Writing Television Drama

by Nicholas Gibbs

  NG: What are the challenges for a writer joining Coronation Street?

  KR: It’s a big machine and they have to operate within it and not outside of it. Some writers, very fine writers, who are used to working on their own or maybe in a partnership with one other writer and creating their own stuff and setting their own deadlines and creating their own working framework, find it very difficult to adapt.

  NG: What is the process from a writing point of view?

  KR: Every three weeks we get together. The producer, assistant producer, story editor, story team, script editors and researcher sit round a table with all the writers. Now it is important that we have all the writers involved in that process all the time and I will say to writers, even if they are taking a bit of time out from writing for us because they are creating a new show, I still want them to come to the story conference. So that’s the key moment when we all get together for a day and a half and we make some big decisions, and I want the writer to be part of that process and in fact buy into it. If they have an issue with a character or story, we want to hear it then, not six months later when it’s too late.

  NG: What happens at story conference?

  KR: The first morning is the commissioning conference and I’ll come back to that because in a sense that is the end of the cycle. In the afternoon we have a story conference which spills into the second day and it goes into the second afternoon until usually four or five o’clock, depending on how well we’ve done. We talk about stories for the next block of episodes, which is usually three weeks. So that would be typically 15 episodes. We start by saying ‘OK, where is everybody now?’ And remember where they’ve come on their journeys. Sometimes we already have a road map for a character or characters and sometimes we have nothing. We literally sit down and say, to give a recent example of stuff that has been on air: ‘So, Becky has just found out that Tracy Barlow has lied about pushing her down the stairs causing that miscarriage. What is she going to do? We also know Katherine Kelly, the actress, is leaving and we’ve got X number of weeks.’ So we’ll have that discussion. How are we going to map this story out? So we built her this fantastic exit story and we pay off. So we have those discussions about every single character group that’s in play. At the end of the conference the writers all go home and they start writing.

  NG: What does the story team do?

  KR: The story team, led by our story editor, take the raw material from the entire conference, which can be detailed or very, very broad, and then talk it through and iron out any problems and interrogate any flaws in the story and come out at the end of about two weeks’ work with a document that is very precise. The document includes the episode number, transmission date, sets we’ve got, time of sunrise, sunset, production information, information on the characters that are being used and any information on the characters – for example, that one actor is on holiday, so we mustn’t use him even if we want to. A document with 15 episodes written out like that is sent out to the writers and obviously an individual writer is assigned to each episode and then they have a few days with it. What we ask them to do is structure the episode from that storyline.

  NG: Explain how the writer structures the episode from the storyline?

  KR: The writer takes ownership of the structure as well as to an extent the content. The writers are welcome to come back on this storyline and say ‘OK, I know what you need from me and I know where I’m picking up and I know what I’ve got to have to hand over on the moment for the next writer but I’d like to play things slightly differently across this episode.’ They’ll give us a suggestion of how they want to do it – for example, they might say: ‘Can I have a couple of extra characters because I want to do this.’ Sometimes they’ll trade and say: ‘I don’t need so-and-so and I don’t need so-and-so, but please can I have these two extra characters instead because I think they are more important for the story I need to tell.’

  NG: What happens at the commissioning conference?

  KR: When we come back for the next story conference, the first thing we do on the first morning is have a commissioning conference where all the writers sit round the table with the same producer and story editor and effectively sign off on their plans for their episodes. So they’ve submitted in writing the changes they want to make but then we’ll talk them through, and again it is that kind of collective responsibility – collective ownership. A writer might say: ‘OK, I want to play this slightly differently and you’ve said that X happens but I would like Y to happen but I’ve spoken to the person who is taking on the next episode and they are fine if I do Y. They’ll pick it up in a slightly different way and we can assure you that by the end of that episode we’ll be absolutely back to where you want us to be.’ Or: ‘We’re going to do it differently all of us and it’s going to be better.’ We have that discussion and we agree or disagree. I mean, ultimately the producer has to make the call. It is a three-week cycle and that happens 17 times a year because of Christmas, and it’s a 52-week year and there’s one where we do it across a four-week cycle and we have to make up the extra episodes somewhere across the year. So that is the process. The writers leave the conference and they go away and write their first drafts.

  NG: What about the actual scriptwriting schedule?

  KR: We expect those episodes back as first drafts within about ten days. They have typically two to three weeks after that to take it through two more drafts. The big changes, if they’re required, will happen after the first draft when it is just the producer and the script team talking it through and having read all the episodes around: continuity issues, places where the story isn’t working, or something about the script they feel needs changing. The second draft goes to a production meeting. The director will join the process and obviously have his or her own notes. At that point we will have people looking at location; the script supervisor is looking at the timings and the various practical issues to take into account. The first assistant director will have got a draft schedule together. So when all that information is added into a second draft you come out with what we call a rehearsal script, which is only a third draft and usually that’s fine and we shoot that. Sometimes we need a fourth draft. It is very unusual. It is a very efficient process, but what I think is really important about it is that we make most of the important decisions before the writer starts writing.

