BBC Get Writing

The BBC's new writing initiatives can sometimes be hard to keep tabs on. One of the newest is Get Writing.

Get Writing is produced by BBC Learning which aims to help people get back into or start out in creative writing. It’s not aimed at those who want to be professional writers, but should certainly help you improve your chances of getting published.

At the heart of the site is the Read and Review section where site users critique each other's work. There's also lots of articles and advice.

Worth checking out the copyright section before submitting anything to the site, however. By agreeing to the terms and conditions of the site you grant the BBC "a perpetual, non-exclusive licence" to your work.

It's not entirely clear how Get Writing fits in with the BBC Writers' Room, that carries a lot of similar information but is aimed more at people wanting to submit scripts for TV or radio.

Matthew Friday's diary (5)

On 5 October Matthew Friday's first play, Che Guevara's Motorbike or How I Found My Father, which he is also directing, will open at The Rosemary Branch in London. You can read the background on the Writers' Guild website and follow his trials and tribulations here each week.

Week 5

Tuesday
Now we’re at the Rosemary Branch theatre, rehearsing in their ‘Pink Room’. The theatre is a wonderful blend of period furniture, theatrical posters and pictures from long, long ago, all of it set in a very old pub which has been on the site for hundreds of years.

Today was all about developing the on-stage relationship of ‘Alberto’ and ‘Sarah’. We started by practising their tango sequence and moved on to all the scenes they share. It follows a fairly conventional romantic-comedy structure in which boy meets girl, boy and girl don’t like each other but have fallen in love, and then boy and girl work this out over the rest of the story. Only with Che Guevara, a missing father, a dodgy landlord and an eccentric pensioner thrown in.

The rehearsal went well. We smoothed out of a lot of the scenes and got a real snappy buzz about them. I had a chat with a journalist from the Hampstead and Highgate paper for an article about the play, and I got the theatre’s consent to offer concession rate tickets to Guild members for the entire run of the play.

So far so good.

Thursday
A day of mixed emotions. We got to rehearse in the theatre space for the very first time. Admittedly, it was around the set of Making Dickie Happy, but at least we were able to get a feel for the space, fix the blockings, decide upon the exists and entrances and plan our set.

The scenes we worked on were long and hard work. Some of them felt snappy and entertaining, but others seemed to drag. There comes a time in any rehearsal when everyone gets a bit fed up of doing the same thing over and over again. I think that time has come. We haven’t got long to go, but then the nerves haven’t kicked in for anyone.

If I think about it, I do get nervous. But there is too much to do first.
I made the bold decision to cut the Tango sequence. This is not because my cast aren’t capable of doing it. It’s because I don’t think we have the time to make it effective enough to convince the audience that these characters can really do the Tango. I need a budget so I can pay the actors to take lessons. In the absence of money we shall have to be inventive. I won’t say what I’m replacing it with – you’ll just have to come to the play and find out.


Saturday
I was very pleased with the work today. We were in the theatre space again and did a run-through.

I was pleased with seeing the play in its entirety and relieved there were not any serious problems. A couple of the scenes need further work, but that's completely normal at this stage. And, of course, we'll run the play many more times before opening night. I say 'many more times' but there is only just nine days to go before we open.

Are we ready?

No.

But we will be. (Fingers crossed...)

Mal Young leaves the BBC

Head of Continuing Series, Mal Young, is leaving the BBC at the end of the year to become Head of Drama for Simon Fuller's 19 TV.

Young joined the BBC as head of drama series in 1997 and has overseen several programmes including EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City.

"I've had the happiest and most fulfilling seven years at the BBC, but when Simon approached me about he and I working together, it was a no-brainer.

"We both aspire to make 'talk about TV' for big mainstream audiences and the time feels right for us to take advantage of the many exciting opportunities, both in the UK and the States.

"I wasn't actively looking to leave the BBC, but this felt like the perfect fit."

WriterAction.com

American writers are striking back at producers on a new website, WriterAction.com

Open only to American Writers' Guild members, it is a message board where writers can vent their fury about forced re-writes, development delays and lack of credit.

As the LA Times reports, there are plenty of postings giving positive comments about Hollywood execs, but the grumbles tend to be more eye-catching.

One writer groused about executives who took it upon themselves to rewrite scenes or even rework a movie's climax: "He'd changed the antagonist to one of the minor characters as a cool twist — that made about as much sense as revealing that Toto was really the Wicked Witch of the West."

Mal Young to leave the BBC?

