Want to write the next binge-worthy Netflix series, but don’t know where to start?
Lucy Gannon on why you should overcome your doubts and begin. ‘Scene 1…’
‘I think new screenwriters are too worried it has all been said before. Sure it has, but not by you.’ — David Lynch
My first play was on the shortlist for the Richard Burton Drama Award. We were not theatregoers, my husband and me, so when we were invited to attend the awards at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, we didn’t know what to expect. All we knew was that there were five plays shortlisted and a few minutes from each one would be performed and the whole thing would be televised by the BBC. We arrived early, wondering if it was all some huge mistake. As we walked towards the theatre, I noticed a rack of clothes by the stage door with a label on each hanger: a man’s suit and jumper labelled ‘Doug’, a woman’s jacket, skirt and shoes labelled ‘Winnie’. I can’t describe my excitement as I realised that these were the clothes that my characters would be wearing. My characters were going to walk and talk … to live. My characters! Not cold words on a page, but real people, voiced and substantial, walking on the earth. Fully three-dimensional. My characters! There is no better feeling than that. Some of you, reading this, could one day experience that same delight. What a joy.
What makes you a writer? And in a world of non-writers, why you? Well, why not you?
We are all born with abilities and talents. Some of us discover what they are before it’s too late. That’s a blessing. As you set out to become a writer, you may suffer a little from imposter syndrome, continually asking, ‘Why me?’ But why not you? You are unique, no one else can say what you have to say, so why not you?
You may be hesitant and even apologetic about your desire to write, maybe asking yourself, ‘Am I talented?’ And if that’s what you’re wondering right now, you are not alone. When creative people meet, the question often veers around to ‘What is talent?’ I’ve bumbled around this question with painters, writers, sculptors, poets, potters and musicians. There is no definitive answer because talent can’t be seen or tasted or measured, and what sounds beautiful to one listener is flat and uninteresting to another. The words that excite you may leave me cold, and we are all, in our deepest appreciation of the world around us, biased. Our bias is created not by reasoning and decision-making, but by the unique chemistry of our personality, our past, our environment, our ethics and the reactions we create in others.
Here is my understanding, simply the conclusion I’ve come to so far, and the phrases I’ve found that — in part, anyway — help me to find an understanding of talent:
Talent is generosity of spirit.
Talent is the human spirit reaching out, hungry to connect, to understand and to be understood, to shed pretence and reveal the truth of who we are. To look beyond the visible and tangible to the eternal. Talent is vulnerable. It demands that the artist, writer, musician invites rejection with everything they do. Talent is that struggle to put potatoes on the table not by ploughing but by dreaming. Talent is not an easy lover. It’s a bugger to live with. It’s demanding, relentless and exhausting. But it’s precious and the greatest gift of all. It’s passion.
That’s just my definition of something that can’t be defined. It’s why I turn up to a cold theatre on a dark wet night, when the seats are uncomfortable and I’ve just had a hell of a job finding parking. I am there for the passion.
So, when I open a script on my computer, I ask myself, ‘Would I leave my fireside on a dank February night to watch this play or this film? Does this writer reach out to me, with truth and insight and warmth?’
Your fingerprint is unique, but so — more intriguingly — is your writing. No one has lived as you have lived, with your parents and your companions, in your time and space. Your world view and your personal history are, therefore, a never-to-be-repeated understanding of life. More than even this, no one has been subject to all the influences that have shaped your personality, and so even your voice is unique. The writer’s job is to find and speak out with that voice. And this is, to use an old-fashioned phrase, ‘a high calling’.
To write well is to share yourself with the world.
My new book, Do Drama, is written for all sorts of dramatists and would-be dramatists. It’s written for those who have never written, and for those who have always written. Do you just want to have a go at writing, to dabble a toe in the water and see what it feels like? Or are you fascinated by the skills of radio dramatists and feel that this is the medium for you? Do you love theatre and hanker after seeing your own drama played out on the stage? Or are you enthralled by film and television, with a secret ambition to write the next primetime hit?
Not everything you read in the book will be relevant to you, but it will show you the possibilities of writing drama and, most importantly, it will take you through the process of writing your first script and point you towards your next step. Whoever you are, you are not a writer until you write your first piece of work. And that’s exactly what I’ve set out to do.
When you start to write a drama, you’re joining a wonderful community, past and present, and every stab of anxiety you feel about your work has been felt by every other writer, for certain. We all have a bad case of imposter syndrome, so relax, it’s part of the job!
Writing a drama is like no other writing challenge. Write a novel and you tell the story from one or maybe a few set perspectives; write a drama and you walk around all your characters, you bring them into the world, you give them life.
What will your writing experience be? Sometimes it will be a waterfall of words and ideas, scenes cascading onto the screen, your heart surging with every line of dialogue and every new and vivid idea. And sometimes just deciding on the setting of a scene, or a piece of dialogue, will take all morning, every word like pulling a tooth. Sometimes you’ll look from your storyline to the blank screen and have not one single constructive thought in your head.
‘The mind of a writer can be a truly terrifying thing. Isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination, consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing and soul-crushing inadequacy. And that’s on a good day. ‘— Robert De Niro
If you’re a writer, nothing will stop you writing. Nothing. Sometimes your writing will bring stress and disappointment and even fury, but sometimes it will bring friendships with the best people in the world. There is no golden path into television or film, no set route. But the world is hungry, ravenous, desperate for talent. You are the talent. If you write, they will find you. But they will not find you until you write. Enjoy the adventure.
‘I write only because there is a voice within me that will not be still.’ — Sylvia Plath
Lucy Gannon is the daughter of a British soldier. Her mother died when she was seven and by the age of eleven she had attended nine schools. Classed as ‘educationally subnormal’, she left school as soon as she could and moved around the world for a few years. When she was nearly 40 — twice married, broke and working in a care home — she heard about a playwriting competition, the Richard Burton Drama Award, funded by his widow, Sally. With no hope of winning it, but daydreaming about the £2,000 prize money, she started her first script, a theatre play called Keeping Tom Nice. She won first prize and went on to become one of Britain’s most prolific and successful scriptwriters (Soldier, Soldier, Peak Practice, Bramwell, and many other mini-series, films, theatre plays and radio dramas). She has won numerous awards across theatre, radio and television, including the Prix Europa for her first TV film A Small Dance, a Bafta Cymru for Dad and an RTS writers’ award for The Best of Men. In 1997 she was awarded an MBE for services to television drama. She now lives and writes in West Wales.
Book excerpt from Do Drama: How to stop watching TV. And start writing it. Text copyright © 2022 Lucy Gannon. Published by Do Books, May 2022. Order from your local retailer or: Do Books (includes ebook) | Bookshop.org | Amazon.co.uk
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