Dealing with Reversals and Coming Back Better

Today, I got the news that many a writer, regardless of field, dreads: 'we are not continuing further with you'. I will no longer be writing the episode of River City I was commissioned to back in July: I simply wasn't able to capture the right tone for the show. 

Now to be clear, the executive producer was very gracious in his phone call with me, and he did offer an open return in the future, which was nice and I am grateful for. He commended the script that I had used to get on the show in the first place, which was also very nice.

Perhaps you expect me to do a big old sobfest and cry and moan. Say how unfair it is and how I was totally great at it.

No.

Fact of the matter is: I wasn't ready and, maybe because of frustration with how other projects had gone, I was banking too hard on it being 'the one' (the magic ticket I have so often denounced on this blog). Even as I was writing the drafts, I couldn't help but have a sense of unease, like something was missing. I actioned the notes, best as I knew how, but something just kept on niggling me.

Did it hurt when I got the news? Of course it did. 

Was I upset for a while? I mean yes, why wouldn't I be? I don't think it's a bad thing to acknowledge that. We are human beings: we feel and feel deeply. There's no shame in saying that and it's not unprofessional. One thing I pride this blog on is honesty and, as a second, transparency. If something doesn't work or changes, I say. If I don't believe something, I say. I don't run away from mistakes and I take them as learning experiences. In turn, I hope you learn from them.

The reality is, these things happen. Talent is no protection against, sometimes, missing the mark, and it happens to everyone and anyone: Paul Abbott got booted off Doctor Who; Peter Morgan has scripts rejected all the time by big producers; William Goldman has a whole treasure trove of 'almosts' in his filmography. My point is, if this does happen to you, don't let it crush you. You're not a hack or a fake or a 'bad writer': you're learning. The issue is not making mistakes, it's not learning from them, which is what I intend to do. What will I do now: Have a break. Regroup, refresh and then go back into specs.

A big thanks to the team on RC, who were genuinely great, and hopefully, not my last trip to Shieldinch.

BBC Doctors Writer's Scheme - An Inside Look

The biggest news of 2021, for me, was my successful completion of the Writer's Scheme for BBC One's Doctors. The long running medical drama about the goings on at a Birmingham GP surgery has been running since 2000 on weekdays, delivering five half hours of daytime drama a week. It's also become known as a 'gateway' show for those seeking to get into TV drama: a fast and cheap show with a good amount of freedom to pitch stories on. 

How do you get on it? 

The writer's scheme (or shadow scheme, as it was known in the old, old days), which is what it sounds like: a multi-week bootcamp, teaching you the ropes of the show as you develop a mock episode. You succeed, you get to do one for real. The other BBC soaps/continuing dramas also use this system to find new talent. 

But HOW do you get on that? 

Well, you have to be referred to it. Usually by your agent, but it can done by contacting a producer or script editor on the show directly, pitching one of your drama scripts and sending it in to see if they'll bite. Choose your best script, naturally, but if i had another bit of advice to give: give them something lean, of a modest budget and with a strong heart and sense of community/relationships. A VFX extravaganza with a lot of action won't do you any favours.

What's the actual scheme like?

I'll take you through each step, with a date stamp. In between each one, I had a phone meeting with my script editor, to talk over notes and discuss the best changes. Timeline wise, the official line is six weeks, but due to COVID and other production issues (remember, the script editor is working on real episodes while also doing your trial) this can fluctuate.

12/08/21 - Today, I delivered my first pitches. Doctors is divided into two components - the day story (the B plot, which is what you pitch) and the serial story (the story arc, which the storyliners work out in advance). You as the writer are told to submit several short pitches (about one or two lines) for the day story, an incident for the team at the Mill to deal with. The emphasis is on the character drama, however, not the novelty or rarity of the disease a character has. You're not writing The Strain here. You've basically got a 15 mins short film within the episode, so it has to be tight and emotional.

19/08/21 - Now that the pitch has been selected (one about an autistic boy and his son trying to figure out a path in life now that they are both older), I worked on a treatment. It's a 2 page document that outlines the whole story, with a clear beginning, middle and end. Because it's so short, it's really vital to make the emotional beats really clear - being vague or ambiguous is not good here. You also need to bear in mind that, well, one of your characters is a doctor - there are things medical professionals can and cannot do. Your script editor will point things out, but be sure to do some revision first.

(Quick time savers for you - they cannot hand out pills just like that; they cannot just leave the surgery save for house calls and double check which doctor has which specialties.)

