Years ago I was convinced that I had an amazing super power. Sadly, even at its peak, it wasn’t actually very useful. My super power was that I could destroy computers – - but only at the point that I really, really needed them. Over a decade
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We’re in the very last week of the 2013 Screenwriting Goldmine Contest. Entries close completely next Thursday 9th May at 1.00pm London time. As well as the prizes of cash, general screenwriting software abundance, the many commemorative items, and the complete and eternal glory that blazes out
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I was going to write an extended paean of praise for Iron Man 3 this week. I’m partial to this kind of thing. I’m a Marvel comics fan from the 1970′s. I loved the last Avengers movie. I think Robert Downey Jr and Ben Kingsley are great
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Among the myriad of career ladders in the UK TV industry there is one in particular that deserves your attention. If you manage to climb this particular (rickety, treacherous, windy) ladder you will find yourself getting an exceptional training on the mechanics of making a TV show
Read more →Rewriting a script to get to second draft is a mysterious process. This clear, step by step guide shows you what to do.
Read more →A good friend of mine premiered a new stage play last week. It was a very high profile launch, and was a tremendously interesting play, with pure maths forming a substantial part of the underlying concept, and actually much of the dialogue. Two characters locked in a
Read more →This is mostly a letter to myself, as I’m more guilty than anyone, so please do forgive the slightly preachy tone. It’s been one of those weeks when the same message has reached me from a hundred different places. In the pub we got talking about how
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I’ve had some great feedback from my new book ‘The Fearless Pitcher’s Handbook’ that I let out the starting gates on Wednesday. (Get full details here.) …but I also had a couple of emails – complaints really I guess – that said, more or less: ‘Why would
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One script I read for the Screenwriting Goldmine competition last year was ‘Winter’, by a writer called Steve Turnbull. It was a terrific piece of writing, and it made it through to the semi-finals. Fed up with waiting for the gatekeepers to let him in, Steve decided
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Remember that question about TV opening episodes? (You remember – when I held up the opening 10 minutes of ‘The Sopranos’ as absolutely wonderful screenwriting, and asked for other examples that had touched other people.) I received some great replies, and the shows that had more than
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If you’re interested in creativity, where it comes from, how you manage it, and how you encourage it, you should watch this short interview with Brian Eno: I discovered it when came on as an advert before a song on Youtube, and it hooked me almost immediately.
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It seems that networking in our forum has led to a serious commission for one Goldminer. Matthew Hurst wrote to me a while back thanking me for the opportunity to join the forum, and how it had led to him being hired for a screenwriting job. I
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I get a lot of questions about screenplay format – i.e., how the thing actually looks when you lay it out on the page. Within these questions are lots of more complicated worries. You know the sort of thing: how do you lay out slighty tricksy things,
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My last radio play, Mad Girl, was nominated for an award by the Medical Journalists Association of Great Britain for the way it handled its central theme of mental health. (Beating off major medical shows like Casualty, Holby City, and assorted medical storylines featured in the soaps
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Now that’s what I CALL a contest! I can’t promise you hot dogs, but excitement is definitely brewing about the 2013 Screenwriting Goldmine Screenplay Contest – I’ve had three people write to me this week to ask where they can submit their script. I’ve had to write
Read more →I’m deep into preparations for the next contest, plus I’m still reeling from Life of Pi – which I’m still processing. All I can say at this point – see it! And then there’s the fact that Skyfall didn’t really feature in the Oscar nominations. James Bond’s
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I spent New Years Eve with some friends people watching TV ghost stories from the early 1970s. It was a great experience. They had a big screen, a DVD projector, and an archive of eerie films to pick from. We had a good time! Some things became
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‘How do I protect my script from being stolen?’ ‘How do I stop a producer/director ripping off my ideas?’ ‘Will registering my script with the WGA (the US Copyright Office,the British Library, my solicitor/accountant/church minister/granny) stop my wonderful story from being stolen by Christopher Nolan and turned
Read more →I belong to a professional writers group on Facebook, and it’s been a great place over the last year. Writers spend so much time alone it’s quite easy to go off on unhelpful tangents in a lot of ways. This group has been a great help for
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One unexpected side effect of a recent trip to Ireland is that I now have the song “Irish Molly O” firmly lodged in my mind. Written on Tin Pan Alley by Jerome & Schwartz in 1905, and revived by De Dannan in the early 1980s, we saw
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Oriane Messina and Fay Rusling have reason to celebrate. They’ve written and created their own comedy series, which will be aired on BBC One from next Friday 12 October. Me & Mrs Jones follows the complex life of Gemma Jones (Sarah Alexander) a divorcee and mum who
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SCREENWRITING GOLDMINE CONTEST QUARTER FINALISTS It’s less than a week before I announce the quarter finalists for the Screenwriting Goldmine Competition, and it’s all very exciting round here. It’s been an incredible reading journey, and the myriad different worlds I’ve entered over the last couple of months
Read more →September is always an exciting time as a writer, as it’s the moment when people get back from holiday, and the whole industry starts to move again. So now is a great time for you to get back into action and really focus on your writing career.
Read more →I’m currently deep into reading the entries for our screenplay contest, and certain patterns are emerging. I thought I’d try and pass them on… 1. All Black Screen Openings Are Tired Opening your script with a black screen and a voice over really has to stop. It’s
Read more →If you’re in the UK you might have noticed a major row kicking off this week between a group of actors and just about every writer in the country. It started when the Radio Times (still Britain’s most august TV listing and features magazine) published an interview
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