An advisory list of potential delights and horrors when writing DOCTORS scripts.

The cast of BBC One drama, Doctors.

The First Sift

If you haven't received an email today telling you you're no longer in the running, you will have progressed through to the second round of our selection process. We have "long-listed" down from 510 to 177 scripts. For me (and for some of you) this is the most brutal and nerve-wracking part of the process. I have a team of long-standing and very trusted readers - some of whom are writers themselves, and others who work, or who have worked, on the shows in the department as Script Editors. They read the first ten pages of each script, and I then check/read them too. We take three days to do this, and I like to think we've been pretty thorough. Tough choices have to be made, however.

I talked to the readers this year about giving some general feedback and this is what we came up with:

Positives (what made them thank me afterwards for the gig):

• There was a huge variety of subjects and themes this year - no one popular idea emerged - which is unusual.


• Comedy, joy and fun.


• Scripts that don't tell you everything up front and surprise you.


• Characters that aren't at all "nice" but you love them.


• Snappy, smart, intelligent rat-tat dialogue.


• Unresolved sexual tension - how we love it!

Negatives (what drove them insane and demanding chocolate):

• Nothing happening in the first ten pages.


• A lot of very static theatre plays were sent in this year. I lost count of the number of scripts that opened with two people meeting on a park bench.


• Short film scripts - so hard to judge when there's only a few pages.


• Hard to read formats - just be clear.


• Characters who don't have names - very hard to breathe life into someone called "Man" or "Mother".


• Badly handled exposition (e.g. characters telling each other what they both already know, photos where we're meant to notice something, etc...)


• Low stakes.


• Too many stage directions/writing camera directions/breaking up speeches with stage directions.


• Lengthy opening monologues.

The next stage is that each script gets two full reads from two different members of the drama department, so I won't be short listing further until the end of June. 'Til then....

I always find the suicide of a successful artist shocking. Such as Alexander McQueen this past month. Take a profile shot of his life and all seems gleaming: World renowned in his chosen field, rich behold comprehension, famous friends and famous admirers. He achieved everything this society says you need to achieve to be content. But for whatever reason, tragically, it wasn't enough. With the eroding of religion we need a new type of heaven to look forward to. A man made mortal heaven where everything will be okay. Better than okay. Blissful. The new heaven is "Making It" in whatever stream of life you choose to swim; medicine, finance, sport, art, politics. You name the career, there's a divine peak everyone's trying to reach and when you manage to reach this golden summit you are assured that All Will Be Well.

I don't count myself any less of a climber in the Peak Distinct of Attainment. Starting out I would spend hours rambling around the Internet Movie Data Base, searching out writers who I respected and scrutinize the year of their first big break with the year of their birth. If I calculated that they had made it in, say, their early twenties. I'd become agitated and depressed. But if I found out that they'd made it, say, in their late thirties, I'd rejoice; "there's still time," I would think, "I still have an enough years to break on through". This is a ridiculous practise, of course. It helps to develop your skills as a writer in no way whatsoever, while simultaneously injecting severe doubt and insecurity into your head. Comparing careers is like crack cocaine for the struggling writer - the laptop and data base sites become the paraphernalia and the information becomes the freebase. I've been off it for years, but sometimes, late at night, I'll catch myself on doodle.com checking out Anthony Neilson's D.O.B.

As I carried on up the mountain of Making It I found that, like all promises of promised lands, there were pit stops, sub divisions, side roads and above all mirages. Another person's accomplishment was another's disappointment, and one's person's perceived failure was...you get the idea. When I was in York one time for a new playwrights conference I met a fellow scribe who knew me by name - we'd never met before but he had heard about me and was "very excited" to finally be introduced. I was flattered but I was also completely bemused. I did not consider myself successful in any sort of way (not according to my ordnance survey map of Great Achievement) but here was this lad looking at me thinking I was on the divine path to Making It Nirvana. Hmm.

When we finally get to Making It Nirvana we expect certain things to evaporate instantly. Such as loneliness and poverty. These of the two biggie burdens that we demand to be taken off our tired shoulders. Though this doesn't always happen. I know two very successful scribblers that have achieved the peak and still suffer the same old frustrations. A playwright friend of mine and winner of the prestigious George Devine Award was telling me the other day that he still can't afford to give up his day job in a bookstore. Even though he has commissions coming left right and centre and a residency at a top new writing theatre. Another writer I know whose show got 5 star reviews last year and was in the running for national awards, got so lonely at a party once that he ended up in a corner reading the Guardian. And not the fun G2 section either. This playwright had to fend off isolation with just the World Affairs pages. Ugh.

