Bringing the radio back

I've just sent off a script to Big Finish, the company who release Doctor Who audio adventures. They were running an 'opportunity' for new writers to pitch ideas with the possibility of developing the script and maybe even being offered a shot at working as a writer. I had to have a go really!

Anyway, I'm really pleased with what I sent. I tried to avoid the cliched science fiction stories which resort to big, bad aliens. Instead I made a monster out of nature which I think makes a darker story. Apparently it'll take a month until we find out if any ideas are being taken forward, we shall see.

I'd never written for radio before, I always had an impression that it would limit what I could do, that it was a dying medium. Especially with blockbuster 3D movies like Avatar, how can radio possibly keep up? But the work has made me realised that it's actually a really exciting medium, it forces you to think of original ways to tell a story, you can't just shove a pretty image in the face of the audience - you have to work harder to involve them. It shows how talented Orson Welles was considering the reaction to War of the Worlds. Hopefully soon we will see a film is as visually striking as Avatar but which also has an original and well-written narrative.

I'm going to write more radio plays now. There's a greater chance of getting a break as a writer, and who says that radio plays can't return to the mainstream? That's my challenge.

Yearly goals

I've decided that setting myself goals for 2010 is a wise move and will hopefully motivate me more to keep writing...

The obvious one is beginning my Masters in September, that means I can devote a lot more time to the job, make some important contacts and hopefully improve what I do.

The other key goal is to get an agent, well firstly to get some scripts which are good enough to send away, be rejected a few times and then finally get accepted. Hopefully I can crack on with the scripts and get them in good shape for around February time.

The one script I'm banking on is proving quite difficult though. It's a very dark romantic comedy which is completely out of my comfort zone, I'm having to watch and read a lot of similar work to get a grip with it. It's going to need a lot of drafting and feedback but I'm confident in the idea.

I've realised how I write which is quite interesting. I usually have a final shot or sequence and then the main key plot points for Act 1 and 2. From there I just need to fill in the blanks, sounds easy but it can be difficult to maintain the flow of the story. Everything you read in books to teach you these techniques goes out the window when you are actually writing it. I think it is best to write in a way that feels naturally, rather than trying to push it all together into a formula which has worked for other people.

I need to get another 20 pages written in the next week ideally...

We shall see...