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WRITERS COME CLEAN ABOUT WORKING ON SOAPS
it needn't be hell writing for soaps
Thu, 6 Mar 2008
We've just been in Leeds for our second TV Forum - this time TV Forum North - where a group of over 100 new TV writers were entertained by an overview of the industry. Meanwhile we're thinking back to the first Forum where we bought together three of the top UK soap writers, Tony McHale, Bill Lyons and Rob Gittins, to share their experience and talk about the highs, as well as the lows, of this particular writing discipline.
For some writers in the industry ‘soap’ is still a dirty word. With a reputation for impossible deadlines, huge audience figures to maintain and the spectre of reams of development notes showering down on you from every conceivable angle, on the surface it could appear a frustrating proposition.
Yet what for some are restrictions are for others the very source of creative inspiration. They thrive on the deadlines, find new energy in the collaboration and revel in the opportunity to move an audience of millions with their words, five days a week.
And the pay’s not bad either...
Writing for a long-running series is often the first break a screenwriter will have. More than any other programme format, or any other medium, television Soaps are said to virtually eat writers. Their demand for new storylines and new voices is relentless and those who make them are always on the look out for the talent to provide it. The experience learnt on the job is invaluable and a stint on a soap is often the means of launching a long and varied career in writing for screens both big and small.
Tony McHale, Bill Lyons and Rob Gittins were joined in conversation by Yvonne Grace, a script editor and now producer herself, and asked to dish the dirt on breaking into Soaps.
To read the full transcript click here.
To find out more about TV Forum North click here.