by Paul Ashton
entic, naturalistic reality, then you set yourself a practical challenge with
changing the setting from scene to scene. If not, then the freer you are with
your proposed scene setting, the freer your storytelling can be.
However, theatre also has the remarkable ability to take an audience
into an enclosed, even claustrophobic space (Genet, Osborne, Pinter) in a way
that you can never physicalise with such intensity for any other medium –
because in theatre the audience can be up close with the actors and feel as
though they are in the scene. In promenade theatre – where the audience
literally is in the scene as the action moves around them – this can be even
more sharply realised.
168 THE CALLING CARD SCRIPT
The choices you make about how you set the scene in your script will
be inextricably linked to the kind of story you are telling, the kind of physi -
cal experience you wish to create, and the kind of space in which you
imagine your play will be performed. The question you need to ask yourself
is: can the scene be produced and performed? Try not to be hemmed in by
realism unless it is an integral part of your play; you will be amazed by
what imaginative directors, designers, sound and lighting technicians, and
actors can achieve.
THE RADIO SCENE
Some would argue that in radio there are no scenes – and formally, they
would be right. You do not set a visual scene that an audience observes –
you frame an audio experience that only has a setting as evoked by acoustic
clues and signals, and that at its best will allow and inspire the audience
to imagine the scene in their mind visually. (The exception to this is if you
record on location rather than in studio, since you may well be recording in
an actual place – for example, Jeff Young’s Carandiru was recorded on loca -
tion in Carandiru prison in Brazil.)
For this reason, radio potentially has a greater fluidity and fewer
formal, technical and logistical hurdles to leap. In theatre, you physically
demarcate a new scene. In film and TV, the camera will literally set up
somewhere new for a new scene. In radio, you can to a large extent do what
you like in production and editing; and you will be amazed by what
producers and sound engineers can do.
As a writer, however, you can’t really do what you like. Your script
must still be usable and recordable for an actor and producer. You should
indicate place /environment wherever possible in your script. And because
the audience does not have their eyes to rely on – which can easily tell us,
for example, when a character has aged – it is difficult to make non-linear
scenes and narrative work clearly and coherently for an audience. Memento
and The Singing Detective would be a nightmare to adapt for radio.
One crucial benefit in radio is that locations and set-ups are essen -
tially cheap. Big crowd or battle scenes are not necessarily easy to do well,
but they are less expensive because you only need to provide sound. There -
fore the scale and imaginative ambition of your scene setting can be
unlimited – your character can be in a black hole in space, on top of the
THE MIDDLE 169
Eiffel Tower, at the centre of the earth, at the centre of a brain or even a
dream. In radio, you can truly let your imagination fly – if, of course, it is
right for your story.
Radio can also be devastatingly simple. Two characters in one loca tion.
Even one character alone in monologue. Don’t go wild with imagination for
the sake of it. The crucial thing is to make clear and meaningful use of
acoustic storytelling. Make your drama, conflict and scene setting work
together to enhance what is at the heart of the story. Don’t rely on endless
sound effects, think instead about acoustic environment. Be clear, simple
and unfussy in your script. If the scene is set in a café or library or tube
train, then simply say so at the start of the scene rather than attempt to
detail exhaustively every small sound that contributes to that essential
soundscape. Leave the producer and engineer something to play with.
THE SCREEN SCENE
In film and TV, setting a scene is extremely expensive. The cost of filming
drama is so prohibitive that producers will need to feel convinced that the
scene is absolutely and unequivocally indispensable to your story. It isn’t a
writer’s primary job to worry about money and budgets – but it is the writer’s
job to convince the reader that every scene is necessary in your story and
therefore worth the expense.
In film and TV, scenes can be as little as a moment in which the char -
acter is present. However, a shot in which nothing really happens is not
really a scene – it doesn’t frame action, it frames a static picture. So
distinguish in your mind between shots and scenes. A scene is where some
form of action or dramatic development occurs. It might be brief, small,
almost imperceptible even – and this momentary, minute quality in some
ways characterises precisely what a camera can uniquely achieve.
TV is a more relentless medium for dramatic storytelling than film.
