acting role since leaving Emmerdale – it got lots of publicity and it was choice of the day in lots of newspapers. It got shortlisted for the new writing BAFTA that year and suddenly people were asking to see me and one of them was Emmerdale, which suited me. I knew the characters and, bless him, Steve Frost (or Steve November as he is now) called me in for a meeting. He put me in the story office for a month before I started, to get me up to speed and to see how the series worked. It was a fantastic experience. I loved it, working to four in the morning bashing out stories. It was really a good experience and it did me a favour. I went on to the team and wrote three probationary scripts. I just hit the ground running. It was my area. It was the Yorkshire accent which I know, with stories that I knew, with characters that I knew. It was really a good move to get on that show.
NG: So how long were you at Emmerdale?
LH: I was at Emmerdale for three years. It was the best fun and the best credit up until the moment it wasn’t. I think there’s a moment when you put your fingers on the keyboard and you write ‘Interior. Woolpack’ and you absolutely don’t want to do it. You’re not giving your all. Don’t get me wrong. Emmerdale can be a pain in the arse but I absolutely loved it and I was lucky I was doing the show when it was riding on a bit of a high. I loved the politics of the story office; I loved the dynamics of it and then it gets to a point when it is not a challenge anymore and it’s a bit dull.
NG: Where did you go from there?
LH: By that time I’d had the first approach from New Tricks. I’d pitched and had a pitch accepted. I did a treatment and had the treatment accepted. Suddenly it was a brand-new world for me and again it could have gone horribly wrong but I decided it was time to leave Emmerdale because I’d had enough. I never want to be stale. I never want to write just for the money, which is a beautiful concept but the reality is everyone has to do it for the money because they have to pay the mortgage.
NG: You started New Tricks. Did you step into that easily?
LH: Actually, I was terrified. I never wanted to be a police writer but we had a really good police advisor on the show. I was coming in on Series 3 and it’s a very male-dominated show and, as much as I’d like to say it makes no difference what gender you are, I think it does. I was walking into a show where it was all boys apart from the lovely script editor, Nicola Larder. It worked because of the comedy aspect of it and the warmth of it, which I think a lot of other police procedurals don’t have. I could do the banter of the four main characters. Tom Sherry, who was my producer, said I never got the story right in the first drafts but I got the warmth. He must have known I’d get there eventually. I’d be banging my head on the desk, going ‘I don’t know who did this murder and I don’t know how I’m going to prove it’, but I’d get there eventually because the dialogue would be strong, the characters would be strong.
NG: What sort of timescale did you have for an episode?
LH: When I first came in – it’s less now – it was six weeks for first draft, but by then you would have thrashed out a treatment, and treatments go backwards and forwards to the point where you think: ‘I can get a script out of this.’ You get four weeks for the second draft and then as many drafts as it takes up until the first day of shooting. I’ve done an episode that took me six weeks to write in total because another writer’s episode fell apart mid-series. They rang me up and said: ‘Have you got anything to go for the next series?’ ‘Yeah, I’ve something kicking around.’ ‘Do you think if we put you in a hotel for a week you could write four drafts in a week?’ ‘I’ll have a damn good try.’ I’m not claiming it was the best writing experience in the world but it got done. It varies but there’s much more luxury on New Tricks. I’d say from scripts to the notes it’s about six months, from first going in pitching to first day of shooting.
NG: How is your treatment writing? Has it become more refined?
LH: It became more pragmatic and more aware, particularly on New Tricks. I know what can or can’t be done. When you do go in to talk about a new show, particularly an existing show, it’s best to ask what story they don’t ever want to be pitched again because there is always one. Ask yourself: ‘What are my constraints, basically?’ I think constraints are good for writers. I think to be a fan of the show you need to be critical of it. You watch it and see what’s wrong with it. I don’t want to see that in my episode.
NG: How do you handle exposition?
LH: On New Tricks there are two ways: one is the white board of death where they are standing at the white board, and they are putting the pictures on, and you plough through it as quick as you possibly can. You write long and then you edit down and edit down and edit down, so you get to a point when the audience is going to get what we need from it. The other approach is the banter approach – chat-chat-chat. They’re talking about Chinese takeaways but we’re stripping in facts about other stuff. The most nebulous skill of writing is dialogue. You either get it or you don’t. That sounds an awful thing to say but the rule you live by is: ‘All dialogue is lies.’ People are sarcastic, people use hyperbole, and people use metaphors and similes and all those kind of things. Again, I’ve never learned it; it’s just something I’ve always done. My family talks like that all the time. So there’s a big part of first drafts you read back and think: ‘No human being would reveal this information in this way. How can I bury it? How can I twist it?’ I think the one part of writing you can’t teach is dialogue. Don’t get me wrong: I think there are some professional writers out there who get regular commissions who couldn’t write dialogue if their lives depended on it, because there is some absolutely terrible dialogue out there which is often covered up by intricate and brilliant stories. I don’t come from the intricate; I come from the character and it’s just something I’ve always done.
NG: After New Tricks what position did you feel you were in then?
LH: You’ve proven yourself at that
point because the reality of soap writing is no one takes you seriously. The BBC don’t care I’ve written 40 hours of Emmerdale. With New Tricks, because you generate the story and investigations using existing characters, it is a bit of a showcase for you. You’re saying ‘Look what I can do!’ New Tricks did start to get me noticed. I moved from New Tricks and then did Waterloo Road then Robin Hood. The next game is to get my own show. It has been seven years of development and near misses, but that’s where I am now – which is going in and pitching ideas and having the balls to do it. Knowing that I love New Tricks but I don’t want to do it for ever. Robin Hood wasn’t going to go on for ever; Waterloo Road most certainly wasn’t going to go on for ever. So it’s generating ideas and watching the markets and seeing what’s out there. That’s where the real pragmatism comes in and it is where you can sometimes feel that you’re selling your soul because you go to meetings and you go: ‘What do you want?’ ‘What we want is a relationship drama.’ ‘Oh just so happens I’ve got one.’ The ideas I’ve got that are in my drawer I love them but I won’t put them in front of a producer to share because there’s no market for them. I don’t want it to be butchered and turned into something else.
NG: All the commissioners say: ‘Don’t try to anticipate what we want, just pitch to us’?
LH: Absolute crap and I don’t mind you quoting me. At best, it is naive saying, ‘Please just pitch what you think is great.’ That’s fair except we all have kids to feed and mortgages to pay. I could pitch some crazy idea set in outer space – it might get a commission as my absolute dream project but I don’t want it to get crushed. Once it is out there, it’s out there. If it’s not the right time for it – timing is everything – then I’m not going to pitch it even though it’s my absolute dream project. I look round the commissioners and think: ‘You won’t get it.’ There’s no money for it or someone else has just made something similar and it was awful and you’ve just salted the ground for me.
Writing Television Drama Page 6