 

31/08/21 - Treatment is approved, so went off and did a scene breakdown (basically a beat sheet of the entire episode, with both plot lines). What's interesting, when I look back at this stage, is appreciating how even 'quaint' or 'low-key' dramas, ones that are more relaxing or simple compared to the big flashy shows, still rely heavily on effective twists and structuring. Yes, Doctors has twists and surprises, because it's a drama. You cannot wing your way through this - 30 mins can be an eternity if done wrong.

14/09/21 - Breakdown got a thumbs up, with some notes. My script editor opted to go to script draft, so after writing, the first draft has now shipped. Getting into the actual script is a new challenge - unlike most TV drama scripts, the continuing dramas/soaps have different formatting. Instead of Final Draft and all the usual rules, Doctors' drafts are done in Word with a different set of guidelines - among the main ones is everything is centered right instead of the middle like FD; action lines are far, far more detailed as, given the show's tight budget, you have to be clear about everything needed in a scene; and you have to provide a cast and location breakdown at the front of the script - how many people, which regulars, non-speaking roles, bios. If it's in your story, you have to mention it here.

28/09/21 - First draft notes received a few days back, now completed rewrites on the second. By and large, my script editor was happy with the progress. The main notes were mostly relating to character voice accuracy (a common pitfall that can be remedied by just binging episodes on iPlayer) and the tone of some scenes. Only one scene needs drastic altering as it wasn't working and felt out of place.

The interesting thing is, while you are given a bible and clear guidelines to follow, once past the first draft you're allowed to be a bit looser with them, if the episode demands it. A character you may have had forced on you in the serial outline (since a Doctors episode is split between two plots, as discussed above) can be taken out. The goal of the first draft is just to see how everything you've created (for the day) and been asked to put in (the serial) work together, and see where the balance is off. It's more flexibility than I had expected, to be honest.

19/10/21 - And after a short phone chat with my script editor, I got the go-ahead to do a real episode! Starting back from square one, of course, but I was amazed at how quickly this came together. In total about two months, so longer than the official length, but not by much. Honestly, I'm still surprised I got greenlit for the real deal on the second draft.

One of the best takeaways from all this has been learning how to turn around something fast while working to a high standard and deadline. While I prize myself as a fairly quick writer, this served as a reminder not to take shortcuts or assume too much with your work. Detail and clarity are king. Where it goes from here, well, I'll just have to wait and see.

Hope that was interesting for you. Any questions, sound off below!

I'm joining Emmerdale (ITV Original Voices 2021)

Only a few months after my big score on BBC's Doctors, this happens. 

I completed the 2021 ITV Original Voices scheme (you may recall I did the 2019 intake for Coronation Street, but didn't make the final four. If you want to refresh, or learn about it if you're new, here) and got chosen to do a three-month comprehensive placement in the story and script departments of this long-running country drama. It's not unlike the Writer's Scheme from Doctors, but more expansive: you learn every step that it takes to make an episode. At the end, I do another shadow/trial script for the show. If they like it, well, who knows what opportunities arise?

It is amusing for me to get this: Emmerdale has been a constant in my life, coming in and out. Being the son of Spanish migrants who grew up rural, the show always gave me a cozy nostalgic feeling when I was away from Spain. Back when I was at Met Film School, doing my masters in screenwriting, I met none other than head honcho of the ITV soaps, John Whiston, down in London. Really nice guy, had lots of advice about television and we stayed in touch since. He even read and really liked a script of mine!

So, a big fat thanks to everyone on the Emmerdale team, for giving me this opportunity, as well as Michelle Goode of Writersofluid, whose notes helped the script that got me onto both Original Voices schemes, as well as on Doctors (a reminder that a good script keeps on giving and giving). And not forgetting my friends and family, who've cheered me on as the application and test script for this part of the scheme were done on super-tight turnaround. Including the great Mr. Josh Merritt, a fine artist in his own right, cheerleading me on.

I'm working on BBC's Doctors

So, I finally have some work news and it's a whopper: I have just gotten a place on BBC One's Doctors, following completion of their writers scheme. Basically, it was a trial to write on the long running drama about a medical practice in Birmingham. The series follows the lives of several GPs and staff at the Mill Health Centre. There's love, there's laughs, there's loss and always a new patient with some new problem every day of the working week! 

 

As I succeeded to the script editor's satisfaction with said practice episode, now I get the real deal: pitching (and hopefully then scripting) my first broadcast drama credit.

