Finding New Ways - Ciaran Murtagh

How we all doing? It's tough isn't it. It's like that last bit of a long distance flight, we've watched all the good films, the food's been eaten, the novelty's worn off and now we just want to get off the plane. Unfortunately it turns out our Captain doesn't know where he's going, he can't fly a plane, and he's just told us we're going round again.

I've been lucky, I've had work to do and I've kept on doing it, squeezed around home schooling, supporting sick relatives and everything else. But now things have started to get a little tricky.

Working in animation you tend to work on contracts that last a year or two. The processes are set up and established, you have your teams and you know what is expected of you. For the past few months, I've been working on shows that have been in progress -  Ninja Express and Viking Skool. They've been a lot of fun, but now they're coming to an end. I'm at a point in the creative process where I'm gearing up for some new projects and figuring out how to move forward with new people and new relationships.

Ninja Express - coming to a screen near you soon. 

This is a tricky thing.  You may have worked with some of the people involved before, but not always. Some of them may be in different countries, some will speak different languages and you have to come together to find a process that works for everybody in order to get a project up and running. It's a very delicate thing, it breaks easily and it's all about relationships.

Viking Skool - also coming to a screen near you soon.

The usual way to do this is to get everyone into a big room and thrash it all out over sandwiches, biscuits and a bucket of coffee for a few days. It always works. The ice is broken, you find out you're all fairly decent, professional people who want the same thing and you commit to getting it done as painlessly as possible. Of course you are. But you have to go through that process to know that. However, right now, in these times, that's not possible and that makes all of this difficult.

An eight hour Zoom call is never fun, and when you're on a call you don't tend to chit chat - you're there to work. You can't form informal relationships over a juddering screen with twelve other people fighting the same barrier. I always knew how important the personal relationships formed at the start of these processes are, they're just as important as the professional ones when it comes to getting  you through the sticky mid series humps. It's nuanced and it's balanced and it starts right at the very beginning.

So far, I've been muddling through, getting stuff done that's been in play, stuff that's already trundling down a well established track. I can't do that any more. I'm about to embark on an 18 month project without doing any of the things I would usually do. We haven't even built the track.

In the scheme of what everyone else is going through it's small beer, but finding new ways to be creative in these difficult times is a challenge. I was hoping I could wait it out until things got back to normal and start things properly, but with the plane going round again and the Captain not having a clue, it looks like I'm going to have to try and generate some kind of spark, jet lagged and exhausted. It's not a good recipe for creativity, but right now it's all we've got.

Oh. And I need a haircut.

Writing for CBeebies and CBBC – David Thorpe

This month I attended the launch of the BBC WritersRoom Wales office, a packed, all-day affair held at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff.

The highlight for me was the two sessions featuring Andrew Davies, veteran book adapter for many BBC series, but there were also sessions on Doctor Who and writing for children.

If you are looking to write for television one of the easiest ways to break in is to write for children, whether it is very young children who are catered for by CBeebies, or middle grade kids who would watch CBBC.

Various BBC bods had been shipped down from Manchester and one by one outlined all the possibilities. They included cBBC Head of Development Laura Conway, Cbeebies executive producer Vanessa Amberleigh, and show runner and writer Emma Reeves who has to be one of the most prolific writers anywhere.

Emma Reeves

Emma has written for just about every series you can think of including The Worst Witch (Lead Writer) Eve (Lead Writer and co-creator) The Dumping Ground, Young Dracula, The Story of Tracy Beaker, Belonging, The Murder of Princess Diana (Lifetime Channel), Spirit Warriors and Doctors.

She has also written for the stage such as an adaptation of Jacqueline Wilson’s Hetty Feather, Carrie’s War, Little Women, Cool Hand Luke and The Snow Child.

Emma has won Best Children’s TV Episode at The Writers Guild Awards twice – in 2016 for Eve and in 2017 for an episode of The Dumping Ground.

She turned out to be enormously approachable and likeable, someone who just enjoys coming up with stories and writing them.

Some of these series are very long-running – including the Dumping Ground, which is about children in a care home and a spin-off from Jacqueline Wilson's The Story of Tracy Beaker (not to mention Tracy Beaker Returns, another spin-off). This has had over 150 episodes.

With such a demand, there is also more interest in trying out new writers than in other areas of television.

Many of these key dramas' episodes deal with gritty issues and need to treat them in sensitive ways. They have to be very carefully researched.

We were shown a clip from The Dumping Ground, where some children in the care home discuss how to support one of their number, a Sudanese refugee threatened with being deported. One of the kids, a black guy, opposes this on the grounds that "the country is full, there are no jobs".

The team discussed how this episode was written and researched, and how it had to avoid being "issues by numbers", so to speak.

Again and again, speakers said what we on this blog already know: that children are the most demanding of audiences.

Laura Conway said that they are particularly looking for new series ideas, not just for middle grade, but for the age group 12 to 14, very rarely see themselves reflected on television.

