NG: Do you like American television?
LH: Oh God, yes. They do develop characters and have a bigger canvas that goes over a series. I think a hidden gem of an American series is The Good Wife, which is delicious. It was a traditional, slightly political, legal drama and then builds and builds and builds. It’s stunning. With a 22-episode series you can really develop that. When you compare that with Silk, which was very good, but the characters sometimes had to revert to cliché because you’ve only got a small canvas. You have to go to the whole ‘she wears red lipstick and she has sunglasses and, oh look, isn’t she brave coming back to work after having a miscarriage’ thing. It could have been a much better slow-burn story with high stakes and we would see so much more of the character.
NG: Is that to the detriment of British writers?
LH: It’s almost patronizing of British writers to constantly remind the audience about character traits – oh yes, she loves red lipstick and smokes a fag! Once you’ve established trust, the audience will go with it. I call it the UK Gold effect, which is where – I don’t think I’m giving any secrets away on New Tricks – we make sure each episode is stand-alone so they can be repeated on UK Gold or on Alibi or on Dave or whatever. And my opinion of that is, if you’re waiting around until it gets on Dave, then to hell with you! You should have watched it when it was on BBC1.
NG: What is your writing day?
LH: I get up at six and do a couple of hours. I say I do a couple of hours. Those first few hours of the day are, you know, messing about on Twitter and my Facebook page. All of that is what I call grooming behaviour for writing. All those things you’ve got to get out of the way, read your email – all that kind of thing. I’ll go off and have some breakfast and come back to the desk about nine o’clock. Then the real writing starts, though you think you needn’t have got up at that time because you’ve done nothing at all! I set off and I write until lunchtime. The last session, from about half past two until I pack it in, is not terribly productive. The reality is, if you condense down the actual time it takes to write, it’s not that much really and I’ve never got to the end of a deadline and not thought: ‘If you hadn’t fannied about, you could have finished a week early. Why did you have to go on Amazon and look at those things? Why did you have to do this? Was that Twitter conversation about last night’s Doctor Who really that important?’ I would say, if you’re really struggling, then turn the Internet off. I still have the radio going… Maybe because I worked in an office for four years but I can break off and come back, break off and come back.
NG: When you write your first draft are you great planner or do you splurge it out?
LH: I don’t scene-plan. I don’t do: scene one this is going to happen; scene two this is going to happen. I write in prose and just in paragraphs and then that’s as far as I go. I’ll write the story to the end. Sometimes in the middle of writing scripts I’ll have to go back and retype where the big moments are etc. I’m just doing that at the moment. I’m writing a pilot for ITV. I sat down and tried to write the treatment but something was stopping me and I know the big moments are not dramatic enough yet. Those can be moments of desperation where those nagging voices at the back of your head are saying ‘This isn’t right!’ Sometimes you have to go away and just refresh it. You know you’ve planned it but it is not working, so go back and have look at it and re-strategize. It’s the hardest thing to do. It’s the hardest thing in the world to start again and say it’s not working. If you work with a really good script editor, they might give you the old praise sandwich, telling you what is brilliant but they’ll also tell you something is not right. If you’re really upset with notes and you won’t change a word, you’re not going to get a repeat booking.
NG: Are you perceived as a particular type of writer?
LH: I think all writers get typed. The thing I get is: your voice is warm and funny and you have the northern thing going on. There is a certain amount of pigeonholing which can do you good. If you put in a relationship drama and they think she does warm and funny, that’s great. It is about knowing the prevailing attitude about your writing. Sometimes it is about saying ‘You know the stuff that I do? Here is some more of it.’ That’s marketing yourself. I do write warm and funny very well. The ideas that I am producing tend to have a warm and funny spin on them but it’s because I love character. I’m never going to be friends with Quentin Tarantino. I wouldn’t pitch the British The Wire – that is someone else’s job. The problem is I’m normally seen as a safe pair of hands, not an innovator. What you get on the swings, you lose on the roundabouts. There is something to be said for sticking something under someone’s nose they didn’t expect to get. I’ve got a dream project that is a Saturday teatime show which is very different and if I pitch it, it’ll be ‘Oh I didn’t expect that from you!’ You can trade on your history but it can be a bit of a constraint sometimes.
NG: What advice would you give writers?
LH: It is the advice Kay Mellor gave me. Don’t kick an idea around, or write a treatment or script with an imaginary commissioner, producer, script editor or even the audience sitting on your shoulder saying ‘I don’t buy that’. Just write and write and write and then go back. And you’ll inevitably think, ‘I can’t believe I’ve written this! It’s a load of garbage,’ but you can change it without anyone ever knowing. That first draft is literally an exercise in finishing something. You’re not a writer until you’ve finished something. Nobody has to see that first draft. They see draft 1.4.
7
Creating a world
In this chapter you will learn:
• how a successful drama depends on the creation of a convincing and consistent world for your characters to inhabit
• the importance of thorough research, preferably (if possible) by direct experience of the real-life equivalent of your world (e.g. a hospital if you are writing a medical drama).