 

 

 

It's been quite a trek to get here, having tried to get on the scheme two years ago, and not landing it. (On the flip side, it's a reminder to be gracious, as that script editor went onto become a producer and put me forward this time when I showed him a new, and better, script). I do intend to do a full post on the scheme and how the process to develop a Doctors episode works, but sufficed to say, do not let the quaintness fool you: this is a tough and demanding gig.

 

However, I'm really excited to get cracking on the real deal in the coming weeks, and big, big thanks to Mary Flanigan (no J, as she made very clear!) and Simon Curtis, for giving me this opportunity, as well as Michelle Goode of Writersofluid, whose notes helped polish the drama script that got me onto the trial in the first place. And in true awards tradition, not forgetting my friends and family, who've cheered me on through not just this, but last year and a bit as I've navigated a turbulent industry and media landscape.

The Value of Diversity and Why TV isn't a Meritocracy - A Response to Tabasam Begum

Increasing diversity in media has become more and more of a hot topic in recent years. As the demographics of the population shift and change, what we see in print and on our screens should, in some way, reflect that. People of all walks of life want to tell stories or just have fun and make their dream project. One of the immediate solutions to tapping this new talent vein was for the industry to put up schemes targeting said groups, providing training and resources. All well and good, or so it seems.

Film critic Tabasam Begum wrote about being on one of these. In the piece, Begum recounts her experiences on an (unnamed) major soap's diversity scheme and how condescending her treatment was by the staff, highlighting how her race was viewed as trivial or a nuisance and-

STOP! 
STOP, STOP, STOP! 

You, YES YOU! YOU, reading this and reaching for the keyboard, about to type in the comments of here or Facebook, or somewhere else, a version of 'meritocracy', 'I don't see race', 'best writer for the job' or the myriad of other miss-the-point-lines - sit down and wait. Or better, actually read first, then try and offer an opinion (something that has proven rather hard in the digital age we live in).

Anyway, Begum's piece follows on, not long after The Guardian ran another piece, where TV director Christiana Ebohon-Green (Grantchester, Holby) and actress Wunmi Mosaku (Lovecraft Country, Luther). recount the barriers they've faced in their careers: the lack of similar peers and how isolating it can feel, and how systemic racism has left them both stuck at particular levels that only recently started to shift. And well, if that's too subjective and 'appealing-to-emotion' for you, here's some hard data from London School of Economics, but let's bring it back a bit and ask: how did it come to this? Surely, the industry gets on top of problems and only chooses the best, right?

I've spoken before about the need for much, much stronger pipelines in this business so as to stop screenwriting being treated as the lottery: if someone can write well, they should get a turn at the wheel and background shouldn't be holding them back because of the homogeneity of the industry. Systemic racism, a word I'm sure many have become more familiar with in recent months, isn't always about active or deliberate malice: I and I don't think Begum or Green are saying that there's some hidden KKK cell at  one of the big four.

Rather, this tends to happen when you surround yourself with one type of person for so long: you end up only going to that type and thus, you're not incentivized to go out of the comfort zone and find different talent. We as humans can be an incredibly complacent lot and not feel the need to go outside our comfort zones - and somehow this is meant to be a 'meritocracy'? A word misused by online commenters who don't work in the industry and have no idea how people get gigs? 'Meritocracy' is a nice abstract ideal, but if that was the case, why is this a business so dependent on referrals and networking i.e. the opposite of being chosen solely on 'merit' if you already have prior relationships?


And this doesn't apply solely to race - disability enters the equation too (and here's where I come in). Pablo gave me my break - there, the mission statement was letting creators on the autistic spectrum tell their stories. They put time and effort to either train or simply enhance our writing ability. One of the big joys was being at the premiere for Series 2 (now on iPlayer, plug plug) and seeing all the autistic kids there, who did little voice roles in the cartoons. They did something no one would expect of them and got to just be themselves. It was wonderful.

But then, it comes with a flip side: if we hadn't given them the chance to show they could do it, who else would've? Would any other show hire them, or just brush them aside in favour of a 'less demanding' child? Would I, as a then-green writer with several years worth of non-starters behind me, have gotten the same shot to tell my story? And if you think I'm being hyperbolic, superstar writer Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials, The Aeronauts, This is England) has spoken of his battles in trying to get disabled performers parts in his shows, only to be told no for no justifiable reason. If he's struggling, what does that say about how parts of the industry currently engage with the topic?