MediaGuardian (free registration required) is claiming that BBC's Controller of Continuing Series, Mal Young, is poised to leave the Corporation to join Simon Fuller's 19 Management.

A deal has not yet been signed but it understood that Fuller, who made his name with the Spice Girls, has made him an offer that is difficult to refuse - potentially worth more than £600,000 a year.

Mr Fuller is believed to have persuaded Mr Young that he has a big future at the company developing drama formats for the UK and US market.

The deal would allow Mr Young to create drama formats for terrestrial and cable TV and a major commission for the US market is already on the cards.

Teaching writing

Lilian Pizzichini in The Independent looks at creative writing courses at the Skyros Centre in Greece.

I was tempted by the idea of staying on an island in the crystal-clear Aegean. But I was reminded of an old joke about two journalists. They are sitting in a pub. "I'm writing a novel," says one. "Neither am I," says the other. There are sceptics among us who don't believe writing can be taught. You just have to sit down and slog it out with the computer. And what's worse, you have to do it alone.

Pics

Posting these for the main website, which we are having problems with.

Bio-terror

Public Awareness of Science and Engineering (PAWS - they don't seem to have a website) are holding a free seminar for writers about the challenges of combating biological hazards.

It will take place at 7pm on Wednesday 13 October 2004 at The English Heritage Lecture Theatre, New Burlington Place, London W1.

For a free ticket send an email to: events@pawsomni.globalnet.co.uk

Ian Rankin

Interviewed in The Independent, Ian Rankin defends the crime novel.

"Literary critics still have that knee-jerk reaction that the crime novel looks pre-planned, geometric, everything's worked out, everything's tied up at the end," he argues. "But that's an old-fashioned thing, I like open endings, I leave mine as open as possible. The crime novel is supposed to be structured but it has a mind of its own, and that's why it often attracts literary writers too, like Martin Amis or Julian Barnes. Plenty of them are intrigued by the form."

Writers' deadlines

Having trouble meeting your next deadline? You're not alone, says Jonathan Mahler reports in the New York Times (free registration required).

Novelists are prisoners of their own freedom, a paradox that leads to situations like the one so memorably described by Grady Tripp, the narrator of Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys: "It. . . stood at 2,611 pages, each of them revised and rewritten a half-dozen times. And yet for all of those words expended in charting the eccentric paths of my characters through the violent blue heavens I had set them to cross, they had not even reached their zeniths. I was nowhere near the end."

As Mahler points out, finishing a book can become almost traumatic.

Letting go is not always easy. Working on a book can provide authors with a sense of security. It confers on them the sense - illusory though it may be - of being employed, a comforting thing to someone who wakes up every morning without a compelling reason to put on a pair of pants. And a book is more than a job; it's a colleague, too.

Damazer takes over Radio 4 & BBC 7

Mark Damazer has been appointed Controller of BBC Radio 4 and BBC 7, succeeding Helen Boaden, who is now Director of BBC News. Speaking after the news was announced on Friday, Damazer said:

"Being Controller of Radio 4 is the best job in broadcasting and I am privileged to be given the opportunity of working with so many talented and creative people.

"Radio 4 is in terrific shape and my challenge is to cherish it, sustain it and make sure it remains the home for intelligence, flair and wit.

"BBC 7 has already made a name for itself and I hope to see it become a must for those who value the BBC's storehouse of drama and comedy."

Damazer's previous job was as Deputy Director of BBC News.

Donnie Brasco

Two new scripts are available to download from the Screenwriters' Store -Blood Work by Brian Helgeland and the excellent Donnie Brasco by Paul Attanasio.

Emmerdale beats EastEnders

Following the resignation of its Executive Producer, there was bad news for EastEnders this week, with overnight ratings showing that it lost out to ITV1's Emmerdale on Tuesday.

Unofficial ratings showed that the BBC show was watched by 6.2m compared to 8.1m for Emmerdale's hour-long special.

Matthew Friday's diary (4)

On 5 October Matthew Friday's first play, Che Guevara's Motorbike or How I Found My Father, which he is also directing, will open at The Rosemary Branch in London. You can read the background on the Writers' Guild website and follow his trials and tribulations here each week.

Week 4

Thursday

A difficult one today. We did the full play for the first time. It wasn't a proper performance, or anything close. The actors are still working from the script, getting to grips with the new lines and the more complex blocking. And I'm still making changes. Little ones, of course. You can't make dramatic changes to dialogue at this late stage and expect the actors to remember. It would be like trying to spell a word which kept changing its letters.