  NG: You’ve spoke about the three voices of Coronation Street. What are they? Voice 1?

  KR: I think there are three voices the writer has to capture if they are going to be successful. The first is the obvious one, the voices of all the characters – to get them right. Some of them are really easy and some of them are quite tricky. We’ll tell them that Steve Macdonald will make such and such a decision on such and such a day, but the way they express Steve Macdonald is about the skill of capturing that character’s voice. They have to be able to capture voices of all of our characters and do it convincingly.

  NG: And Voice 2?

  KR: Now the second voice the writer has to capture is a little harder to define but I think it’s every bit as important and that is the voice of the programme. I think it was a voice that was laid down in the very clear blueprint by creator Tony Warren in Episode 1 and it’s bit difficult to sum up in a few words but let me try. Obviously, it is dramatic but it’s absolutely character-led drama and it’s female-centric, character-led drama, and however dramatic and dark and gritty sometimes stories can be, there is an essential warmth and there is an essential humour that is laced through everything. It is not about we have a scene of drama and then we cut to a scene of comedy and that’s kind of easy to do and less satisfactory. It’s about the comedy and the drama being so closely intertwined that they’re almost indistinguishable.

  NG: And Voice 3?

  KR: I think it is very important that the writer doesn’t lose their own voice. I would never want all the Coronation Street scripts to sound and feel the same. Of course we’ve got issues of continuity and we’r
e telling stories and we mustn’t suddenly go off track, but I think when a writer brings out their own voice in an episode they do it in a particular way. Some of our writers have got very distinctive voices like Jonathan Harvey, Carmel Morgan, Jan McVerry, Joe Turner and Simon Crowther. They are telling the story that we want them to tell, but there is something of them in it as well. I think that is really important as well. So the challenge of working in the machine and capturing those three voices I think is considerable and it isn’t just about being a great writer. It’s about being able to do all of that.

  NG: Given that the show is high volume. Is there a problem with scripts being rewritten?

  KR: Very rarely. It may happen once or twice a year out of 260-odd episodes that we get to the point where the script is totally not working and something’s gone badly wrong with it and you just think the only solution to this is to start again because the individual writer has run up against a brick wall. It just happens. It is part of the creative process. It’s not that writer is useless; it is just that there is a problem now. Then you say: ‘Right, let’s just start again and we’re going to ask someone else to take a fresh look at this because the script’s just not working.’

  NG: What are the common, avoidable mistakes in a Coronation Street script?

  KR: I think there are two sorts of common mistakes: doing too much of something or not enough of something. Let me expand on that. I think, for example, in characterization I think it is very easy to overdraw the characters and exaggerate their traits to the point where they are cartoons rather than real, rounded people. Equally, it’s a common mistake that all the characters sound very bland and are interchangeable. You do this test where you block out the characters’ names and then you read the dialogue. Can you actually tell who’s speaking? If you can’t, then that’s wrong. You shouldn’t need the character headings above the speeches to be able to hear which character it is. I think similarly in terms of their overall approach to the storytelling. A common mistake would be to stick so slavishly to what we’ve given them that the overall episode feels voiceless in terms of the writer’s own voice. Or to go so far off piste that actually it’s all very interesting but these aren’t the stories we’re telling.

  NG: For a new writer to join the show presumably, like any other job, there has to be a vacancy? Do you have a pool of writers-in-waiting as such?

  KR: Perhaps if one writer left the team we wouldn’t be rushing into it, but if we lost two writers then I think that’s the point we’d say ‘OK, who else is out there?’ We tend to have a list of writers who are queuing up to join the show. It tends to work like that and they range from very well-established writers to people who don’t have any television credits but who have a passion, and sometimes those people can work out but obviously they have to work harder to prove themselves. So we tend not to need to go out and find writers. They come and find us.

  NG: Do they need to be fans of the show?

  KR: I don’t think they need to be. I think it helps. It helps if they at least have knowledge of the history of the characters, the stories we’ve played and some knowledge of the kind of stories that work on Coronation Street. I think there’s an argument that says they also need a degree of critical detachment. If they are too much of a fan, they are possibly not going to be able to make the right decisions. What I think would be very difficult, to turn that on its head, is if someone came to us who was a very good writer but really didn’t appear to have any interest in Coronation Street, who didn’t know about our characters or the history of our stories. I would then think I don’t really see how they are going to get passionate about the next Ken and Deidre story.

  Doctors

  Doctors is the BBC’s daytime soap that goes out five days a week in the early afternoon. The show, launched in 2000, is about the lives of the staff and patients at the fictional Mill Health Centre. Since the show began more than 2,000 episodes have been broadcast and the production team currently produces 236 episodes a year.