If you haven't considered writing for television before, now might be the time.

[David Thorpe is the writer of Marvel's Captain Britain, the sci-fi YA novels Hybrids, Doc Chaos: The Chernobyl Effect and the cli-fi fantasy Stormteller.]

What is a 'concept document'? – And how to write one – by David Thorpe

I just wrote a fight scene in a novel I'm engaged on for older children. Three against three. I had to choreograph it, visualising the space, what was in it, and where everyone was at any given time. Interleave moments of action that would, if watched, be simultaneous. Lay in lines of witty dialogue. Pace it.

The fight lasts maybe three pages. It took a morning to draft.

Over the last several weeks I've been writing something that, by contrast, is just one page long. But it's one of the toughest pieces of writing I've ever attempted. It is not from a novel but based on one of my novels. It is what's called a 'concept doc'.

Its purpose? To attract the attention of a production company or executives that dramatise books for television.

One page. The pithier the better.

Structurally, a concept document is broken down into four sections, following the title and the number of episodes/length:

First: the hook. This is really challenging to get right. It must encapsulate the essence of the idea while enticing the reader on.

Here is a brilliant example of a hook, for The Collection, a new original VoD tv drama series set in a Parisian fashion house after WWII, made by some of the people who brought you the BBC's War and Peace. It's from the keyboard of its writer, Oliver Goldstick:

"It's not so much about what they're wearing as what they're covering up".

Terrific, huh?

This is followed by a short summary of the core concept. What manner of beast is this thing? Not just the genre and audience but the central characters and setting, and narrative thrust, so we know what to expect if watching it.

If it's based on a published book, say something about how it was received.

Third is a plot summary. Mine has three paragraphs. To sum up seven hours of drama. That really focuses your mind.

It's not just about leaving out all those lovely subplots and deciding what is peripheral but conveying the story elements, the broad sweep, the flavour of the key characters' motivations, and the emotional mood swings, so that it is convincing and without non-sequiturs.

Finally, a note on style and format. This is where you say what it's like (e.g. 'Sherlock Holmes meets Star Wars' – say, that's not a bad idea), and why audiences around the world will stop everything they're doing to watch it when it's on. What are its vital selling points that distinguish it from anything else on the screens, while being not so different that it's too risky to undertake?

Every word in the concept doc must fight for its right to be where it is, keeping also in mind it is likely to be scanned by someone with the attention span of a lepidoptera. So you also have to minimise cognitive dissonance in your attempt to summarise the plot while intimating its depth and distinctive qualities.

But the trickiest part of writing it is being able to step back and see it afresh, again and again – a vital discipline to pick up for a writer.

Even if you've no intention of selling your book as a tv series (or film), doing this with one of your own books could be a useful exercise, because it really helps you to fine-tune its uniqueness, the central dramatic attraction, and what should make your book compulsive reading.

• If you undertake this exercise while or even prior to writing the book, you may find it helpful for focusing on what the story is really about.
• If you have completed your book, then it is could be useful for constructing your cover letter to an editor or agent. 

I was fortunate in writing my concept doc in being able to bounce it back and forth with my son, Dion, who's in the business and loves the book, and who is ambitious to see it on the screen. His feedback was invaluable, as was that (as always) of my wife, Helen.

I think we went through about 35 drafts. So far. I think it's taken half as long as it took to write the novel. I think we're nearly there. But then every time I say that we think of an improvement.

You see, you only get one chance at pitching to an agent or producer, and everything hinges on it. There are a zillion ideas out there, and a million people pitching them. That's why it's so crucial to get it – pitch perfect (sorry, couldn't resist).

If you'd like to take a look at it, get in touch.

Now, back to my fight scene.

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David Thorpe is the writer of the Sci-Fi YA novel Hybrids and the cli-fi YA novel Stormteller.

Writing for TV: The Market for SF/Fantasy is Stronger Than Ever - David Thorpe

This blog is usually addressed at writers of children's books but there are other markets for children's writers, such as comics, graphic novels, television and film which are worth considering.

This month I did a short survey of the state of the market for science fiction and fantasy television series for the producer optioning my own SF book, Hybrids for tv. I looked at series that were not necessarily just for children, but many of which may be watched by young people, that are on our screens this year or in development up to 2017. (Of course just because something is in development does not mean it will be produced or reach the screens, but even so writers may be paid to produce scripts or plots.)

I was astonished to find over 60 series in this SF&F category alone. The market has expanded hugely as television has become more international and companies like Netflix and Amazon enter the market, and I feel very encouraged by this.

Of these 60+, around half are adapted from books: 12 from the UK and 21 from the USA. Six are adapted from comics, continuing the trend of taking Marvel and DC characters to small screens. They include X-Men, Daredevil, Supergirl and Luke Cage.

Many of you might have seen Tatau, an eight-part paranormal series for a younger audience for BBC3 set in the Cook Islands and New Zealand, written by Richard Zajdiic, who got his tv break writing for EastEnders, then moved onto This Life and Attachments, an interesting series about an Internet start-up that was developed by the brilliant veteran scriptwriter Tony Garnett and was probably ahead of its time.

