ON WRITING FOR TV
How on earth can a monkey like me teach you to write a television script? Maybe I can’t, maybe we’re just wasting each other’s time – but who knows, maybe I can teach you slightly better than the monkey who calls himself Prof or Doc but who has never written a produced script. As we all know, there are many drawers in many rooms where a scrappy pile of writing gathers dust: stuff never approved for filming, or just the vague beginning of something and never completed. Some of these efforts, not all, may have been undertaken by scholars who teach screenwriting courses. Pieter Pieterse called them walskippers, beach captains, shore skippers. They stand on the shore and tell us how to sail a boat. I’m not saying some of them can’t sail a boat, I’m just saying you don’t have to learn from those who teach but never actually do. The famous Afrikaans writer Pieter Pieterse and I walked a long road together; he taught me a great deal, I taught him quite a bit, we never actually joined a writing course. The road we travelled was a good one, then PIeter was brutally taken away. Murdered.
Here’s the thing: my course won’t rob you of money. Course? That’s the word a prof or doc would use. Let’s just call it a collection of hopefully interesting chats. Imagine I’m the artist Picasso (I should be so lucky!) and you’re a person who wants to learn how to paint, how to create. We walk on the beach and chat. I draw some pictures in the sand, ask you to do the same. You learn from that. Then, when it’s done, we stand back and watch the tide come in and wash the pictures away. The ultimate lesson in that? It’s not rocket science, friend. Don’t go all tense and weird and big-headed if it works for you and you end up making some money. Never forget: It’s supposed to be fun. Please have fun.
Actually, I wanted to do something like this last year and sell it, but then I clicked you don’t have any money either. Okay, fine, here comes the first chat and maybe you could just buy me a cup of tea, I don’t drink coffee anymore. But only if you really want to, I promise you I don’t mind if you don’t want to or can’t. it’s not a deal breaker.
Genesis
The beginning: Just sit down and write…No, come on, I’m lying, nothing is that easy. It can be a lot of fun, it should be, but you have put some effort in it.
The beginning is reading: Books. Then watching: Films, TV stories. And living: What you and others around you experience, that’s the stuff of story. PEOPLE are stories: Watch them do whatever they’re doing, but not so much that you can get arrested, of course. Listen to how they speak, but not with a tape they can play in court. I’m joking, I’m joking. Just be more aware of humanity than you usually are.
Where can I find a story? A question I hear often. The answer: Unless you ended up on earth without a family – in which case it’s also a story, actually, but now we’re talking serious sc-fi or fantasy – you’re surrounded by stories. Your family is stories. Your friends and enemies are stories. LISTEN, PAY ATTENTION.
Okay, fine, unfortunately that’s not all you have to do. In the end, of course, you have to slam your butt down on a chair and write a script for television. Just dreaming and talking about it won’t do it. A few years ago, at a meeting of ghosts refusing to die – that’s what I call Class Of ’65 Party On, or was it ’66? – our rugby team’s captain stops me and asks me defiantly over his enormous belly: “How did you manage to make money with writing? I can write too.” I reply: “Yes, I know you can, sort of, I intercepted some of your letters to Betty Smith (not her real name), but did you ever try to write anything other than soft porn?” “I was too busy,” replied the scorer of that brilliant goal in the final minute of the winning game and now he can’t even walk at my speed and I’m not Speedy Gonzales, “but I’m still going to write.”
Oh yes, of course, he was too busy, he’s still going to write. That’s the difference between his kind and a monkey like me. After my Uncle Lamb, my godfather, gave me an Olivetti typewriter as a birthday gift, I slammed my butt down that very night and started writing. I was thirteen years old. Let’s not go into what I wrote, it was a horrible mess, but I kept my butt on that chair and I kept writing. I sent my stories off to magazines, they came back to me with great speed, but I kept writing. I do that to this day: I keep writing. Along the way I learned how to write scripts as well. It usually pays better. So if you are someone who keeps writing, take my hand, I think I can help you. Writing for TV involves, of course, diving into the depths of a large and rather complicated industry. There are some important industry differences in different parts of the world, but basically it’s the same everywhere: The global industry needs stories it can show its viewers and it needs writers to create those stories. So it helps to know how the industry works, how it can grind and spit you out if your spirit doesn’t come loaded for bear with a big damn paint-gun.
I’ve been ground up and spat out a few times, so maybe I can help you with that too: Notice how slyly I use the word “maybe”. Not everyone can take the punches of the television industry, you better know that now. You are going to have to know what a script looks like. A real one, not the one the walskippers tell you about with their big words. Unfortunately, there are many shore skippers: They stand learned on the shore and have never been in the water with a script boat they actually built themselves. I believe I can help you build one and sail it. Good grief, I’ve written so many scripts for television I would be lying if I had to name all of them. And I’m not going to hit you at the end of these chats with the glib catch that you should now take on a real course, show me your money. These chats ARE the course, even if it sometimes looks like I’m just telling jokes and chatting. I really don’t feel like spending months on formal and academic lectures, I just know I’ll get totally bored. I’d rather approach it like a visit, that leisurely walk on the beach with Picasso (he had less hair and a bigger tum than me) and then I’ll just talk about what I learned and how much blood and sweat I dumped. In a few places I’m going to do something I’ve never done before: I’m going to show you clips from my old scripts as examples. Sorry about that, but that’s the real way to learn. Unfortunately, along with the learning, you’re also going to hear a few gory gossip stories about the industry, sorry, I’m a terrible gossip.
Okay, fine, that’s all I have energy for this week. Remember to watch people and listen how they talk. Talk is dialogue. If you need a litte notebook and pen on your person, so you can jab down what they’re saying and how they’re saying it, that should be okay. I’ve been carrying – notebook and pen only, of course – for a number of decades now. I’ve won awards for my great dialogue. I’m not giving the awards back ever, forget it, but the fact is: I don’t create great dialogue, I report real talk and that’s great dialogue. Hope to see you here soon for the second chat. Remember, I’m at paulcstories@gmail.com