When it comes to competitions, I usually
have the luck of a horseshoe en route to the glue factory. I could win the
lottery and they’d lose the ticket. I could be picked for a once-in-a-lifetime cruise
aboard the Titanic. Indeed, the only contest in which I’d truly fancy my
chances, is Russian Roulette.
And so it was with no shortage of
liver-damaging surprise that I greeted my win in the www.thescriptwriter.co.uk
competition in April. The prize – a storytelling course with the great John
Yorke. The worry – that I would finally give the great John Yorke sufficient
legal grounds to take out a restraining order. Or hitman.
Please understand, I don’t make a habit of
stalking scriptwriting gurus. Robert McKee, Syd Field, Linda Seger – rest easy
in your Egyptian cotton beds. But I have had the great pleasure of hearing John
speak several times during my nascent scriptwriting career and have always
admired his energetic expertise. The man knows his onions. And he knows how to
make you tune in to them four times a week.
 |
| Mary Evans tries not to faint when she meets the legendary John Yorke. |
For those of you unfamiliar with his work
(I can lend you my scrapbook), John cut his TV teeth in continuing drama,
single-handedly storylining EastEnders
for a spell before moving to Casualty.
He was soon lured back to The Square and can pride himself in killing Ethel
Skinner, shooting Phil Mitchell and landing Zoe Slater with Kat for a mother.
He has been at the cutting edge of drama commissioning and production for Auntie,
C4 and currently Company Pictures, gestating such pearls as Shameless, Life on Mars, The Street
and The White Queen before they hit
our screens.
John is possessed of the rare knack to make
you feel as if you already knew his teachings – or at least should have done.
His book, Into the Woods, is a quite
unparalleled exploration of storytelling, not prescribing how to tell a story, but asking why
so many settle into a recognisable and psychologically satisfying shape. In
short, he’s just bloomin’ marvellous and as the course approached last week, I
found myself conjecturing if, when faced with the real deal, this
self-possessed woman in her mid-thirties might start behaving like a Harry
Styles fan with a fistful of knickers.
I needn’t have worried. From the very
beginning, John put aside all legal concerns to be incredibly generous, not
only to me, but also to the other six lucky golden ticket winners with whom I
shared his time. I’ll confess that previous encounters with fellow writers had
me a little worried about this one. All too often, aspirant writers are either
uncomfortably pushy, or frankly, certifiably insane.
But the group was simply fantastic and the
talent and banter truly made the three days an exhilarating experience. We
hearken from a variety of backgrounds – Jon, Mike and Gareth are filmmakers,
Nic a director, Sean is a playwright and Piers and myself are TV writers. To
varying degrees, all of us are on the nursery slopes of our scriptwriting
careers, looking for the ski-lift to success. Everyone was incredibly grateful
for the opportunity to mine John’s scriptwriting knowledge. And that lunch was
included.
Day one was all about back-to-basics. This
is an exercise I would heartily recommend to any writer, regardless of where
their career has landed thus far. John talked about the bare bones of
storytelling, some of which were very familiar, others sent my brain off in new
directions. Is your protagonist active? Does your story create anticipation and
then defer gratification? Are you giving your viewers enough to do to join in
the dots themselves? Do you love your characters? And of course – does your
script show not tell?
We then delved into story archetypes and
the brass tacks of telling a tale. Who is the protagonist and who or what is
the antagonist? What does your character want? What journey will you send them
on and what gets in their way? Do you have a clear inciting incident? What is
the crisis and how is it resolved? If these questions are unfamiliar to you,
make them your best friends. But even if you’ve heard them a million times
before, post-it them back to the front of your brain. It’s bread and butter
stuff, but it sure as Snyder makes a more filling sandwich.
Day two was structure day. I confess that I
approached this with the equivalent enthusiasm for haemorrhoid surgery. Like many writers, I have
had a slow and painful fight against the need for structure. I came to regard
structure like I regard my mother – annoying and interfering, but ultimately
necessary. And is the case for both, that didn’t mean I had to like it.
But by going over the five-act paradigm
time and time again using examples from film and TV, John slowly encouraged us
to take the stabilisers off and have a go ourselves. I found myself not only
tolerating structure, but really enjoying the structural scaffolding it
provided. We took examples of arguably weak stories from continuing dramas and had
a go at rewriting them ourselves, using our character revision and newfound
structural know-how to improve them. And by Jove, it worked.
Day three was comprised of a single
exercise: to watch a docu-drama and turn it into a movie treatment, before
pitching it to the group – in just two hours. This project had been advertised
earlier in the course and I had already been considering which particular feminine
complaint or terminal grandparent would keep me from attending it.
But armed with some new weapons in my
scriptwriting artillery, I found myself not only feeling able to have a go, but
really enjoying the experience. Intense – certainly. Successful – not entirely.
But considering how I’d have tackled the task just 48 hours previously, I was
really rather chuffed with what we’d created. Like all my colleagues, I left
that day feeling very sorry I wasn’t returning the next.
I cannot adequately express how fantastic
an experience I enjoyed, courtesy of the www.thescriptwriter.co.uk. There
wasn’t a moment I didn’t enjoy. The camaraderie of my classmates, to whom I
wish every bit of their inevitable success, was joyous. The chocolate
digestives were apparently inexhaustible. The benefit to my scriptwriting
career… here’s hoping. If it helps others, here are the top five things I took
from the course:
- Is my protagonist always active
(good), or is s/he reacting to events (baaaad)?
- Do I have clear and plausible
turning points at the end of every act, which throw the drama in a new
direction?
- Do my characters have tangible
desires, regardless of whether or not I plan for them to achieve them?
- Am I making my audience work
hard enough?
- What forces my protagonist to
change?
It is of course to John Yorke that I must
extend my warmest and most heartfelt thanks. In my day job as a journalist, I
often interview the supposed great and good of celebrity and learned a long
time ago never to meet one’s idols.
But I could not have found a warmer, more
generous, supportive and knowledgeable guide through three wonderful days. I
can’t wait to apply these new ideas to old scripts and watch them straighten up
at the spine like they’ve been pulverised by a Norwegian chiropractor. And I
hope, for his sake, that John doesn’t have a snowy car accident anywhere near
my house. For John, I steadfastly remain, your number one fan…
Mary Evans
@MaryAliceEvans