The space you might carve out for your story in theatre, radio and even film
will not be so readily available in TV. Concision, focus and a remorseless
ability to pare down your work is key. Relentless doesn’t necessarily mean
at a fast pace (though it might) – rather, it means that the domino effect
will be given its ultimate and most streamlined expression on TV. But this
is also true of certain genres of films – such as action-thrillers. There isn’t
a great fundamental difference between the scenes you might see in 24 or
170 THE CALLING CARD SCRIPT
Children of Men. The narrative construction and shape will feel very dif -
ferent, but the way the camera captures the story is essentially the same.
The thing to remember is that you can go in close, pull back wide or
be anywhere in between. Film and TV scenes are not just about what you
show and what we see, but about how up close to the action we are and what
angle or perspective we see it from. But remember, you shouldn’t direct the
camera in scenes; direct the action, and the director will be able to work out
the best way to capture it. What you can do, though, is give a sense of how
intimately close or panoramically wide the scene is, and you should do that
as simply and clearly as you possibly can.
FROM PLAN TO ACTION
‘Most of my stuff has to come quite quickly, mostly as shorter plays
that can become longer, otherwise I get stuck in over-thinking. In
fact, any time I’ve ever tried to give myself “time” to write a “full-
length play”, I’ve always – without fail – screwed it up. Scripting for
film and TV is different, but with theatre all my plays have come
from something shorter.’
Jack Thorne
There is a real danger in spending too long thinking about your idea rather
than actually writing it. Some writers spend for ever researching and plan -
ning and stewing and ruminating and ultimately prevaricating. Like Hamlet,
some point you just have to kill the king.
With stage and radio plays, the actual script part can happen quickly
once you are ready to write. But with TV and film, generally speaking, the
complexity of narrative and the format of plotting that narrative for a
camera to capture mean it’s easier to get tangled and knotted in plot, and
harder to see the story forest for the narrative trees.
But at this point, whatever the medium, you should be ready to write
SOMETHING.
THE MIDDLE 171
READY TO WRITE
Once you’ve got to the stage of working out how the middle will carry you
through to the end, then you are ready to write something. If your char -
acters have deepened and developed, and if your story is clear and coherent
in your mind, your idea is already being realised. It is still in a state of
becoming, but it is also taking real, tangible shape.
Cast back to the start – idea and premise, putting distinct flesh on
arche typal bones, starting out on a journey of movement and change, creat -
ing characters that drive that journey. There’s no guarantee that your well-
meaning hard work will get you to the point where your idea is being truly
and successfully realised. But it will help – it really will. And without the
legwork, you’ll most likely hit a wall soon, even if you come out of the start -
ing blocks with what seems to be a cracking pace in the opening pages.
Those first pages of draft one can be deceptive. They can come thick and
fast and you will feel like you have got this thing sussed. Beware that feel -
ing. Nobody ever has this thing sussed. They are just more prepared and
more experienced than they once were.
REFER TO THE BLUEPRINT
Dig out the blueprint (or road map, or plan) you put together at the end of
‘the beginning’. (Strictly speaking, it should never have been put away . . . )
And dig out the synopsis, if you wrote one. Look again at what you wrote.
With everything you’ve since learned and created in the middle, do they still
stand up? Is there anything about them that could /should change? Ask
yourself the same questions about the big picture:
Does the story work?
Is it the one you wanted to tell?
Would someone else who doesn’t have access to your brain get it?
Does it hang together as a coherent whole?
Does it have the right form and shape?
Is the tone unified?
Are you trying to do too much in your story?
Is it focused enough?
Does it feel original?
172 THE CALLING CARD SCRIPT
What is distinctive about it?
Does it have strong characters and strength of character?
Is it what you wanted it to be?
And then ask some new ones:
Does the middle take the characters inexorably towards the ending?
Do the characters and story develop engagingly through the muddle
in the middle?
Is the approaching ending an as-yet-elusive but somehow utterly
inevitable consequence of all that has gone before?
DEVELOP THE BLUEPRINT
If the plan of the beginning still works and you still feel confident about the
ending all this has been leading towards, then set down your plan of the
middle. Take the muddle and the consequential complexity of the middle,
and plot the physical, emotional and psychological peaks and troughs that
sequentially build towards the ending.
What does it look like? Does it look and feel like the story should look
and feel? Remember that your blueprint is a malleable, working document.
