In the dark

As you know, we've been working on the outline for our sitcom, trying to decide how our story will develop from the pilot script. We had plenty of ideas but we needed something to tie them all together, something which annoyingly evaded us.

An unexpected event came to the rescue last night. We had a power cut. It started just before tea time (good excuse for a family takeaway) and continued into the evening as darkness began to creep in. With no television or computers to distract us, and the intimacy of candlelight tying us to the settee, we began to talk.

There's something about face to face conversation, without a keyboard or computer screen playing gooseberry, that allows for an honest and creative exchange of ideas. What had started as a relatively unlinked set of episodes turned into an adventure that built on the story with each step and presented a new struggle with a previously unseen enemy.

Our outline isn't complete but it now has a new impetus and construct that pleases us both. If we can get it finished this week, we'll be able to post it all off to the BBC very soon.

When Black-holes Collide

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As Fiona worked her magic on buffing up the shine on the first pilot I found that I had, although fleeting, time on my hands.  This, as the universe is well aware of, is as unstable an event as throwing a black hole into another black hole followed very closely by a super-nova.  Ok, maybe not quite that dramatic. Let's just settle on, ' It's better for everyone (and everything that can be dismantled) when I have something to do'.

To cut a short story long, I've started on another pilot script.  The first one, whilst being wonderfully written, witty, sharp and entrancing is what I would class as a mainstream product, reaching out to several generations, working on several different levels.  The new pilot is definitely more in league with my own particular passion, Sci-Fi.

It was an idea I had been kicking around for a couple of months and as I had so much fun writing the first pilot, Script A, I was intrigued as to how this would compare. Imaginatively we'll call it Script B.

Dealing with two different genres is very interesting. With Script A, most of the movement is within the dialogue, character interaction and the pull all that has on the unsuspecting audience.  The Sci-Fi script however allowed me to play with environments, concepts and illusions, as well as guiding the characters around fantastical minefields.  If I had to choose which type I prefer it would be a tough call.  Although Script B appeals to more of a niche market, I found the environmental freedom liberating. However the mental challenges of Script A, of getting characters from point A to B without revealing point C until the last minute, is certainly stimulating.

I was wondering if anybody else had any thoughts/findings on this?

Lining up the Plot

Our covering letter is finished and now we have an outline to put together to explain how we see the sitcom developing from the pilot.

In some ways, this should be easy because we have ideas aplenty for future episodes. However, we need to make sure that each idea can pad out to a full, half hour show. We also need to decide what order they come in. And do we leave the final episode finishing on a cliffhanger, or do we leave things open for Series Two? Can we do both?

We want to develop our characters in some ways throughout the time covered by the series but we also want to include a couple of story arcs too.

Are we being realistic in our thinking? Are we attempting to cram too much into a series of half hour episodes? And why am I beginning to sound like an American sitcom? (Answers on a postcard...)

Polishing it off

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No, I'm not talking about cake (although I do love a nice slice of Battenburg now and then). I'm actually talking about our pilot. It's finished, or rather, it's the best we can make it. Fingers crossed that the BBC think that our best is acceptable and ripe for development.

The next stage is to put together the covering letter to go with the pilot script and an outline of how we see the sitcom developing.



According to the BBC Writersroom guidelines, our covering letter should state,

• who we are
• a brief description of the sitcom
• our writing experience.

That is what I'll be concentrating on today. Wish me luck.

Divide and conquer?

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Now, Fi's last post raised some interesting questions.

Reading between the lines, the BBC is sending out a clear message saying that they don't want half baked ideas in sloppy written scripts, which I can fully sympathize with.  After all nobody likes to have their time wasted.

However, taking the literal word, it implies that your entire premise hangs on a thread.  You may have the bestest, brilliantist, fabulocistic setting and characters, but if your pilot is catching the BBC reader on an off day, then the whole lot is discarded, never to be returned to, ever.  That seems a little callous to me.

So does this mean that it's going to be better to write two or three episodes, then submit the best one?  Or is it better to write more than one unrelated pilots and hope that one of them is taken up?  Questions, questions, too many questions.

One would hope that there are allowances and that minor faults may be overlooked.  Otherwise it seems that you have to be an experienced script writer before you can become an experienced script writer.  Paradoxical, and most frustrating.

I guess we'll find out in the coming weeks.

So this leads on to the next question, one that Fiona raised so eloquently: Is our script ready?

I personally feel that it's 99% there.  There are a couple of lines of dialogue that need a little more zing, the rest of it is good to go.

We need to do something soon - I'm running out of nails to bite!

The best of the best of the best of the...

After a couple more sessions of rewriting our pilot, we had what we felt was a script good enough to send off so the next port of call was to have a look at the BBC Writersroom for information on how to submit an unsolicited script.

There's a lot of useful information on there but this one gem keeps stopping me short, "We want to see the best possible draft you can achieve...". It stands out to me because as a writer, I often fall into the trap of not knowing when to stop editing my work. And of course the doubts start to seep in. Is it the best we can achieve? Is it really? Would some additional tweaking improve what we already have?

Another piece of information on the BBC site that reinforces this doubt is this under 'What we don't accept',

"Resubmissions of work previously rejected, even after rewrites - make sure you make your script as good as you possibly can before sending it to us".

We're only going to get one chance to impress the BBC with this script so do we send the script as it is, or return and do our best to hone it to within an inch of its life?

I foresee an opened bottle of red wine and plenty of heated discussion tonight.

Baked: freshly or half?

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We did it.  For better or for worse - we resurrected our pilot script.

And do you know what?  It's not three bad.  Sure there were bits that need tweaking. It certainly needs a good dollop of direction adding but overall it holds its own and is nearly ready to have its umbilical cords cut and catapulted into the ether.

At this stage we are unsure as to whether it is, given our newbie status, a good decision to seek an agent or not. The other route seems to be a more promising path: approach the big channels directly.  Either way, we have decided to concentrate on finalising the script over the next couple of days before worrying about such things.

The things that both Fiona and I are absolutely sure about include the fact that the concept is rock solid and is chock full of potential.  It has drama, likeable characters, despicable adversaries, twists, turns and a plot that can run a marathon.

More soon.