With any original script you are creating a world, a world in which to play out your stories. That world could be a hospital (Casualty, House), a stately home (Downton Abbey), the streets of London (Whitechapel), alternate universes (Fringe), a specific city such as Baltimore (The Wire) or a cobbled street in northern England (Coronation Street).
The world could occupy a particular time period: Call the Midwife (1950s), Downton Abbey (early twentieth century), The Tudors (the reign of Henry VIII) or the futuristic Battlestar Galactica. In some shows like the fantasy drama The Game of Thrones the era is indeterminate or vague but can be likened to the European Middle Ages. Grimm is set in the present day but with a dark fairy-tale twist.
Research is very important. So, if you are intending to set your story in the past, make sure you do your homework and know how things looked and worked, namely, the rules of the period. Likewise, if your drama is a police procedural or legal, know how the police work and/or the court system works. If it’s conmen, know how the world of the conman works.
The world your drama is to inhabit needs to be established and can be very specific. Think of the number of different medical shows set in and around a hospital. In the UK there is BBC’s Casualty, which is set in an emergency department, and its sister show, Holby City, which is set in the same hospital but centres on the surgical wards. ITV’s Monroe centres on the neurosurgery department, where the eponymous hero works as a brain surgeon. BBC1 daytime drama Doctors is set in a GP surgery while Channel 4 comedy-drama Sirens is about an ambulance crew.
There are many shades of medical drama as there is for any other kind of drama, so you need to establish the exact nature of your world quickly.
One of the biggest hits on British television has been Hustle on BBC1. Created and written by Tony Jordan, it ran for eight series between 2005 and 2012. The series’ opening sequence in the first episode (Figure 7.1) not only introduces the main characters but quickly establishes the world we are in – that is, the world of the conman. It is also a prime example of that the scriptwriter’s maxim ‘Show, don
’t tell’.
Hustle was such a success that it inspired the showrunner John Rogers to co-create the US hit Leverage, which was about a group of con artists and thieves who exact revenge on the powerful and corrupt.
With every world there are rules that define the parameters of the world for the audience and you as a writer. It is the rules you set that will bring a consistency to your storytelling. For example, if you set your drama in a modern-day hospital, your characters have to operate in a realistic hospital environment (watch how many times the medical staff wash their hands on Holby City, for example) and display the appropriate medical knowledge. No one should be finding the cure for cancer. A futuristic hospital may be dispensing the cure but that’s a different drama with different rules.
With the pilot script you are establishing the rules that are intended to act as a blueprint for a serial or a potential returning series. Audiences (and readers) dislike inconsistency and rule breaking for the convenience of the plot. It is about knowing your world because your characters should certainly know it because they are supposed to have lived in it every day of their lives.
Research the world in which you are going to set your story. If it is a medical drama, go and see how a hospital works, and talk to the staff, the patients and so on. If your drama is a police procedural, look at how things are run and talk to policemen, detectives, lawyers. Whatever the nature of the drama, be it medical, political, sporting, and so on, research the world – not by watching TV but by going to talk to people in the real world.
Figure 7.1 Opening sequence of Hustle, Series 1, Episode 1 © Kudos Film and Television
Writer Ronan Bennett just did that for his excellent Channel 4 series Top Boy about the drug culture on a Hackney estate. Writer Sally Wainwright spoke with Diane Taylor, ex-police detective and co-creator of Scott & Bailey, about what life was really like in a serious incidents unit and about being a woman in the police. In The Wire, creator David Simon and his writing room investigated all aspects of Baltimore public life to create what became an outstanding series.
Even the makers of sci-fi space shows such as Star Trek and Babylon 5 all looked at what was possible. Know your world and know it well.
Key advice
Create a credible and consistent world for your characters to inhabit – even if it’s a sci-fi drama.
Set out the rules (and limitations) of your world as quickly as possible and don’t break them!
Research the subject area of your drama as much and as directly as possible – a day spent in a courtroom is better than a week spent in a library reading about courtroom procedures!
8
Structure
In this chapter you will learn:
• about the four-act structure used widely for the ‘commercial hour’ drama episode
• how the first ten pages – essentially Act 1 – is crucial for hooking your audience (and the script reader)
• about teasers, tags and cliffhangers.
You have created compelling characters, a fascinating world and an intriguing premise, and now we examine how you are going to put it all together as a script.
The structure of a story is simple: it has to have a beginning, middle and an end. For television drama the structure is broken down into acts, whose beginnings and ends, on commercial television, are dictated by the advertising breaks. However, the act-based structure is equally applicable to the uninterrupted drama of a public service broadcaster like the BBC or a subscription-based broadcaster such as HBO.
ITV, C4, Sky and many US network shows work to a four-act structure while the BBC, influenced in no small way by John Yorke’s Writers’ Academy, utilizes five acts.