So even if you get to the summit you still have to contend with real life I guess. Real life never goes away. Which pisses me off somewhat as I was lead to believe that real life would be magically got rid of when you manage to reach Making It Nirvana. But then I consider - would I want real life to be disposed of? Would that make me, in some way, I don't know, artistically buggered? Think about the true success stories, the ones who rocket past the Making It plateau and storm into the realm where yes indeed real life can be blasted apart along with any kind of human struggle. These titans in the sky get million dollar deals and Oscars galore and then turn in very bad art very quickly. Their next project, once in the cosmos of success, is often rotten and riddled with clichés.
Is it possible perhaps that to continue to make good art, Making It Nirvana must always be kept out of reach, there to be climbed but never conquered?

In the book The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters there is a section on the hours these highly successful scribblers devote to their craft. Each and every one of them tells the editor of their gruelling work schedule. Getting up before dawn and pounding on the laptop, at furious pace, until dusk. Only stopping to do aerobic exercise on the porch of their Malibu beach homes or to play with they're overtly charming and attractive children. My double chin (un-aerobicized) fell to the floor and I was filled with a nameless dread. Jesus Christ, I thought I hardly manage to drag myself to my own dramatic doodles for 60 minutes per day and even then my cursor is magically drawn to the internet explorer icon - 'ah there's an article on filmmaker Kevin Smith being too fat to fit on an airplane, I must read this in minute detail'. Now it turns out these Hollywood stiffs are putting in 12 hour shifts. Blimey Moses.
With sweaty palms I put the book back on the Waterstones shelf (I'm a wannabe screenwriter; I can't afford books on screenwriting). This can't be true I hoped. Well maybe it's true of these uber successful scribes but the common garden writer would never manage that kind of hellish slog... right?

I clicked on my trusty explorer icon and put into Google this desperate question: how many hours a day should you write? The first site to appear was a Yahoo Answers message board . The best answer (chosen by the asker) went as follows: "I write for about 8-9 hours a day. It's very hard work! It depends on how fast I am writing. Sometimes I'll write 20 words a day, and sometimes I'll write over 2000! But usually my goal of the day is to write a chapter of the book I'm writing (My chapters are about 10-20 pages long). Good luck, and have fun writing!" GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUN WRITING?! I'd commit suicide twice if I had to write 9 hours a day. 9 hours a day. 9 hours a day? Who was this person? Stephen King? Thomas Pynchon? Martin Amis? No, it was: Soon_ To_ Be_ Mommy_4_Weeks_To_Go. That was her Username and that meant - I was presuming - she wasn't a professional ink layer. Just your average soon to be housewife and she was beating me on the commitment scale by 540 minutes to my 60 (not including YouTube breaks).

At this point I was in full despair mode and started on the self-flagellation; I'm a lazy, undisciplined piece of work that does not deserve to kiss the boot of Soon To Be Mommy 4 Weeks To Go or anyone else who's ever lifted a brio. Time to delete all plays and scripts and bring up that ASDA application form again. Before I sent My Documents to Dignitas I decided to watch an interview with David Foster Wallace on charlierose.com. Wallace is - or was (he tragically killed himself in 2008) the kind of writer that makes your soul sing in delight. He's that good. His magnum opus is Infinite Jest, 1079 pages of brilliant near future Meta fiction. My mind started spinning on rinse cycle at the thought of the number of hours he would put into his craft. I took a deep breath and prepared to be awed. But when the subject of writing day to day came up and what he would doing in a year out because of a grant he had just received Wallace said this "If past experience holds true, I will probably write an hour a day and then spend eight hours a day biting my knuckle worrying about not writing". At last, a writer who procrastinates as much as me and doesn't wear out the keys on his computer.

This little piece of info kept me afloat and then I found an interview with screenwriter Dan Roos at the wonderful makingof.com (if you have a weird fetish for viewing on set footage like I do, this sites for you) where he tells of his daily writing schedule and advice for beginning screenwriters - Make an appointment to write for an hour per day. Spend that hour either writing on your current project or in a journal. Sometimes you'll spend 10 minutes writing in the journal and 50 on the project at hand and sometimes you'll spend 10 minutes on the project and 50 minutes on the journal. Doesn't matter because at least you're putting words on the page. Every day. This is liberating for a whole set of reasons; Writing 10 pages of screenplay a day is instantly intimating. Ever looked at ten blank pages? Feels like looking into the abyss. Whereas working for a mere hour doesn't have the same awful ring to it. Also in an hour you can write 10 pages, or 6 or 2. But because you've set the goal as an hour of desk time you feel like you've accomplished something.

