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I’ve noticed some very interesting differences between writing for the two forms. Currently I’m about halfway through the first draft of these radio plays. I can’t helping some differences between writing for the screen, which I’ve done a fair bit of, and writing for the radio, which I’ve never done before.
Actually, there is one further complication. I’ll explain the set up.
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you might remember some research trips to Young Offenders institutes a couple of months back This drama uses a lot of material from those interviews, and performances from young local actors, possibly untried, to tell a story about the life of one of those guys.
It’s a series of five plays, of about 10 minutes each, with a core cast of about six, telling one big story over the five episodes. They are being recorded in three different theatres over three nights, three seperate runs of the five plays.
We’re having three performances because a major component of each is a section of improvisated interaction between the characters and the audience after the straight drama has finished. These improvised sections are to be chaired by three seperate radio presenters, depending on the region of the final broadcast – so particular audiences get the presenter they know.
That has led to a whole new requirement – making sure there is sufficient story material to be brought out through improvisation after the performance. I’ve basically done that by leaving the final dramatic choice of the hero out of the drama!
The play will build to a climax, then just before the character acts to resolve the drama, the thing will end, and the presenter will throw the question of what they should do over to the audience (this will happen in the theatre, and also live by phone in after the broadcast).
The audience chips in with their suggestions, we have a couple of experts debating the issues, the actor improvise around what they actually did, and why, and eventually reveal a plot bombshell I have kept back for this moment.
I think it’s a fantastic form for radio, (it was a device the executive producer has used before with great success) and I think we should have an engaging piece of radio/theatre.
The main things I’ve noticed:
- Voice over is a sin in visual drama – on the radio is works, is even encouraged. It becomes a ‘monologue’ and can go on for quite a time.
- Radio is about 3 billion times more free with the dramatic form. If I want a ghost I can have one. If I want to break the fourth wall with direct addresses to the audience, I can have them. If I want to skip six months, or six years, I can do it. There’s a real sense of ‘that’s interesting!’ rather than ‘our audience won’t like that’, which is enormously enabling.
- Your dialogue is different – you have to give a lot more exposition about where the characters are and what they are doing.
- In fact every nuance has to be conveyed in dialogue. There is NO relying on the actors to perform a line with a look. I’m finding that particularly hard, as I’ve spent years stripping back my dialoque to give the actors as much room as possible to get stuff over with looks and actions.
- They treat you much much better as a writer! There are far less drafts, and random revisions for the sake of revisions. None of that, ‘yes, that is a perfectly good story, we love it being blue, but actually we think you should rewrite it in pink’ that has infected TV so much.
- Interestingly, because we have the live performances, I haven’t experienced much of the freedom to go anywhere and do anything I thought I would on radio – everything I have written has to be staged. We’re getting round that by dropping in pre-recorded segments for various key events, like a car crash.
- It’s still as hard! My brain still hurts, I still battle a constant urge to do anything but sit on that chair! Which become particularly relevant when you consider what they pay. I’m on what is a very very good rate for radio, yet it’s about 13% of what my last TV job paid me. That is balanced to some degree because we are only going to two, possibly three drafts instead of the five or six you can expect in TV, but it’s still a huge difference however you look at it.
- There are massive similarities in the writing. I’m still telling a story, so every single rule I know about story structure still applies. There is a massive complication to the normal method I detail in my book – the five part nature of the piece means there is a whole ramp up in difficulty. There has to be a serial story over the five eps that builds and twists and turns in the same way as normal (five acts instead of three, that’s all – i.e. each episode is a particular act) and each episode also has to have its own story that builds and twists to a climax. It’s complicated, a knotty problem in places, and I’m not sure I’ve got it at all right to be honest, but we’re not there yet.
There’s just two weeks before the performances. We’re casting tomorrow for the main parts, using parts of the script I have already written.
All very exciting.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I think you’re wrong! TV should be and can be as free as radio in many of the elements you describe – breaking the fourth wall, voice-over, long monologues etc etc. I really believe that there is an audience for experimental/more theatrical drama. It’s the TV execs who place creative restrictions on writing, not the form. I would give anything for some good, weird TV – instead the blandness of the schedules just depresses me.
How come it’s so hard to get something done with your writing when there’s so much bad writing out there?
I think you’re wrong! TV should be and can be as free as radio in many of the elements you describe – breaking the fourth wall, voice-over, long monologues etc etc. I really believe that there is an audience for experimental/more theatrical drama. It’s the TV execs who place creative restrictions on writing, not the form OR the audience. I would give anything for some good, weird TV – instead the blandness of the schedules just depresses me. Sure, radio audiences differ from TV audiences, but in this digital age, it’s criminal that there isn’t more interesting writing on TV where the niches are available.
If the “enablers” really tell writers, “you can’t do that – our audience won’t like it”, then it’s no wonder TV’s in such a turgid state. Which brings me to this:
How come it’s so hard to get something done with your writing when there’s so much bad writing out there? (Has anyone seen Doctors on BBC1? Please!)
