It’s been a few months since I sat back and wrote a blog, mainly because I’ve been so busy. So I thought I’d reflect on the last few months.

As I explained in a previous post, last September I was hired as Series Script Editor on the CBBC TV show The Dumping Ground. The responsibilities are simple, as explained to me in the first week when I asked what I needed to do:

“All we ask is that you deliver us 20 great scripts by the time we shoot in June next summer’.

What a GREAT job. Seriously, does it get any better?

So over the last few months I’ve been talking to many brilliant writers, having the odd Story meeting, compiling new character biographies, reading and giving notes on many pitches and treatments and story documents and scripts – and now, four months in, I’m happy to say we have more than ten episodes in progress, at many various stages from pitches to third draft scripts, and it really is looking like it’s going to be a fantastic series.

Which is something as a relief, as, since I started, the first series of the show won a BAFTA. That’s great, obviously, and huge congratulations to that team – but it does mean the bar on this series is set a little high!

So far the tone goes from laugh out loud comedy to wistful introspection to dark drama, the story telling is getting more and more gripping, and every day I’m both thankful (and grateful) that this show in particular among children’s shows comes with such a rich palette of characters and readily accessed emotional resonance, all built in as part of the basic design of the show.

So what have I learned, and what can I share with you?

In no particular order:

1. The Muse will always come, but only if you give her somewhere to perch.

Inspiration is both elusive and erratic, but if you keep focused, keep thinking, and talking, and working, then you always get the breakthrough in the end.

2. Team writing lightens the load.

I’m a real individualist as a writer – for me it’s all about getting my own story down on the page, no matter how long it takes. Until I started running courses with Philip Shelley as The Two Phils, I would hang on to that, and see the pain of that as part of the process.

But in those courses, over the last two years, we’re always amazed at the quality of the ideas that emerge in some of our structured creativity sessions – in a fraction of the time it would take me on my own.

The same has been happening here on this job – and to me it’s finally conclusive proof that writing in teams with the right people really can save days, even weeks, of banging your head on a wall.

So, if you don’t have a writing partner, why not try to find one this year? If you can find a group of like-minded people even better. Get together once or twice a month, talk story, characters, and emotions, and see what comes out of it.

3. Especially early on, you can always make it better.

A first draft of anything can be made better and tighter by working on it. Even when it doesn’t look like it at first.

4. Strip it back to the essential structure.

Doing a beat by beat breakdown of a script will show you what’s going on under the bonnet.

A good writer can whip up enough of a storm on the level of dialogue and action to conceal the fact that the story isn’t working beneath all that. But going through the script and writing a beat by beat breakdown of what’s happening in each scene is a great diagnostic tool to cut through all this.

5. You have to give the hard note.

My background as a writer means I completely understand the pain caused by the big notes which require rewrites.

As a writer I know that this pain can be survived (!) and the next level will always be reached.

As an editor I see clearly the difference that these notes can bring from draft to draft, and I realise that they are necessary.

You’re doing no-one a favour if you don’t push for the best version of a story, and no writer will thank you for letting them off the hook when an episode goes out and it simply doesn’t work.

6. Storylines are crucial.

Planning your episode is the most efficient way of controlling the unruly process of creating a script – but it’s entirely possible that even the best storylines can fail when it comes to script.

There is a magic that happens (or sometimes doesn’t happen) at the point you write down the dialogue and the action and the individual scenes.

7. Getting the tone right (for any TV show) is harder than it looks.

We’ve had some great writers pitch terrific stories, but though they were great children’s TV stories, they still weren’t stories that could be told in the world of the Dumping Ground. Writing on any given show means getting to grips with that show’s voice.

The voice is tricky to analyse, but it seems to me to be a very subtle combination of genre, the types of choices the characters can make, and the types of plot twists that can be played – all of which is far harder to grasp than it seems!

8. Put in the leg work before you pitch.

When it comes to getting hired on a new show, writers who know the show already are way, way ahead of writers who don’t. If you’re going for a job on a new TV show then I recommend watching at least ten episodes. If you don’t you will probably end up pitching story ideas and character situations that feel either over-familiar, stale, or just plain wrong.

9. The rules help.

Never forget simple story structure. When something isn’t working, and it’s not immediately clear why, the basic rules can really help you.

10. I’m in the right job!

This whole industry, the creation of story, getting it on screen to a big audience, and working in a creative team with great producers and great writers, is the best job in the world. Not sure why, but it is.

New writers get their first professional job every single week, so if that’s your dream, then don’t give up – there are many different shows, with many different requirements from their writers, and there will be a match for you somewhere somewhere.

WORKSHOPPING SCRIPTS

I met Chetna Pandya and Endy McKay yesterday, the two actors behind Outspoken Arts. You might have seen Endy on “Peep Show”, and Chetna on “Toast of London” before Christmas, and they both have serious CVs, with a strong body of professional work behind them on TV and stage.

We were talking about the possibility of running some sessions for the Goldmine in which writers could workshop their scripts, or sections of their scripts, with a team of professional actors and directors.

The idea would be to see how the script played when it was delivered ‘for real’, and to use all the people in the room to give the script a boost of creative energy that could take it onto the next level.

Another idea was using a professional team of actors to run table reads of people’s screenplays and supplying them via mp3.

Chetna and Endy will be looking into the costs and the practicalities over the next few weeks, so if that’s something that might interest you then do let me know your thoughts.

OUR COMPETITION

I’m currently getting the 2014 Screenwriting Goldmine contest ready.

At the moment I’m in the process of putting together a great panel of judges. So far that panel includes the Head of Development at C4, the Series Producer on Coronation St, development execs at ITV, C4, the BBC and many Indies, top literary agents and other prominent industry figures.

18 judges in all so far and counting – and I have a good few more names on my hit list!

The fact that so many more judges have signed up this year is a massive vote of confidence that the competition is doing its job – getting good writers in front of the industry professionals who need them. And when you think about how hard it would be for a new is to get access to people of this calibre, it’s clear this year is going to be the best yet.

I’m also wondering whether to open a less serious category for scripts between 3 and 25 pages – just a bit of fun, with some smaller prizes. What do you think? Would you enter?