In this chapter we will look at the elements of a ‘commercial hour’ drama because it is probably the most used, both in the UK and US. The structure is dictated by advertisement breaks which provide natural markers in the construction of your script. However, the insights into structure you will gain here are equally applicable to shows that have no commercial breaks because producers, particularly in the US, will be looking for them to be syndicated on channels that do have ad breaks.
First, let us break down the TV commercial hour – see Table 8.1. In the US there can be four or five ad breaks to the hour while in the UK there are three ad breaks. The timings shown in the table are approximate and are there as a guide. Any act can be longer or shorter than this but the overall running time has to be met. Remember: one page of script approximately equates to one minute of screen time, though that will depend on your writing style and the style of the show you are writing.
Table 8.1 The four-act structure used for the ‘commercial hour’ drama
This is merely a guide and, because it is drama, it is not set in stone. You may write acts that are shorter or longer than 15 pages. Just write what is necessary for your script. The only rule is that you have to hit the running times of the broadcast slots. Try and write as close as you can to the time length of the slot, though you should err on writing longer because it is easier to edit down than pad out.
The BBC, particularly through its continuing drama shows, is an advocate of the five-act structure and suggests a rough guide of 12–14 pages per act. However, there is no reason why acts can’t be longer or shorter – for example, if a six-page third act suits you, then write a six-page third act, though obviously the time will have be made up elsewhere.
Let’s now look at each part of the structure in more detail.
Act 1
The first act of any drama is about the set-up and tends to be the longest act. It establishes what the story is about and the dramatic needs of the main characters. It also sets out the tone of the piece. Generally speaking, a first act will be 12–15 pages long. However, for the sample spec it could be argued that you should consider the first ten pages as your first act as that is what the script reader will initially judge you on.
In part because of the sheer volume of unsolicited scripts that land on the reader’s desk, and in part because any story in any script has to grab its audience from the outset, the script reader will make a judgement based on the first ten pages. If the first ten pages don’t grab the reader, they are certainly not going to want to read the other remaining 50 pages. Why would they? After all, you don’t persist with a dull book or newspaper article if it you don’t enjoy or have any interest in it.
The first ten pages are therefore enormously important, especially for the new writer. It may be brutal, it may be unfair, it may even be short-sighted, but it is the way it is. Bite the bullet and embrace the ‘first ten page’ rule and see it as the rocket fuel that could propel the reader to read the whole of your script.
So what do you need to do in those opening first ten pages?
JUMP INTO YOUR STORY
Television executives have a mortal fear of the hovering forefinger above the remote control. One drop of that digit and your episode is dead in the water. No licence fee, no advertisers, no subscribers. There is a plethora of channels which the ever-demanding viewer can access and so every channel wants to grab them. And they have to grab them at the outset. This applies particularly to television drama – the most expensive type of programme to make.
You will need a strong opening image or engaging words to grab the audience. Indeed, you need to jump straight into your story and cut the ‘once upon a time’. Don’t introduce Little Red Riding Hood preparing food for Granny. Have Little Red Riding Hood attacked by the big bad wolf – this is exactly how Grimm introduced itself on to our screens.
The advice ‘hit the ground running’ is often given to new writers. This needn’t be taken literally of course, although Paul Abbott did exactly that in his excellent thriller State of Play. The spoken word can be equally effective if the words are engaging. Toby Whithouse’s Being Human opens with the words of Annie:
These intriguing words lead into an opening sequence then proceeds to show the three main characters, Mitchell, George and Annie, eng
aging with ‘death’. Mitchell is ‘sired’ by the vampire Herrick in World War I and in turn sires a woman in the present day. George is discovered in the aftermath of a brutal attack on a man in his secret state as a werewolf. Annie is shown staring lifelessly after she has seemingly fallen down the stairs, blood spreading out from her head.
In Abi Morgan’s excellent The Hours set in a 1950s television newsroom we open on the moment Freddie is making a plea to change the face of televised news in Britain. These are all moments that grab the viewer from the outset, pulling them into the world of the drama without any preamble or explanation. The opening sequence, the first few minutes of your drama, will show how the world is in an engaging manner. This is the teaser – the opening sequence that often occurs before or as the opening credits roll. American television is a big user of the teaser, which can be anything up for five pages long, though it forms part of Act 1.
‘In TV the first act is the teaser. It is literally the teaser – it is the big question. And you’re drawn into it. Of course then there’s another question and it goes on and on.’
J.J. Abrams (Lost, Alcatraz)
Within those opening ten pages and the sooner the better, there also needs to be what is termed an Inciting Incident.
INCITING INCIDENT
The inciting incident is the reason why the viewer is watching the drama – it is the spark of the premise. In detective shows it is the discovery of the body (or actual murder). In both series of the Patrick Harbinson-created Kidnap and Ransom the Inciting Incident is when a prisoner exchange goes wrong. In Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica it is the attack by the Cylons. This moment, usually seen in the first five pages, fuels your story for the episode (or episodes or series).
Writing Television Drama Page 7