And if you still want to cling to the idiocy of 'b-b-but meritocracy', how can you create a truly equal, merit driven system where race and gender and everything else are irrelevant IF PEOPLE CAN'T GET THE EXPERIENCE TO HAVE MERIT BECAUSE YOU DISMISSED THEM OUT OF HAND OR IGNORED THEM? Nobody is saying 'hire a random black guy' - the people talking about lack of opportunities have worked hard, have the skill and talent, and yet still don't crack it and are given some rather uncomfortable reasons why. Yes, not everyone will get a job, such is the arts and real life - but after a while, even the most skeptical has to notice something's rotten in Denmark.

Is there a clean, one-size-fits-all answer to this? No - obviously this is a great task, and requires changing decades worth of practice to achieve. These schemes and initiatives are a step in the right direction, but clearly need more fine tuning: They need consultations and boning, as well as, in my opinion, a great expansion of winning places and something for runner-ups. As said, the sooner we start treating screenwriting as a proper job, rather than mere artistic whimsy, the sooner serious solutions can be made for everyone, especially those with the deck stacked against them. The search for diverse talent, should be treated as a long-term investment in the talent, not a short term pat-on-the-back - these are communities with stories worth telling, not people randomly demanding preferential treatment.

Need proof of the good of embracing diverse creators? Try these: Black Panther, Creed, Empire, Murdered by My Father, She-Ra: The Princesses of Power, Citizen Khan, Get Out, Us, Dear White People, Black-ish, Sense-8, Pose, The Farewell, Moonlight, The Owl House, Gentleman Jack, I May Destroy You and so many more. More great stories come when we see talent and background/heritage as complimentary to their creation, not contradictory.

Storylining for Coronation Street - a workshop experience

As part of the 2019 ITV Original Voices scheme, I was invited up with other BAME and disabled writers to attend a day-long masterclass/simulation of working on the storylines for the long-running and much loved drama Coronation Street. Departing London while still dark, finally diving into a three-year-waiting copy of Anno Dracula for entertainment, I found myself up in chilly Salford's MediaCity, where ITV and BBC stand side-by-side across the water.

Along with about 19 other writers, we were guided up into the cosy Corrie offices in ITV Studios and met the story team, like the wonderful Lindsay Williams. They talked us through the day's itinerary, got everyone introduced through an ice breaker over croissants and coffee, and then walked us through the process of making Corrie:

It starts with the story team: they meet, generate ideas, map them out ala a writers' room board and then go off and break those down into indivudal storylines. Following revisions and more meetings, these are then handed off the writers.

Actually, let me present this easy list to detail the process:

1. Story conference - every 4 weeks, for 6x4 Episode blocks.
2. Board Planning - A-E Plots and Arcs.
3. Storylines - Moving forward, Producers offer notes.
4. Breakdowns - exactly what it sounds like.
5. Commissioning
6. 1st Draft Meeting - The writer has ten weeks to write their episode's first draft. After, given notes from Producers and Script Editor.
7. 2nd Draft Meeting - Now, the writer has 48 hours to write the next draft. Notes from Producers, Script Editors, Director and production team.
8. Continuity Read and 3rd Draft - Now writing time is cut to 24 hours. Notes aggain.
9. Shooting Script published.
10. Amendments - any last minute tweaks/changes.

Armed with that knowledge, we were broken off into groups and set a task: brainstorm our own storyline for the next two eps (Monday 2, 7:30 and 8:30), following on from Friday's episodes. We had a choice of Jade and Hope (the obssession storyline), Roy and Nina (the more grounded care storyline), and Michelle and Robert (the big revenge storyline). I was in the Roy team and, with laptop and notepad, got to work with my team, conjuring up where the rocky relationship could go next.

There was a definite energy and kinesia there - it was so much fun just brainstorming and throwing ideas around. I found I rather missed this since the Belfast room I did for Pablo.

Oh, and part way, we were given a tour of the Corrie set, so huzzah!

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Later, we presented our storyline to the groups and story team. We were met with strong approval and felt quite chuffed about that. So, we were sent off home with our assignment - write two episodes (one night's) worth of storylines, from our group's work, and send them in Sunday to be judged. From there, well, some may get asked for revisions (like me), and then after, a lucky four will be selected to work on the series.

This was a very rewarding and valuable experience. A stereotype does exist of soaps/continuing drama as this lazy, silly, harrowed type of project, but it's actually a well-oiled machine and one that does genuinely care about story. If you've been running as long as Corrie has, well, something must be working. Indeed, the system they use is fairly close to other shows, such as Eastenders (though some, like Doctors, can be looser with writers pitching their own stories).

I also felt my ability to outline/write treatments did get stronger from the exercise, since every paragraph counted and we had only 8 to play with for a whole episode. Over the last year I've definitely put more into planning my scripts in detail, so this was a welcome booster.