By this time my heart rate was back to normal. Then I remembered a foreword written by the playwright David Watson who talked about the importance of "thinking time". I too believe in thinking time. Some of my best ideas, characters, scenes or lines have come out of just walking around having a good think. However if you do this and don't scribble down what you've thought, the gems will flutter out of your head. That's where the hour a day writing appointment comes in handy.

When I had fully calmed down I began to wonder about some of the 12 hour, full working day boasts that I had read in Waterstones. I also began to ponder on the writer's preference for exaggeration. The screenwriters who were being interviewed for the book knew that other scriptwriters - their competitors - were being interviewed as well and perhaps they figured that if they didn't make out like they were sweating 24/7 they would be looked down upon, perhaps even lose work. In other words I thought they may have been telling fibs. Like all writers do. Like I've done. 60 minutes per day? Come off it - More like 20 minutes (including YouTube breaks).

My name is Dominic Mitchell and I am one of the writers on the BBC Northern Voices scheme.

Ok, in memory of Johnny Dankworth, here's how a sketch is like a jazz tune.

Say you're listening to Coltrane play 'My Favourite Things'. He'll start out with the basic tune, and then he'll take it and muck about. He'll take that tune all over the shop, he'll noodle, he'll swoop, he'll throw it over to the piano, maybe the drums will get a solo. For most of the track, he'll do all the things that jazz lovers love and jazz haters hate. Then he'll bring it back. The basic tune reasserts itself and... finish.

A sketch is like that.

I've said elsewhere that a sketch is one idea. It can have as many twists and turns, as many opposing viewpoints and (must have) as many jokes as you like, but at heart it is one single idea. The opening of a sketch sells that idea, gets a laugh, sets the tune. From there on you can take it anywhere as long as, like Coltrane's rhythm section, you have the basic idea backing you up. A sketch can, and should, be as surprising as you can make it but every twist is just a variation on the central theme, an improvisation around your tune. Look at how Fry & Laurie play around with the information desk idea here.

The punchline, then, is the tune reasserting itself. It's the payoff - the ideal finish that the start promised. Everything in the sketch is pointed towards this moment. That's why a satisfying punchline gets such a big laugh - it's a Freudian release moment, with everyone getting there effortlessly at the same time.

Of course, you might not like punchlines. A lot of people think they're old fashioned. These are people who have to put stings between their sketches to cover the lack of laughs. A punchline doesn't have to be a badum-tish gag, it shouldn't inspire a wah-wah-wah from the trombonist. It does have to tie up the sketch. A sketch always has to have a last line, obviously, so why not make it funny? Otherwise you might just find your producer cutting out on the last big laugh.

So there you go: Thesis, Antithesis, Conclusion. Oh, wait, no. That's why sketch writing is like A Level History essays. I think my basic point is this: I like jazz.

Well, its just a bit-of-fun theory, thought up over an idle hour on the tube reading Newsjack submissions - and anyway I'm more Ornette Coleman than Wynton Marsalis, so feel free to go your own way, play whatever tune you like.

Which sounds like as good an excuse as any to listen to this.

Dan

Screenwriter Josh Olson wrote a piece for the Village Voice about why he no longer reads manuscripts from new writers who he doesn't know. (Warning: contains strong language.)

We, on the other hand, will.

About one in twenty of the scripts we receive will get taken away for a full read, and if your script reaches this stage then we'll give you a page of feedback on it.

But we guarantee to read the first ten pages of every single script we get sent.

Kulvinder Gill, one of the shortlisted writers in our recent CBBC Competition has helpfully written up his notes from the CBBC masterclass and posted them on the web.

You can read his account of the day on Michelle Lipton's blog.

Shortlist

It's been a month since I last blogged, and we've now shortlisted down to thirty writers. This means that everyone who entered should have received a "yes" or a "no". If you haven't - something's gone wrong - so you need to get in touch with us directly.

This is the longest stage of the process. Each of the 150 long-listed scripts was read in full by two members of the drama department and marked in eight categories: Dialogue, Character, Narrative Structure and Pace, Distinctive Voice, Emotional Appeal, Visual Storytelling, Credible World and "Did it keep your attention?". Each section is marked out of five and so the final score is a mark out of 80. It's tough "scoring" writing ability, but at least it gives us something to hang our responses on and it's the best system we've come up with so far. Anyone got a better suggestion I would love to hear it!

