Professional script advice from a working screenwriter.
There it is. The party train rolls into July, and with a snap of the fingers, half of humanity…sorry, half of 2019 is done and dusted. It’s been a funny six months, with a lot of excitement and promise mixed with a lot of stalls and stutters. I was propelled into January off the back … Continue reading The Writing Journal #36
There are few feelings better for a writer than coming across a new idea. The rush of giddy excitement as new characters, story worlds and set pieces flash across your mind, propelling you into a mad scramble to capture them all before they disappear into the ether once more. During this time, you don’t have … Continue reading The Writing Journal #35
I’ve just got back from a weekend of throwing myself off cliffs and down mineshafts. Not because my writing week was that bad, but simply for the fun of it (I hasten to add at this point that it was controlled fun the whole time – only leap from things under the guidance of fully … Continue reading The Writing Journal #34
It seems there is a glut of phenomenal TV on our screens at the moment. The Virtues, Years and Years, Ghosts and What We Do in the Shadows to name but a few (before you even begin to add in Big Little Lies, Killing Eve and The Handmaid’s Tale starting back up again the weekend … Continue reading The Writing Journal #33
At the beginning of May, I was in quite a creatively low place. The preceding months had swept me up in a whirlwind of potential opportunities and exciting projects to get my teeth stuck into, which was fantastic, but for various reasons – funding applications being turned down; collaborators having to switch priorities; projects in … Continue reading The Writing Journal #32
A very interesting script crossed my desk this week, which provided a fascinating reminder to me of the importance of an active protagonist in a story. So fascinating, in fact, that I thought it a reminder worth sharing (although, of course, with the details removed for the sake of privacy). The first half of this … Continue reading The Writing Journal #31
“Just when they think they have all the answers, I change the questions.” Not only is this one of my favourite quotes from the incomparable “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, but it is also a sound piece of writing advice for anyone crafting a serial narrative. Jed Mercurio knows this, as do David Benioff and D.B.Weiss. Line … Continue reading The Writing Journal #30
What a weekend it’s been for 21st Century pop culture! Avengers Endgame has brought ten years and 21 films of planning, plotting and story-telling to an epic and magnificent conclusion (along with a “decent” $1.2billion at the global box office in 5 days…), whilst the Battle of Winterfell in Game of Thrones continued to redefine … Continue reading The Writing Journal #29
Happy Easter to everyone celebrating it this weekend. For me personally it’s been a great weekend of unwinding and relaxing in the glorious sunshine we’ve been enjoying. In fact, I’m so keen to get back out into the sunshine again before it inevitably disappears until August, that this is going to be a very short … Continue reading The Writing Journal #28
There’s been so much to get excited about this last weekend that I think I may need to spend the next few days in a cool, dark room to fully recover. The exciting new Star Wars IX teaser dropped with many tantalising titbits (Palpatine?!?!); Line of Duty continued to twist and turn its way towards … Continue reading The Writing Journal #27
Script & Polish 