Monthly Archives: April 2012

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The Next Meeting of WLW – 01/05/2012

The next meeting of West Lothian Writers will be on Tuesday 1st of May between 7pm and 9pm at the usual location:

South Barn
Nether Dechmont Farm
Fells Rigg
Carmondean
Livingston
EH54 8AX

The meeting will start with a short AGM where you can find out what we have been up to last year and deciding how we want to take WLW forward next year. Please download the the minutes from last year’s AGM and this year’s agenda before the meeting.

If you are not sure where you are going either type the above post code into your sat nav or follow the map below.

Cost £2 (£1 concession)
Hope to see you there

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Formatting Your Script

During our last week’s meeting, there was much discussion about what formats scripts – especially radio ones – should take. Well the WLW website now has an answer thanks to the BBC Writersroom. Below are links to all different examples of script formats which will download basic pdf descriptions of how to set out that script.

Film

Screenplay (PDF) - Standard format for films and single TV drama

Television

Screenplay (PDF) - Standard format for filmed TV shows (with act breaks)

BBC Taped Drama (PDF) - BBC standard format for taped drama series

BBC Taped Sitcom (PDF) - BBC standard format for studio-based audience sitcom

Tape-Live (PDF) - Standard US format for taped studio shows

Three-Camera (PDF) - Standard US format for studio-based audience sitcom

Radio

BBC Scene Style (PDF) - BBC standard format for drama and non-audience comedy

BBC Cue Style (PDF) - BBC standard format for audience comedy and sketch

US Radio Drama (PDF) - Standard US format

Stage

UK Stage (PDF) - Acceptable UK format

US Stage (PDF) - Standard US format

To see examples of each of these kinds of scripts head over to the BBC’s Script Archive.

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Writing Competitions Closing in May 2012

It is almost the end of another month so here is another list of competitions kindly provided by Sally Quilford’s Writing Calendar. Each competitions will be listed in date order and click on the name of the competition for more details.

1st May

7th May

12th May

14th May

15th May

19th May

31st May

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Your Characters Shouldn’t Know Everything You Know

At our last meeting we announced that author David Bishop was coming to our meeting on the 29th of May to run a workshop on genre. Below is a post he put it up on his blog about what Your Characters Shouldn’t Know Everything You Know. His advice is:

“It’s vital to keep a clear, conscious distinction between what you as the writer know [hopefully, everything] and what your characters knew at any given point in a narrative. You have total knowledge, they only know what they have already seen, heard or inferred. It’s a tricky distinction to maintain, but ultimately crucial.

To explain his point David uses an example from an episode of Doctors he wrote where one of the regular characters investigates a medical mystery. They find a key piece of evidence mid-way through the script, which ultimately leads to them resolving the mystery. So far, so good – and it all worked fine as a scene by scene. But when David started writing actual script drafts, he forgot that my protagonist didn’t know who or what was causing the medical mystery. So when they found the first clue, I was writing them as if they’d seen the end of the story and thus already knew who or what was causing the medical mystery. A case of the protagonist who knew too much.

It took him a couple of drafts (and helpful notes from the production team) before he diagnosed what was going wrong. That led to some careful unpicking and reworking of the plot to reinstate the character’s correct level of knowledge. That had a ripple effect on events, but the end result was worth all the hard work required.

David Bishop has 20 novels published, scripted TV drama and a radio play for the BBC, written comics, graphic novels and audio drama. Your Characters Shouldn’t Know Everything You Know was first published on the Vicious Imagery Blog on the 30th of January 2012.

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Ten Rules for Writing – Neil Gaiman

It has been almost a month since we last posted an author’s Ten Rules For Writing from the Guardian. This time we are going for Neil Gaiman who has written in almost every possible medium including comics, films and books. Sadly, he only provides eight tips. They are:

  1. Write.
  2. Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
  3. Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
  4. Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.
  5. Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
  6. Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
  7. Laugh at your own jokes.
  8. The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.
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Recreating the Past & Taking Your Readers With You

When writer Annemarie Neary set out to write her novel A Parachute in the Lime Tree, she was entering the world of historical fiction. Luckily for us, she talks about the experience to writing.ie in an article called Recreating the Past & Taking your Readers With You. She starts by saying that there are three things you must remember:

  1. Absorb the facts, then liberate yourself from them. Your story must be plausible, but it need not be true.
  2. Know your period inside out, but don’t push your research at the reader ad nauseam. They want to forget that you’ve made it all up, so don’t keep dragging them back to Wikipedia.
  3. You may know next to nothing about sixteenth century Sweden, but human emotions were no different then than now, a daisy was still a daisy and milk turned sour.