The team and I then read as many of those as is humanly possible (usually all those with marks over 50). We then (and only then) look at the application forms and factor those into the equation:
- Do they watch (or at least pretend to watch!) Continuing Drama? - you'd be amazed those applications that don't even mention the programmes... or television!
- Do they have some knowledge of the pressure they'll be working under?
- Do they come across as writers who can work collaboratively? - really difficult to judge, and this is what the workshops are all about.
- What's their writing CV so far and how does it show an aptitude for this kind of writing? (that doesn't mean only writers who've worked on continuing drama before)
- Do they want it? - do they really want it? Again impossible to judge from 400 words on a stuffy online application form, but you have to try get to the heart of what they're saying and make a judgement on this.

Then... we get input from the Writersroom for anyone on the list who's work they've read, we ask around, we ask for second opinions, we compare notes... basically we do everything we can to try and make this rather artificial process as fair and as exhaustive as possible.

I'll be meeting the final thirty at the workshops later this week. We're very excited about them, and the quality of work this year, everyone agrees, has been higher than ever. If you didn't make it this time, I would really encourage you to try again next year. I could have filled the workshops several times over with worthy people.

Was just checking out John August's blog, and he's got a post featuring a podcast by Merlin Mann (of 43 Folders) talking about creativity and writing, and whether or not your work's good enough.

Well worth a listen - the good stuff starts at about twelve minutes in - but if you can't be bothered, here's the secret.

Start.

Check it out.

Newsjack is now open for business, accepting comedy sketches and jokes for your aural entertainment.

To get you in the mood for funny, we've got a new interview with Jocelyn Jee Esien and Gareth Edwards talking specifically about writing sketch comedy, and writing for Newsjack. Though it was known as 7 on 7 when we did the interview. We thrive on confusion here.

You might also be interested in reading our earlier interview with Sanjeev Kohli and Gareth Edwards, or checking out the recent writeup of a 7 on 7 masterclass with David Mitchell.

Newsjack masterclass. Whatevs.

If you missed the pilot, the first episode of the series goes out tomorrow at 11pm. Find out more dates and times and use iPlayer to catchup from the Newsjack programme page.

Deadlines for sketches are noon on Mondays.

Good luck!

Well, the word is out, and the word is Newsjack.

That's the new name for The Open Call Topical Comedy Show Formerly Known As 7 on 7. Or TOCTCSFKA7O7 if you prefer. Most don't.

Newsjack has been commissioned for six weeks in the first instance, and airs on Thursday and Sunday nights at 11pm on BBC Radio 7.

The pilot is aired tomorrow evening, Thursday 4th June, with the series proper starting a fortnight later. Don't forget that you can listen to it on iPlayer after transmission if you miss it.

To submit material, you'll need to get it to the production team before noon on the Monday before the programme - so the first deadline is Monday 15th.

You can also improve your chances by reading David Mitchell's tips for writing sketch comedy and putting them to work.

More details about where to send your sketches will appear on the Newsjack website after the pilot airs.

It's a completely open call, so best of luck with your submissions.

Bob the Builder / Smack the Pony / Green Wing writer James Henry is in the middle of a series of posts about outlines and treatments on his blog at the moment. Including the development of a TV series about British Superheroes.

So if you want to see how ideas for TV series get developed by pro writers, go check out his blog. EDIT: Please be aware that James' posts on this subject contain strong language.

And here's instalment 9:

Passion

It's not an easy thing to explain, but one of the most important things we are looking for is that true, unquenchable desire in the writer to tell their story. You can tell very quickly when the writer really means it - and you can tell just as easily when they are just going through the motions. If you don't truly care about the story you are telling, then why should we? Of course, passionately believing in your story is unfortunately not going to make the script work all by itself - but I think it's an indispensable part of why we get excited about any given writer.

But what do I mean by 'passion'? Well, I mean: does your idea and story keep you up at night? Have the characters and their stories really got under your skin? And have you got under theirs? Do you feel compelled to write? Does it feel like your story is already writing itself in your head without you putting pen to paper or finger to keyboard? Do you believe your take on an idea has never quite been seen before and needs to be seen by an audience? If you don't feel any of these things, then you need to ask yourself whether it's worth persisting with an idea.

