Chris Thompson - Writing Soap: How to write Popular Continuing Drama (Aber Creative Writing)

Chris Thompson is a master of his art and this book offers a very rare opportunity to share in his knowledge, experience and insight. It is a clear, concise yet highly detailed guide to the dense, seemingly impenetrable and often unforgivingworld of Soap writing. It will prove invaluable both to aspiringwriters embarking on their first script and to established writers wishing to hone their skills in the company of one ofSoaps most prolific and successful contributors. In short, if you have any ambition to write Soap scripts (or write better Soap scripts) before you do anything else, read this book!

Soap Operas have been a vital part of the landscape ofBritish, and indeed international, television for many years. Coronation Street started life in 1960, Emmerdale in 1972, Eastenders in 1985, while relative newcomers Hollyoaks andDoctors, began in 1995 and 2000 respectively. They deliver huge ratings, generate vast income and are held dear bymillions of people, week in and week out.

But far more important to the Television writer, theyprovide regular income; offer the opportunity to have your work seen by a huge audience, and open doors to other areas of television drama and film. Most of the Soaps havea team of twenty or more scriptwriters, some with years ofexperience, and others who are new to the job. And in anage when it is becoming more and more difficult to haveindividually authored work commissioned, it is an option would-be TV writers can ill afford to ignore.

This book aims to provide you with an understanding of how these programmes are made; but more important, it seeks to give you practical skills, supported by a series of exercises, which will give you the tools to enable you todo the job. It contains expert advice from someone who has been writing professionally since 1985, with almost five hundred TV and Radio credits, among them, over 200 episodes of ITVs Emmerdale and 150 episodes of the BBC Radio 4 Drama, The Archers.

When you watch an episode of a Soap, you are seeing the result of a complex, demanding and rigorous process, which began months (or even years) before, when the germ ofan idea was raised at a story conference or delivered by anindividual writer. It can take several months to bring a story to screen, and may take up to two or three years to play out.

It might sometimes look easy, but it isnt. The pressures are enormous, to deliver quality scripts on time, to a high standard, to function as a team member, coming up with new stories and sharing in the collective responsibility of keeping the show fresh and appealing. And, above all, making surethe audiences remain high.

Each chapter in this book will look at an aspect of Writing Soap, first of all explaining in detail the production process, before concentrating on specific writing skills that can belearned and put into practice.

The first part of the book looks at GETTING IN. It helps you to learn the skills to write the scripts and offers practical advice on how to approach one of the major Soaps, and topersuade them to give you a job.

The second part looks at ways of STAYING IN. Its one thing to be given the chance to write for Soap, but plenty ofwriters who are given that chance, fall within the first few months. They find it hard to deliver on their initial promise,become fazed by the pressure and the demands of deliveringquality scripts on time, involving several drafts and find themselves receiving the dread phone call telling them their services are no longer required.

It can show you how the programmes are made. It can show you the skills to do the job. It can give you helpful tips onhow to get in and sustain a career.

What it cant do is guarantee you a job. Nor can it giveyou the innate ability to write for Soap. Many good writers find the process too constricting and too inhibiting. They areeither unable or unwilling to suppress their own individuality as writers, writing for characters they didnt invent, telling stories they didnt pitch and may not feel sympathy for. Theyfeel affronted by the editing process, which will on occasionsask them to make fundamental changes to their work.

You will need qualities that are beyond the remit of this or any other book. You will need determination, self-belief, perseverance, the ability to take criticism, to turn a scriptround in days, to come up with a new scene in a matter ofhours when an actor falls ill, for example, or bad weather means an exterior scene has to be re-located to Studio. A Soap is not a movie, which may run over time and over budget. The schedules are unrelenting and the machine has to keep rolling on.