Richard gives his own advice for writers who want to break into the market:

"It's not just about talent. Luck is a huge factor too - being in the right place at the right time - so perseverance and tenacity are equally important. Remember, it's a marathon not a sprint. Hang on in there and hopefully you'll win one eventually.
"There are so many factors in getting a show made, let alone recommissioned, most of which are totally outside your control. I've had several development scripts praised by all parties involved, even one where the director (Peter Kosminsky, no less) was scouting locations and sending me pictures of where he was going to shoot my scenes but then, crushingly, the coveted green-light somehow failed to materalise. I also wrote on the prison drama Buried which won a BAFTA for best drama series and gained widespread critical acclaim. Channel 4 cancelled it. Go figure."

Anyone who is in this business needs perseverance. Life On Mars was rejected for years by all the channels before finally being resurrected. There are plenty of resources out there, the principal one in the UK being the London Screenwriters Workshop (which I helped to get going a long time ago) and the London Screenwriters Festival.

Tatau: Kyle (Joe Layton), Aumea Vaipiti (Shusila Takao) BBC/Touchpaper, Photographer: Kirsty Griffin

Historical fantasy is popular in the wake of Game of Thrones and the BBC’s adaptation of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. It is being further capitalised upon big time by the BBC with three series:

1. a historical eight-part series The Last Kingdom, from the creator of Sharpe, Bernard Cornwell; 
2. The Living And The Dead, an original period horror set in 1888. Both of these have been developed in partnership with BBC America for the American market;
3. and World's End, in which a group of children from diverse backgrounds are taken to a mysterious remote Scottish castle which houses a secret army research centre for an unknown purpose. This is written by Danny Spring and Diane Whitley.

ITV is not being left out with The Frankenstein Chronicles, a six-part series being made for ITV Encore following in the wake of Penny Dreadful.

Children's writer Charlie Higson (best known for the young James Bond) continues the classic horror theme with a 10 part version of Jekyll & Hyde to be set in the 1930s. Robert Jekyll is the grandson of the original doctor. It will begin screening on ITV in October.

[While we're on the subject, did you know that Anthony Horowitz was offered the chance to write that Young Bond series and turned it down? Never mind, he's since been picked to update another classic character, Sherlock Holmes and to write The House of Silk and Moriarty, and a new Bond novel Trigger Mortis, to be published later this year.]

Mary Shelley's richly resonant and prescient novel Frankenstein also inspires another series called The Frankenstein Code, that's being developed by Michael Cuesta for 20th Century Fox television and written by Rand Ravich and Howard Gordon, set to air next year. However it actually has little to do with Frankenstein apart from the fact that a corrupt sheriff is brought back to life in the body of a younger man.

The BBC has a kind of Humans for children, a gentle comedy about a family who have to share the house with the world's first fully sentient artificial person, called, with a stroke of originality, Eve. It's written by David Chikwe amd Emma Reeves.

There are quite a few comedy SF dramas. The one I'm looking forward to most is Tripped, a four-part comedy drama for E4 from the writers of BBC crime series The Missing, Harry and Jack Williams, adapted from an E4 pilot titled Alt, written by Doctor Who's Jamie Mathieson. It features a lad called Danny and his stoner friend Milo, who trip through alternate worlds, meeting different versions of themselves.

Dystopian drama tends to be crossover: both adults and older children like it. The theme is expressed by another series of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror, Legends of Tomorrow, a kind of retro futuristic story about a ragtag group of heroes and villains trying to prevent the Apocalypse, Programmed about aliens taking over the human race, one actually called Dystopia about a virus that has rendered mankind infertile, plus several more, but apart from Black Mirror it feels like scraping the barrel.

Two dramas address the 'what if' idea of Nazi terror still being around today: Timeline Alpha and the probably much more interesting adaptation of another novel by the infinitely exploitable Philip K Dick, The Man In The High Castle.  I can't wait to see this 10 episode alternate history, having watched the pilot shown in January, that is being released on 20 November from Amazon Prime Instant Video, and is executive produced by Ridley Scott.

There are so many more, but I can't sign off without telling you about something you will no doubt have missed, so bad was it: a Christian science fiction series recently aired on the The CW Television Network that was apparently deliberately contrived to influence children. In The Messengers the devil (in the form of The Man) turns five normal people into angels with supernatural gifts that might be the only hope for preventing the impending Rapture. The storytelling was so convoluted and confusing it has, I'm very sorry to say, because it was so much fun to watch for all the wrong reasons, not been recommended for a second series.

At any rate, what's for sure is that the hunger for science fiction and fantasy is stronger than it has ever been. Good news for the prospects of Hybrids at any rate.

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David Thorpe is the writer of the Sci-Fi YA novel Hybrids and the cli-fi YA novel Stormteller.