What I also mean is: don't try to be expedient. An extremely common question we hear is: what do you want, what are you looking for? What we're looking for is a great writer who does the kinds of things that I've been exploring in these blog posts. What we're looking for is something we've never seen before. You can waste a lot of time and energy trying to write the kind of script that you think you ought to write because you believe/hope/assume it will get you to whatever next stage you want to be at. But you can't be this calculating. If a script is simply there to be expedient, then it's likely it will never really, truly impress anybody.

What I also mean is: don't try to second guess what people want. Because you will almost certainly get it wrong. If people in the industry were crystal clear about they want, then life would be so much easier - but it would also so much less interesting. The truth is, we are waiting to be hit between the eyes and in the solar plexus with something that genuinely surprises us. Because if it can surprise someone who is being constantly bombarded with ideas and scripts, then there's a decent chance it will surprise an audience.

And that is what we really, truly want.

Apologies for the late arrival of the next instalment, it's been extremely busy here... But here's number 8:

Exposition and Expression

Or in other words: dialogue. In truth, i think it's almost impossible to teach or learn how to have an ear for characters and their voices. It's perfectly possible to learn how to edit it, improve it, polish it up and make it leap off the page - but only if you have that instinct to hear it and voice it in the first place.

I've read a lot of scripts where the structure is tight, the story is right, the genre and tone spot on etc - BUT where the dialogue is wooden and without life and personality. And I've read scripts where the structure is loose, the story quite confused and all sorts of things are wrong with it - but where the characters step off the page immediately because the writer has really caught their voice. In truth, i think i'd generally rather have the latter kind of script. Because it really takes a true writer to do the latter.

Strong dialogue expresses character. It isn't just words - it breathes life into character. It gives them lines, sayings and sentiments that we remember for life and want to say back to people in order to impress them at parties, in the playground, in the office. (Around BBC Television Centre and Broadcasting House there are numerous walls and screens with great quotes from great characters - because the currency of that great dialogue is so strong.)

The converse of this, therefore, is that poor dialogue is there purely and simply to relate and explain information for the purpose of plot and story exposition. If this is the sole purpose of your dialogue, then you need to do something else with it - or something else with the scene. Often, expository dialogue tends to mask the fact that there is no real drama in a scene - so if you can find a push and pull, a conflict, a beat of story for your scene, then there will be a better dramatic reason for the dialogue to be there. Even better, the more ways you can find to put information across through action and story, the more your dialogue will be the sole domain and medium of your characters expressing themselves.

It sounds obvious - but real people don't tell each other things they already know in obvious ways, and neither should your characters. Real people also don't always say what they mean, don't always mean what they say, and don't always know what they mean and what they mean to say when they open their mouths to speak. Ordinary conversation isn't dramatic dialogue - but good dialogue should at least be able to take on board the idiosyncracies and complexities of real, ordinary people when they try to (or try not to) express themselves. Real people say the best lines that most writers could never conjure up, which is why many writers happily steal from real people.

Subtext is just about the hardest thing you as a writer will need to master. Because subtext is what is being said and expressed beyond, behind, below and in spite of the words actually spoken. Subtext is the silent language that people use when words either don't say enough or say too much. Subtext is story and character that can't simply be vocalised. If you can work meaningful subtext into a scene, then you are doing something really quite special.

"Those Shows"

I was at a meeting the other day to talk about writer training (at an institution outside the BBC). I was talking about why new writers sometimes failed when writing for the shows I worked for. I suggested that it might be because they didn't like them or even watch them when they got the gig. I may even have said "You need to love them to write them". A writer who was there came in (rather aggressively, I felt) with "Well we all know that writers on 'those shows' only write them to pay their mortgages."

A little while later in the same meeting, a former writing student was wheeled into the meeting to talk about their experiences since graduating their course. He told us how he'd completed a shadow scheme script for one of the BBC Continuing Dramas, but had been told that his services weren't required and that he hadn't "got" the show. He went on to say that he had only tried out for the show because his agent had told him it would make a good career move, and he didn't really watch it. Hmm, point proven I thought -though I didn't say anything, as the first writer had been quite scary.

It's completely fascinating to me that the suggestion that writers on Continuing Dramas write them because they love them arouses such bile in some people. Or that a high volume show like Holby should aspire to create intelligent drama, should provoke such ire, as it did on this blog a couple of weeks ago. Why so cross about it?

Anyway, my point this week is to say that if you're thinking about applying to the Writers Academy next month, you'd better start working up some passion and WATCH TELLY.