When Annemarie started out on her novel, she need to to know a lot whole host of things: the Luftwaffe, Kindertransports, musical life in Dublin, the physical fabric of pre-war Berlin. She went for total immersion (at her lowest point she could have told you pretty much anything you wanted to know about a Heinkel He-111.) However, when she started to write, though, none of this immersion translated to the page. Annemarie came back to it a few years later, something strange had happened. The research seemed to have evened itself out, and all those insistent details clamouring for inclusion had piped down. This time, she wrote from the heart. She started with universals – jeopardy, betrayal, isolation, exile, hope, desire – the things that always feel the same and not worry about the barrier of time between her and her characters. When she needed to know something, she checked it. If the information would light up a scene, she’d used it. Everything else was thrown away.

Finally, Annemarie offers this tip:

“try to see things with a period eye. Don’t highlight things your character would take for granted as a means of shoehorning in your research. I was lucky to have Oskar capable of playing the role of the observant outsider. For him, everything about Ireland is odd, different. He notices the advertisements because he hasn’t a clue what Bovril is, or Bird’s, or why a trolley bus might have Gold Flake written on the side. Your characters are creatures of their time. Don’t give them your attitudes or the security of your vantage point. Remember that you stand in a privileged position because you know all about outcomes and have the benefit of moral hindsight. My characters don’t know who will win the war, if Ireland will be invaded and, if so, by whom. The tension between their ignorance and our knowledge is part of what differentiates historical fiction from other genres, at least some of the time.”

Annemarie Neary is an award-winning short story writer, former lawyer and the author of A Parachute in the Lime Tree, her first novel. Recreating the Past & Taking your Readers With You was first published on writing.ie in March 2012.

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What Makes You Keep Reading?

Back on the 18th of March, we posted an article from Ava Jae on Tension and How Valuable Tool it can be. In this post she expands her initial point saying that while it is important to have tension you need other threads as well to Make You Keep Reading:

Cliffhangers and gun fights and epic magical battles and action-packed pages can definitely keep a reader hooked, but there are underlying threads deeper than that keep us turning pages in a book. That make it impossible not to continue reading. They are:

    1. Make the readers care about the characters. This is a must. What’s the point of reading to find out what happens to a character if it doesn’t matter? (Answer: there is no point, so they won’t read any further). Whether it’s a voice that’s impossible to ignore, or situations that make your protagonist sympathetic, or an endearing personality or all three, the readers have to care about the characters.
    2. Keep the reader guessing. Will Katniss and Peeta survive The Hunger Games? Will Harry ever get to go to wizarding school? Although this is pretty directly tied to the last point, we need to keep the readers (and the characters) asking questions throughout the book. As soon as all of the questions are answered and choices are made, there are few reasons to continue reading.
    3. Tension. Due to having covered tension in her earlier post I suggest you start there.

There are other underlying threads, but these three are really what have stood out to Ava. Her final advice is, “what better way to learn how to improve your writing than reading a great book?”

What Makes You Keep Reading was published on the Writability Blog. Ava Jae is a writer of young adult paranormal and urban fantasy novels.

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A Brainstorming Partner

Jeanne Veillette Bowerman, writing for ScriptMag.com, has done a huge amount of writing over her career. During this time she has started using something she calls A Brainstorming Partner. This is someone who you bounce ideas off of. They have no ownership in the story. You can cherry pick what you want without the compromise needed in a true writing partnership. It’s the best of both worlds.

So what makes a good brainstorming partner? Well, he or she doesn’t have to be a writer, but should be well-read and/or a movie fan. Above all, you need to find someone who isn’t selfish but willing to challenge you. If they agree with everything you say, you might as well be brainstorming with your mirror.

