Try this
Watch a cop/detective show and identify all the clues that lead to the capture of the bad guy.
Sketch out the storyline from beginning to end.
Identify the climax and describe the resolution.
Does it all make sense?
Now do the same with your own storyline.
Figure 10.4 ‘Episode title’, episode of Hustle © Kudos Film and Television
Key advice
Keep the dramatic tension high almost to the very end.
Keep your audience guessing by using surprising and inventive plot twists.
Avoid being too obvious about exposition – feed the audience the information they need to know as succinctly and unobtrusively as possible.
11
The scene
In this chapter you will learn:
• that every scene must have a clear purpose
• what to include in the scene heading
• how to write scene descriptions
• how to write scene action.
Scenes are the building blocks of your story and it is very important that each scene has a purpose. The purpose of a scene has to either move the story forward or advance the plot. If a scene, no matter how well written, does not do this, it needs to be cut. Ask the question: If I take this scene out, is the script the worst for it? If there appears to be no gap in the script – then it can go.
Types of scenes
Establishing scene This is usually used to establish a location or sense of place or visual information.
Dialogue scene This is a scene that conveys information, reveals character and has conflict.
Scene sequence These are series of scenes that are linked together by a single idea.
The basics
For every scene, you need to ask yourself a few basic questions. Making these few essential decisions will help you to write the scene more effectively.
WHERE DOES IT TAKE PLACE?
The first decision you have to make about every scene is the where – interior or exterior, plus a location. Immediately, the writer is making a visual decision and sets the tone for the scene. If it is a police interview room or courtroom or workplace, there may be a formal atmosphere to the scene. In a park playground or changing room the atmosphere will probably be informal.
The location of the scene may be dictated by the nature of the story but if you can pick a location that is visually interesting and allows something else to be going on as well, that will add further texture to your story.
WHEN DOES IT OCCUR?
The next important decision is the when – when does the scene take place? Is it morning, noon or night? Is one of the characters rushing to open up the night club or to close up the shop or on the school run? An empty night club in daylight is a very different place to one at night. Visiting someone’s house in the morning is different from going there early in the evening.
Whether the scene is interior or exterior, the location and the time of day together make up your scene heading (see Chapter 1 for more information).
WHO IS IN THE SCENE?
Who is going to populate your scene? How many characters and what is their purpose in the scene? It doesn’t mean that every character in a scene has to speak to warrant their place there but they do have to be there for a reason.
WHAT IS THE SCENE ABOUT?
What is the viewer (or reader) meant to learn from the scene? Is it a piece of information that will help the investigation? Is it a piece of information that puts doubt in the mind of the wife who suspects her husband is having an affair? Does it show off a skill that a character may utilize later in the story? Be clear about what the scene is about.
You need to decide which character will drive the scene. Is it the character that wants something? Is it the character who wants to say something? Is it the character who wants to keep a secret? Through such decisions the writer creates a scene dynamic which during the course of the scene might see a shift in power from the person driving the scene to the person who is initially under the cosh.
How long should a scene be?
A scene should be as short as it possibly can. For each scene, the writer needs to cut to the chase and dispense with preamble. Go straight to the point of the scene, which means starting every scene as ‘late’ in the story as you possibly can. Once the scene has done its job, the scene should end straight away. Scene writing maxim: start late, finish early.
There is no hard-and-fast rule about the length of scenes per se. Some scenes can be seconds long; others can be minutes long. It all depends on your writing style and style of your show. However, generally speaking, three-page scenes are frowned upon, although everyone is free to break this rule if the scene is engaging and good.
And that is important. Each scene has to be engaging and good and make you want to move to the next scene, because if it isn’t it won’t matter an iota where you’ve set the scene, who is in it, or whether you start late or finish early.
Scene description
You have written your scene heading and now you have taken us, geographically, to the place you want the scene to play. What information do you need to include in your scene description?
As always you want to be economic with your words. You are creating an atmosphere to reflect character, so the words you use should give a sense of place and tone. The description should use broad strokes and the words should be evocative and image-oriented. Do use descriptive nouns or metaphors or similes. Don’t use loads of adjectives to support a generic noun. Everything is implied. Be specific about something only if it is essential to the story.
Figures 11.1 and 11.2 are two examples of scene description from the BBC detective drama New Tricks. This episode, entitled ‘Left Field’, was written by Lisa Holdsworth. The first is the opening scene and sets up where Halford and Pullman are.
Figure 11.1 ‘Left Field’, Scene 1, episode of New Tricks © Wall To Wall
The second is in an interior scene in the living room of the suspect, Anne. Note how the description tells us about the character.
This visual image is far superior to any description Halford could make of the house to a colleague. The viewer makes their own judgement as to what type of character Anne is.