  The show has a proud record of giving writers their first on-screen credit. Doctors has been described as a continuing drama with a soap element. Each episode focuses on the ‘story of the day’, with a couple of character-driven serial elements as well. It is up to the writers to pitch, either verbally or written down, stories of the day and, if the editorial team like one, the writer will be commissioned to write the episode.

  The story of the day will have guest characters at its heart but will be linked in some way to one of the regular cast members who have to be integral to that story. Writers often have preferences for their favourite characters and tend to utilize them for their story of the day.

  A writer may also pitch a multi-episode story told over two, three or more episodes. On other occasions the serial element involving the regular characters may take centre stage and the commissioned writer will be given a storyline document – as on EastEnders or Coronation Street – and present the serial story as they see fit.

  Doctors is a daytime drama and as such has a smaller budget and much smaller cast of characters to draw upon. In turn, there are limitations on locations and guest characters as well as limitations imposed by regular character availability.

  The show also works to the adage of ‘Don’t let reality get in the way of a good story’ and liberties are taken with the real world. In the real world, for example, doctors don’t do house calls and test results are not immediate. Dramatic licence wins the day and the audience goes with it.

  Most writers joining Doctors will undergo a trial script first. The writer will be presented with a pack containing maps of the surgeries, character biographies and guidelines for the show – for example, each episode averages a maximum 30 scenes. Even though it is a trial script the writer still needs to pitch a story of the day that will take up the majority of the episode. Once the story of the day has been accepted, the writer is presented with a document containing the serial element. Two strands of serial storyline are presented in a single paragraph form for each story which contains a handful of story beats which will carry the story from the previous episode to the end-of-episode cliffhanger.

  The writer’s job is to weave the serial element into their story of the day. A scene-by-scene is written and may go through several drafts before being signed off, and the script is written with a limited number of drafts before it goes into production.

  EastEnders

  EastEnders is the BBC’s only primetime soap and it goes out on weekdays four times a week and is regularly the BBC’s most watched drama. Launched in 1985, the show is about the residents of the fictional London borough of Walford.

  Note: The BBC also produces two other soaps – River City in Scotland and the Welsh-language Pobol y Cwm for S4C in Wales.

  Bryan Kirkwood was executive producer of EastEnders from 2010 to 2012 where he oversaw approximately 400 episodes. He had previously been executive producer on Channel 4’s Hollyoaks for 346 episodes. This interview took place during Bryan’s tenure on the show.

  Nicholas Gibbs: How many writers do you have working on EastEnders?

  Bryan Kirkwood: We have a core team of roughly ten people and it is the core team that attends the monthly story meetings and attends our long-term conferences and whose job it is to find the next big stories and keep the engine running and going in the right direction. Beyond that core team we have another roughly 20 people who regularly contribute by writing episodes and are very much still very important creative influences on the show.

  NG: How do you source your new writers for the show?

  BK: We have a number of avenues. I am very keen to create and maintain a consistency on the EastEnders writing team. There are always opportunities for new talent and that’s right because it is the BBC. We should be seen and it is part of our job to create opportunities for exciting new talent. Balancing that, it is very important to me to have a consistency to the creative energy to the show. In terms of new writers, we have a couple of avenues. Fi
rst there’s the trial scheme. We have a development editor who is charged with always trying to find new writers. You will always be juggling a number of writers doing trial scripts, which has borne fruit in the past and certainly some of our current writers have come through that route. We have John Yorke’s brilliant Writers’ Academy, which has proved enormously successful in finding these brilliant new voices who are now central to the voice of EastEnders such as Matt Evans, Sally Abbott and Lauren Clee – three writers off the top of my head who have been through John’s Academy scheme. Then the other, less structured way is through all of us who work here – we all come from different shows, we all come from different backgrounds in the television industry, and you know, if you work with a good writer and you feel they are right for EastEnders, then that’s another way in.

  NG: When you look at a writer’s original script what do you look for that suggests they could be an EastEnders writer?

  BK: EastEnders is a very difficult show to write. It has got a very unique voice. What I would look for in a writer is the confidence to have their own voice while still sounding resolutely like EastEnders. I think we have some of the best characters on British television with Dot Cotton, with Kat and Alfie Moon, with Ian Beale and Phil Mitchell… the list goes on. We have very, very distinct characters who have been on screen for many, many years and so one of the first things I would look for in a potential writer is: Have they got the joy of those characters right? Have they got wit? Have they got banter? Is it entertaining? It’s a very simple question but am I enjoying this episode? Am I enjoying the characters? Do I want to turn the page? It’s always too much of a danger to rely on telling a story through words and I would look for the ability to tell these stories visually. Sometimes on a show like EastEnders there is nothing better than two people talking in a room. That’s got a lot going for it. That’s what the show is built on. Sometimes, though, it is better to tell it visually so I look for a balance of that as well. I look for confidence, I look for structure. I look for rhythm, I look for pace. Am I bored? Has the writer enjoyed writing it? I can usually tell if it has been a labour of love or a labour.