We discussed what the right tone of the play was. Do we go all-out for entertainment, or do we try and develop the dramatic through-lines and character motivations? It's a difficult one. Being a comedy, the main criteria for the play is to entertain them for two hours. Anything else is a bonus.

This is not to say meaningful drama cannot be achieved in comedy. A great comedy has both. It depends a lot on how much the audience believes in the characters and whether they care for them or not.

So, will they care?

Saturday

Much better today. We really got stuck into the scenes. I was pleased to see bigger emotions and reactions coming out.

Simone - who is exhausting herself with other work - developed her character well. Joan brought along some of her costume and that helped bring out her character. We got some really nice moments between 'Gary' and 'Alberto' at the end of the play, though I won't detail them as it would spoil the big surprise.

The highlight of the day was Paul's birthday party, in a Thai Karaoke restaurant in Turnpike Lane. Paul went home early to prepare. Joan gave us a lift back to her lovely flat in Tottenham, where we spent an hour chatting and drinking mead - the genuine and ancient alcoholic honey drink. A first for me.

As was singing Karaoke.

Paul is a consummate singer and the audience could not get enough of his rocking voice. Then Kevin and I stepped up. We opted for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds - William Shatner style. That is, speaking the lines, not singing them. Kevin and I performed the lines, like the talented entertainers Kevin is.

I did it very, very badly.

Sunday

Kevin ended up at the Rosemary Branch theatre, when Simone, Joan and I were at Goldsmiths. Not sure what happened there. It was my mistake for not providing a written schedule, with locations and dates. Kevin may have drunk too much or wanted to avoid me after our 'singing' together.

Still, it was worth the few hours we had.

On the way home I worked out a strict time table for the next (and last two weeks), listing exactly which scene would be rehearsed when and where. We will be moving to the Rosemary Branch next week. Goodbye Goldsmiths and the Goldsmith Coffee Shop.

It's time to get intense.

Berridge quits EastEnders

EastEnders executive producer Louise Berridge has quit the BBC One soap after two years in the role, reports BBC News.

She left after ratings fell from an average of 13 million at the start of the year to 11 million in June. "I've loved every minute of my time on EastEnders, but felt it the right time to move on to new challenges," Ms Berridge said. She will be replaced by Kathleen Hutchison, currently executive producer of BBC One hospital series Holby City.

Booker shortlist

Drum-roll please.

On this year's Booker Prize shortlist are:

• Bitter Fruit - Achmat Dangor
  The Electric Michelangelo - Sarah Hall
• The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst
• The Master - Colm Toibin
• I'll Go To Bed At Noon - Gerard Woodward
• Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

You can read more on the Booker Prize website (once they update it)

Arthur Miller

"You do what you can do, and the rest is up to the zeitgeist,'' he [Arthur Miller] remarked cheerfully. "I'll probably be forgotten completely. Most of the work in the world is forgotten completely; 99.99 percent of all artwork is forgotten. There have been so many writers who dominated a period and then slipped off. History is like some gigantic beast -- it simply wriggles its back and throws off whatever is on it."

Arthur Miller is now 89, and still writing. His new play, Finishing The Picture, is based, apparently, on his experience working with wife Marilyn Monroe on The Misfits.

As Deborah Solomon writes in The New York Times (free registration required), the public fascination with Miller's relationship with Marilyn remains, but it is his work that will endure.

Prix Italia for Abbott's Shameless

Paul Abbott's Channel 4 drama Shameless has won the Prix Italia for best Drama.

The jury, made up of broadcasters from around the world, described the series as "irresistibly funny, unpredictable and true."

HBO dominates Emmy's

It was a night of triumph for US cable channel HBO at the Emmy Awards on Sunday night, reports BBC News.

Its Aids drama Angels in America, written by Tony Kushner, won seven
prizes at the ceremony.

And HBO also won best drama for its mobster series, The Sopranos, denying NBC rival The West Wing a record fifth win.

TV schedulers

An interesting look behind the scenes at the people who decide what's on when, by Maggie Brown in MediaGuardian (free registration required).

Behind the scenes at every television channel there is a small bunch of anonymous yet powerful people, typically in their 30s or early 40s, who draw up schedules. On their computers are stored precious trade secrets, mapping schedules three years ahead. They spend their time worrying simultaneously about 2006/7 and what's going out that night. They constantly ask questions such as "When is the next I'm A Celebrity starting?" And at 9.45 each morning, when the "overnights" - Barb audience data - are released, they will all be glued to their computers.