Figure 11.2 ‘Left Field’, Scene 7, episode of New Tricks © Wall To Wall
Scene action
Any scene action has to be conveyed with clarity and be an essential part of the story. It is important to say what you mean to help paint a moving picture in the mind’s eye of the reader and express your intention to the director, though without going to the extent of suggesting camera angles!
Don’t direct on the page
Avoid including camera angles, editing directions or parentheticals for speech:
Camera angles are the territory of the director and he or she will to a man and woman ignore such explicit direction from a writer. So take out all those CLOSE-UPS and PANS ACROSS. However, you can influence the director without resorting to camera directions. Instead of CLOSE-UP, write the reaction you want: e.g. ‘JOHN grimaces’ or ‘MARY smiles’. Such indications express to the director that the character’s reactions are important and that they will need to show them.
Editing directions (known as transitions) include instructions such as CUT TO. As a rule, avoid using these, or use them only sparingly and for impact. The reader will know there is a scene change because of the scene heading.
Parentheticals are used to tell the actor how to say a particular line. In the vast majority of cases, they are simply not needed. The way the scene is set up and the exchange of dialogue should make it clear how the line is to be delivered. Only in the rare circumstance where a line is truly ambiguous, and could thus be delivered in one of several ways, should parentheticals be used.
When writing scene action, you might find a using a thesaurus helpful so that you select the right word. For example, anyone can walk into a room – here ‘walk’ is almost
a non-word because it conveys something that is everyday and bland. Look at alternatives and see if there is something better that can reveal something about a character’s state of mind and/or intent. A character could step, tread, pace, stride, strut, stalk, prance, tiptoe, skip, lumber, stamp, goosestep, patter, lurch, toddle, stagger, reel, waddle, shuffle, dawdle, trudge, stomp, ambulate, perambulate, march, etc. Each word expresses a different shade of the verb ‘to walk’ and conveys something about your character. Consider every piece of action that you write because it is action that reveals the truth.
You may write scenes that don’t have any dialogue at all, but which are action-packed with a chase or a fight. Again, think about the words you use to describe those actions and the effect that they will convey.
Tips for writing scene description and action
With action- and/or description-heavy scenes, it is wise not to write a block of uninterrupted prose. Restrict each paragraph to no more than four lines before either interrupting with dialogue or another sequence of action.
Regard each new paragraph as a cut – a new shot. With that you can give pace and impact to the scene and tell the reader that a character’s emotional reaction or action is important.
Try to write all scene action/description in the present tense. Remember you are telling a story of moving pictures so include movement – show your characters doing things. It helps keeper the reader in the moment. Once you give an instruction or attempt to explain something in the scene description, you will take the reader out of your story and you will lose the momentum and atmosphere you have worked so hard to create.
Key advice
If a scene does not advance the story in any way, drop it.
Make sure scene descriptions are short but evocative of the mood you want for the scene.
Don’t try to do the director’s job in the script by including indications for camera angles and close-ups.
Make sure that the scene action is punchy but evocative of character – remember, actions tell the truth.
Industry interview 5: scriptwriter (III)
INDUSTRY INTERVIEW: TONY JORDAN
Tony Jordan is one of the UK’s leading scriptwriters. From his beginnings as the perceived authentic voice of EastEnders, he went on to develop his own shows including City Central, Holby Blue, Hustle, Life on Mars, Moving Wallpaper, Echo Beach and The Nativity. He is a generous supporter of new talent through his own production company Red Planet Pictures, which also runs an annual scriptwriting contest – the Red Planet Prize.
Nicholas Gibbs: How did you break into television? You were famously a stallholder.
Tony Jordan: I was working on the markets and my next-door neighbour, Doug, was a wannabe writer. He was writing scripts, sending them off and trying to get a start. I was intrigued by that – it was like he had a hobby that I didn’t have. At his suggestion, I wrote a script but put in a drawer for a year until Doug told me to send it off. I didn’t know where to send it, so I just put it in a big manila envelope and wrote ‘BBC, London’ on it and posted it. I didn’t hear anything; I didn’t expect to. Then about three months later I got a card from the BBC saying someone had read my script, they really enjoyed it and did I want to come in for a chat? So I went to the Script Unit had a few chats, went to a couple of seminars with John Sullivan and Carla Lane, and listened to them. I didn’t want to be a writer particularly but it was a day out. The Head of the Script Unit sent the script to the producer of EastEnders and I got offered the job. It was that easy. So I didn’t do the whole starving with the naked light bulb in a lonely room kind of thing!
NG: Is it true that they thought you were a Londoner and you were the authentic voice of the East End?
