Word Play

Where once the only soap operas available were Emmerdale and Coronation Street aired just twice weekly, these days soaps represent a huge slice of the television market with some producing up to five episodes every week, all year round.  To keep pace with demand, episodes are scripted by teams of writers and as a result many new ones get their first break by writing for one.

The continuing drama series has always been popular and will doubtless remain so.  Mainstays for all channels are crime and medical dramas, many of which use multiple writers to script episodes. BBC One’s Doctors, for example, have been known to use up to 30 (30!) new writers in a single series. So, how do you go about becoming of them?

Breaking news.  The world is in the grip of an ever deepening depression.  If escape from grim reality was ever needed, the time is now.  And get this.  Despite the economic downturn, comedy clubs are doing better than ever.

Do you regularly spot news items and think someone should make a television series out of it?  Are your fingers itching to write storylines for soaps you love to watch?  Yes?  Well, read on because I’m switching gears into teacher mode and over the coming weeks will be dishing out tips and tasters on writing for television.  Ready?  Let’s go!

Arthur Riordan’s successful musical comedy 'Improbable Frequency' returns to the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin, for 2 weeks from 13 March.  Packed full of literary references and word play, this is a must-see for all book lovers and literature enthusiasts.

Do you remember The Guardian newspaper's 2008  'How to Write'  series?  If not, then read on because you're in for a treat and better yet it's FREE!

To V or not to V?  That is the question posed by Fenella Greenfield of Euroscript - a question that applies equally well to the drafting of novels and short stories, as it does screenplays. 

WOW! Women on Writing ezine host a  flash fiction writing contest every three months and I quote ... 

The standard rejection letter is the worst part of the writing business.  When you receive one (and everyone does at one time or another) wise writing heads will nod and tell you it happens.  It’s not personal.  It’s business.  Get over it.  All true of course but how do you ‘get over’ it exactly?  You don’t.  At least not initially.  Instead, you enact a campaign of revenge.

The Euroscript Screen Story Competition is open for 2012, the deadline is midnight, 31st March.  All entries receive a FREE bullet-point feedback report.

Stop the lights I’ve done it.  I’ve entered a writing competition.  Granted my chances of winning are slim but that’s not the point.  The point is this: If I’m not in then I definitely won’t win.

One of the agonies of being a media junkie is that you’re forever coming across juicy stories that send you’re mind racing but because they’ve no pressing relevance to current projects, must be let lie.

I have been trying for days to write about eye care for writers, but it hasn’t been easy, and for one simple reason: My eyes are banjaxed.  

Of all the bizarre methods for stimulating the writing muse I’ve heard tell about, French novelist Colette’s is by far the strangest. She picked fleas from her cat, then wrote.

Ernest Hemingway once said his best work was a story he wrote in six words:  ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’  

I turned 40 today and if I have one regret it is this - I didn’t turn 50.  Menopause aside, I’m craving the solitude my senior years will bring.  At 50, I’ll be getting my life back and days like these filled as they are with lone parenting, blocked toilets, and doomed shags, will be a thing of the past.

I'm a firm believer in denial. My reasoning is, why deal with unpleasantness today when you might get hit by a truck tomorrow?

Shortly after I first started writing, I landed a publishing deal to ghost write a non-fiction book and a separate deal to re-write the book proposal into a TV Treatment.  I was amazed.  I was astonished.  I was astounded.  I grabbed the phone and called Vanessa O’Loughlin as one might call a helpline – hysterically.