Some people are nervous to admit they don’t like an idea and always nod their heads in agreement, even if their stomachs are flipping. Refusing to speak their mind is not serving anyone, and it’s certainly not aiding the story. Encourage honesty. Expand on the idea; talk about what’s good in it and what doesn’t work. Above all, speak respectfully, using phrases such as, “I’m not feeling it … let’s keep digesting” instead of “you’re wrong.” However you have to put the project first. Find someone you enjoy listening to. A big part of brainstorming is shutting your mouth and listening to a totally different viewpoint.

The first time you use a brain storming partner, don’t expect to be totally open to the brainstormer’s opinions. Keep reminding yourself to breathe. This is just an idea-blasting session, nothing is written in stone simply because it is verbalized. It can lead into a direction you hadn’t even dreamed of. One nugget that gets tossed into the air, even if it drops harder than a year-old fruit cake, can still lead to a story detail you would never have thought of had you not bitten that stale loaf.

Head over to the Script Magazine to in more depth about Jeanne‘s A Brainstorming Partner and what enjoyment he gets out of the process.

Jeanne Veillette Bowerman is the Editor and Online Community Manager of ScriptMag.com recently wrote the adaption of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Slavery by Another Name, with its author, Douglas A. Blackmon. A Brainstorming Partner was first published on the Script Magazine on the 22nd of Stephen 2011.

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60 Synonyms for Walk

Daily Writing Tips produce great lists of alternative words. For examples check our posts on Facial Expressions or Talking.

Talking of talking, the latest list is focuses on the other half of the famous phrase “You can talk the talk but can you walk the walk?”. Their list of 60 Synonyms for Walk includes such great examples as:

  • Amble: walk easily and/or aimlessly
  • Leg it: depart or set off by walking
  • Mince: walk delicately
  • Plod: walk slowly and heavily, as if reluctant or weary
  • Saunter: to walk about easily

To see the full list go to 60 Synonyms for Walk on the Daily Writing Tips Website.

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Tuesday’s Punctuation Workshop

On Tuesday’s meeting John presented a short Punctuation Workshop. Below is a both the exercises and some follow up information and rules for you.

The punctuation exercise that John presented was to add back in the punctuation from two pieces of work. Both pieces can be downloaded here. Once you have attempted both pieces please download the suggested answers. Over all John says, “It’s a matter of becoming aware, conscious of every little detail until it becomes first nature and you don’t need to think about it again: a kind of self-discipline.”

 

As a follow-up to the workshop John scanned a couple of pages for you from Stephen King‘s Bag of Bones. The two pages below cover most of the points discussed on Tuesday night. He has gone through and noted 14 different points on King‘s punctuation. John’s points are below:

  1. Use of hyphens in adjectives: dog-hot, white-haze.
  2. Use of a dash - to isolate a quick thought going off at a tangent - (although he also uses brackets elsewhere) or little asides to the reader.
  3. Single inverted commas/speech-marks/quotation-marks/quote-unquote around dialogue: call them what you will. Note in this paragraph the way he uses Frank’s speech-patterns, missing words out (like ‘If anyone tried…’), short non-sentences, and so on. SK’s a master at this. I would add an apostrophe to ‘em, but that’s got thru to publication so nobody worried about it.
  4. Use of dots… to break up dialogue.
  5. Starting a sentence with But… (in dialogue).
  6. Starting a sentence with And… (in first person narrative).
  7. Use of italics for emphasis.
  8. Question marks in narrative, when he’s wondering why.
  9. Use of a gap in narrative permissible to start a new section within a chapter.
  10. Conventional use of a comma before a person’s name in dialogue. ‘not all right, Mikey…’ Non-use is a common error.
  11. Use of a non-dialogue sentence on same line as dialogue to emphasise who the speaker is. No need to go onto next line.
  12. Use of double inverted commas (etc.) within single inverted commas dialogue as a quote within a quote. ‘Guys. “It’s what we do!”‘
  13. Use of a non-sentence, with no verb again, at end of dialogue.
  14. A SEMI-COLON!!! (sorry, Norman, for three!!!) ; (what we use in text for a winking smiley face). I would alter this to a colon: (what we use in text messages for a smiley face’s eyes) but then, I’m neither his agent, nor his proof-reader, nor his publisher. Yet I would still advise you to forget the semi-colon, perform semi-colostomies wherever you see them in your work.

Note he uses awhile for ‘a while’: this could also be US usage, but I haven’t met it before.