TJ: Oh true, that was completely true. They heard I was a market trader so I think I was sold to them as the real deal. That’s may be why I got in so quick because I think they had a bit of stick about the authenticity of the real East End. East Enders weren’t miserable; they were all happy and ‘cor blimey, leave it out’! So I think I was sold to the producers as the real deal as the barrow boy. That turned into an East End barrow boy as obviously I would be because that’s the only kind of barrow boy. So I played the part; I just did my best Dick Van Dyke impression! I knew why I was there. I wasn’t a kid. I wasn’t stupid. I knew what they thought I was and I went in and I played the part.
NG: So how long did that persist? When did the truth come out?
TJ: I think a couple of years. It was during that period everybody looked at me – I thought it was hilarious – as the oracle as to whether something was real or not. I’ve never lived in the East End in my life. People would turn to me at Story Table and ask: ‘Would that happen in the East End, Tone?’ I’d say: ‘Yeah, yeah absolutely.’ Then the press office called and one of the papers or a magazine or something wanted to do a feature on me growing up in the East End. I thought: ‘Well, I’m going to have to come clean.’ I said ‘I don’t know; I wasn’t brought up in the East End.’ Shocked silence on the end of the phone when I told them I was born in Southport on Merseyside.
NG: You were associated with EastEnders for a long time. For someone who fell into it by accident did you have any stories you wanted to tell?
TJ: No, not really. When I was writing for EastEnders I wasn’t a writer. I didn’t think of myself as a writer. I was just working on EastEnders doing the scripts. That’s how I saw it because I never had any aspirations to be a writer. I was never a frustrated writer, I was a market trader and I was quite happy. So my feeling was never about ‘I’ve got stories I’m longing to tell.’ It was more about I know people because, even though I was not an East End barrow boy, I was a market trader surrounded by people. I talked to people, real people who came to a market on Saturday morning to buy their veg. I talked to them every day of my life so I knew how people talked to each other. I knew how funny people were. I knew how loving people could be. I knew how cruel people could be. So I wrote people properly. Not that no one else did but my episodes became, in my head, less about the storyline I had been given to do by EastEnders and more about Pauline and Arthur sitting in a pub talking about their marriage or the Mitchell brothers talking about ‘birds’.
NG: Your first authored series was City Central. How did that come about?
TJ: I think City Central was the moment when I became a writer, a proper writer, whatever that means. I still don’t know what that means! I spent a lot of time sitting in story meetings on other shows and rocking the boat a bit saying ‘Why don’t we do this? Should we do it this way? Can we do that? Why do you do it that way?’ I didn’t know any better but to question everything. The way I wrote as well would ignore storylines and people would say ‘You haven’t done this.’ And I’d say: ‘Yeah, I know but I had loads of fun doing this karaoke competition instead.’ So City Central was the first time I was in control. I could create the characters, I could create the world, and I could create the stories. It was like, ‘Wow, I haven’t got to convince anybody now so I just have to convince myself.’ I loved it and it is probably one of the things I’m most proud of – still.
NG: You wrote most of the episodes on City Central but not all and you brought other writers in…
TJ: You have to. It happens on every show because it’s not possible.
NG: Is it hard to hand over your characters to someone else?
TJ: No, not at all. It’s like being a kid and getting a really cool bike. I remember getting my first Raleigh Chopper and it was great but then my mates didn’t have one. I loved to say to them ‘Get on and have a go because it’s brilliant.’ I think like that with most of my other shows. I think it is brilliant to see what other people do with my characters and so I love it.
NG: Do you give those writers a free rein or is there an element of prescription with storylines?
TJ: It kind of depends on what it is. There’s no restriction on storylines. I used to do storylining because I was doing that on EastEnders. I’d do some but the b
est writers ignore some of that like I had done. They’ve dumped it, done their own thing and you get an episode that is completely brilliant. Some writers came and stuck slavishly to what I did, what I’d said and my ideas and it wasn’t quite as great. You need to have balls as a writer. On City Central it was a bit of both. It was a good experience.
NG: After Series 3 when City Central wasn’t recommissioned, were you disappointed or did you think it had come to the end of its natural life?
TJ: I kind of did two series of City Central. They brought in another writer to come and showrun it. I lost a little bit of love for City Central after two series and I don’t know why. I think by then people were starting to give me notes and I felt people were trying to change it from what I wanted it to be. So it carried on and I didn’t really have a lot to do with the third series if I’m honest.
NG: Was it a question of having pressure from above about what the show should be but you having your own vision of what it should be?
TJ: You always get pressure because someone has given you the money to make it. It can be your show. I’ve even got it now. Hustle’s my show. It’s going out on someone else’s channel and they have their own agenda about what they want their channel to portray, what they want on their channel, what they want to spend their money on. They’ve got all those things to worry about and I completely get it. It’s not a bad thing. I’ve been really lucky that creatively I haven’t had too many people trying to change what I want to do.
Writing Television Drama Page 10