Hi Jess,
I completely and utterly agree with you when you say TV “should be” – the problem is I’m describing the way it usually actually is. In my experience it’s mostly a profoundly conservative medium, with the basic model, esp in the UK, a kind of basic naturalism, with simple, unchallenging stories and the fundamental experience one of reinforcement of the status quo rather than any innovation. You do get the occasional fantasy or stylised excursion – which usually aren’t that radical to be honest. But sometimes a show like Doctor Who will show that a more playful approached is hoovered up by a public hungry for fun and well executed novelty.
One of the reasons it’s harder to experiment these days is that there has been a massive drift towards commissioning more and more of the high volume serial dramas – like Casualty, Holby, Holby Blue, Eastenders – where the vast majority of of a channel’s budget (and available screen hours) is taken up with a very very VERY specific style of programming. That means that the few remaining free screen hours are SO competitive that people tend to play safe. When it can take a year or two of meeting after meeting after rewrite after rewrite to get one of the few slots, things tend to bland out and go to a central position of safety. I wish it weren’t so.
I wonder if one of the main reason Doctors isn’t coming through for you is it’s one of the very few slots in UK tv where new writers can genuinely have a go. Last time I looked that show was seen as the training ground, a kind of funnel for raw, unproven or inexperienced writers with promise, which would allow them to make their mistakes and take them through into shows more central to the BBC like the big continuing dramas. If you are interested in writing tv it’s well worth applying to them as, as far as I know, it’s one of the few genuine open doors left.
I’m glad you agree that TV should be more experimental, but I disagree that there are “few remaining free screen hours” after the lowest-common-denominator programming that you mention. Every evening at 9pm, I should be in a total quandary wondering which channel to watch, but instead I’m more likely to get out a DVD. This is even including all the free digital channels. What are BBC3/4, More4, E4 etc etc all for if not for showcasing less conservative programmes?
‘Doctors’ isn’t awful because it’s written by “new” writers: it’s awful because the writing is dreadful, the acting is poor and the direction stinks. The post-Neighbours slot on BBC1 should not be a “training ground”, and writing that bad shouldn’t be on TV, full stop. If new writers need such opportunities to improve, then channels need to invest more time and money in training programmes and courses.
I don’t think this can be just a matter of budgeting – I don’t expect channels to have a period drama adaptation every other night interspersed with some special FX-filled sci-fi fantasy: I do expect interesting stories and characters that seem real to me. That could easily be achieved, theatre-style, in a one-room set (cf The Royle Family).
I love a lot of the American imports that terrestrial channels buy (Heroes, Ugly Betty and so on), but perhaps it would be wiser for channels to spend their money on developing new talent?
(Apologies if my tone comes across as arsey in any way – I’m a newly qualified teacher and had to contend with some horrible Year 9s in the last two periods of the day. As such all nicer sides to my nature have been eradicated!)
Hi Jess,
Great comments there – I love what Year 9s can do to a person.
I can’t believe I’m going to be taking a defensive position when, by any stretch of the imagination, I’m on your side, but let’s see what happens.
I don’t think I was clear when I talked about the “few remaining free screen hours” – it’s not that there aren’t the hours in the day, (and the hunger to see something that excites rather than comforts) it’s A. that any given broadcaster has chosen to spend all their money on the mass market high volume shows (Casualty, Holby, Corrie, Emmerdale etc etc) and B. that there are only so many drama hours in the week for any particular broadcaster, as other genres demand their slice of the cake too.
Those few drama hours quickly fill with soap creep. Soaps that used to be twice weekly are now three or four times a week. When I worked on Casualty it was a push to do 26 eps a year, and now it’s up to something round the 50 eps per year figure.
The same domination of their slot has happened to a lot of shows, and that takes a lot of the drama budget, and a lot of the available drama hours. It’s to do with commissioners loving a safe, reliable audience – and these shows are the closest to bankers they have.
Personally I blame the audience. They should vote with their feet. The fact that they don’t is very interesting. Could it be that they are getting what they want?
Soap creep is wrong of course, but that’s what’s happening, so that’s the market you are considering entering…
I completely agree about your proposed use of the slightly less mainstream channels. ‘Nuff said. Except I think BBC 4 does a storming job sometimes – and I feel like the tomb beckons when I scan the main channel schedules at 8pm.
Hey – I really do think you’re a little harsh on Doctors! We all have to start somewhere. I know what you mean about training to a point beyond that, but at some point, preferably early on, we all have to get on screen and see our mistakes in pictures. You learn so quickly from seeing your stuff up there, in a way that takes you years when you are just fiddling about with scripts. All power to Doctors, I say – and, seriously, if you can see through it that easily, why not have a go yourself? I was talking to Paul Ashton at the BBC Writers Room the other day, and he confirmed that, yes, these days the majority of new writers go through Doctors on their way to greater pastures. (River City if you live in Scotland.) He does get people commissioned without that interim stage, but apparently it’s not nearly so frequent.