It’s not there for posterity but to help you as you go. Use it to organise and
clarify and shape and test the story.
STEP OUTLINE
If you think the big picture blueprint is working for you but want a more
detailed template to work from, the next stage is a step outline. How detailed
that next step will be is really up to you.
In theatre and radio, it may well not be very detailed. Many don’t
bother with one at all. The difference with theatre scripts in particular is
that a step outline won’t detail all the many and various scenes, as in a
screenplay, because they usually do not have anything like so many. Rather,
it might detail the ‘steps’ (or sections, or sequences) within larger, longer
scenes (or acts). So it’s still a step outline – but the steps will not look and
roll out exactly like those in a screenplay.
In film and TV, step outlines are more likely and common – not simply
in heavily story-lined TV shows (where a script editor must keep an arch
THE MIDDLE 173
eye over how the narrative fits with what goes before and beyond the epi -
sode), but in any script because the visual medium tends towards numerous
scenes and is therefore a potential maze of complication. For some, a screen-
play step outline is there to clarify the core actions and events of the scene
and how these juxtapose across the narrative. For some, it also means a
detailed version of the scene written more or less in screenplay format –
almost like an overwritten script without dialogue.
The thing about step outlines, as opposed to treatments and even blue-
prints and maps, is that you can get a more detailed feel for how big and
long or small and short any given scene might be and how they flow from
the one to the other through sequences.
It’s up to you to work out what works for you. If your instincts scream
‘No detailed step outline!’ then fine, don’t do one. But if so, make sure your
blueprint is a really strong one. It’s better to get the story wrong (and then
resolve the problem) in an outline than in the script. Once scenes and dia -
logue are committed to a play format, whether for stage or radio or screen,
you can get attached to them, and they become harder to trim down (or kill
off altogether).
WILD DRAFTS
Even though nothing yet is set in stone and the ending isn’t necessarily
worked out in full and fine detail, at this stage you are probably itching to
just write the thing. If you really can’t bear to plan any more, a way of
scratch ing that itch is to write a wild draft (rather than the first ‘proper’
draft).
However, wild drafts don’t work for everything or everybody. In theatre
and radio, a wild draft is do-able and there’s a case to be made that too
much time spent planning can be counter-productive and sap life and voice
out of the process.
Film and TV scripts are very different things. I think it’s likely to be
counter-productive to do wild screenplay drafts. I’ve seen too many writers
tie themselves in terrible narrative knots by writing a draft before the story
(or the writer) are ready. So if your idea is for a 60-minute TV or 90-minute
film then I’d advise against a wild draft – it’s something you could come to
regret sorely when you find yourself lost and stuck trying to undo some -
thing that is already committed to paper.
174 THE CALLING CARD SCRIPT
The point about a wild draft
is that you need to be prepared to ditch
it altogether. Little might remain in the finished script. Or you might just
find yourself with the bulk of what you need. It can go either way. What’s
trickier is when it’s somewhere between these two extremes, because then
you get into the knottier tangle of working out which bits to keep and which
to cut. The choice, as they say, is yours.
WRITE THE BEGINNING
There is perhaps a better, more sane and more pragmatic option. Rather
than commit to a full wild draft, write the beginning instead – and give your
plans some concrete expression without necessarily getting bogged down
with too much volume and complexity.
It’s useful to see whether or not what you have planned does actually
work in practice – to see whether or not the tone and feel and shape and
choices you made for the beginning do what you hoped they would. But it’s
important not to do this before you have a clear sense of how the middle
will get to the ending. Don’t write the beginning too soon. Script depart -
ments are littered with stories that start well but get lost in the middle.
Hopefully this way the itch will be scratched without you breaking the
skin, drawing blood and leaving a scar.
4
The End
This page intentionally left blank
AN ENDING IN SIGHT
So here it is. This thing I’ve been going on about since the start: the ending.
And these are the dualities that have become evident about endings.
First:
Great endings are utterly crucial in the story – integral and fun -
damental to how it begins and how it develops through the middle.
Yet great stories aren’t all about the ending, they are about how the
characters get there – how they journey towards it, earn it, fight for
it, struggle to avoid it, as a consequence of their desires and needs
and decisions and actions.