Royle Family? I personally believe that is great, great writing. And it’s not easy to do. I believe there are very few people in the country who could write to that level of apparent simplicity, with that level of wit and warmth and observation, and apparent transparency. Take The Smoking Room, for example. On paper a very similar show. In reality, well, I’ll be kind and say it didn’t do it for me. There’s just not many people who could do work of The Royle Family’s level in the country, hence we don’t get many of them, and the screens are full of more reliable, less tricky cops/medics/lawyers shows.
Re, buying American shows vs growing our own. I have no idea what the current figures are, but a reasonable guess would be say £70K per hour to screen an American import (ignoring premium stuff like the Sopranos), versus £450K an hour for anything approaching a home grown show of any ‘quality’. Let alone how expensive and fraught the development process can be – and how easy it is for Bafta winners on paper to turn into mud on the screen in the blink of an eye. Of course, the Channels could spend their money on developing new talent, but, as I’ve already mentioned, it’s incredibly useful for the learning process for new talent to get on screen as soon as it can. And then we’re back to Doctors.
Hmm.
One bright spark in this picture. Take a look at this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6992736.stm
This may yet save us all. When the big gatekeepers are running scared of Youtube and your own bedroom tv channel, and we’re all free to get our stuff out there and let the audience judge, well, then we’ll see, won’t we? It’s a bit like the birth of rock and roll. A little bit.
The internet TV show sounds really interesting – My So-called Life was one of my great comforts during my formative teen years (and crucially, I wasn’t unimpressed by it when I recently watched the box-set), so it’ll be intriguing to see.
The so-called “democratisation” of music through myspace and the like has been good in many ways, but there’s a lot of crap out there that has to be filtered. I was going to say that it’s a lot cheaper to make sellable music than film, but as you’ve probably gathered, I have no idea how much even the lowest budget programme costs, and I have a feeling that for a video to look even remotely good, a fair bit of money needs to be spent.
Anyway, I do take your point about the comparatively few drama hours, but this too baffles me. Everyone loves the escapism of stories, so why is so little time set aside for them? Instead we have millions of property development and relocation programs and the likes of “Cash in the Attic” and “Car booty”! Which brings me to your question regarding why people don’t vote with their feet. The majority of people watch TV regardless of what’s on, and once you get hooked into a programme, you get pulled into the routine of watching it every day. As a student I didn’t feel right unless I’d had my daily fill of Diagnosis Murder, and this summer I ended up fanatically watching Cagney and Lacey at 12pm on ITV3. Now I’m back at work, I don’t watch them at all and nor do I miss them – we’re just creatures of habit.
That’s why I’d LIKE to think millions of people watch Holby City and Emmerdale, anyway. But I agree that the audience is to blame to a large extent. I still believe that there should be a bigger creative push from within the industry though.
One question I have is why programmes that do become quite cult on digital haven’t been repeated on BBC2? Shows like Burn It, which people really loved, but which you can’t even get hold of on DVD.
I agree with what you say about The Royle Family too, though it depresses me slightly. I wonder if in Britain we don’t foster writing talent like they do in the US. It seems that over there every university has a writing programme and dozens of travelling writing “gurus” touring all over the place. Why isn’t there any tradition of that here? Then we wouldn’t need Doctors . . .
I think it all comes down to two things – as far as I remember, the charter the BBC demands that they show a wide range of programming genres – presumably the other broadcasters have similar requirements. The other thing is budget – a lot of people understand that drama is the engine that drives a tv channel, but it just costs SO much more and has so much more tortured development process than one of those lifestyle shows
The other point, about British writing – 15 years ago I knew the editor of one of the more established UK based Science Fiction magazines. He got a mass of fiction posted to him every week, from all over the world I believe. He always said that submissions from British writers could be all over the place – utterly appalling, or absolutely wonderful, and it always felt like a matter of luck as to which you were going to get. Submissions from the US on the other hand pretty well always hit a minimum level of craftsmanship – always had at the very least a beginning, middle and end, and were always ‘about’ something. He put it down to the difference in culture – in the US people know writing can be taught, that there are very specific techniques of story telling that can be learned, and applied. Here in the UK he didn’t think that was true. The position now may be better than it was in the early ’90s, but I still meet a lot of people, even some surprisingly high up in the TV industry, who simply won’t engage with any ideas that take away from the idea of writing being all inspiration. A lot of people believe that studying structure is a Bad Thing, that the minute you start to understand these things that the magic flees. Don’t really know why that is, or why, for example, we have a massive long standing tradition of art schools in this country, yet the idea of a university running a creative writing course is comparatively new.
I think the internet is helping it change, as people get more used to discussions about story structure and so on, but I do think we’ve a long way to go.