How to Write Everything

Short version of the last three paragraphs; if you want to make films, do so. Don’t mess about with telly and so forth. Make friends, learn stuff, make films.

If I was eighteen and thought I could write better films than the ones I’ve seen, what should I do?

If you think you can write you definitely should try writing and learn by your mistakes and failures. I met Anthony Burgess when I was a teenager and he described writing as akin to a muscle that needs to be exercised regularly – so start exercising.

What do you look for in a script?

I should say something that will excite the public and make me loads of money. However as I usually end up working on a film for five to seven years (if it gets made!) any script would have to move me, make me laugh or get a response. I have to know I will like it five years from the original read.

Is there one story that sums up the process of trying to get a film made?

You know the fable about the cripple trying to make his way up a steep hill smeared with chicken fat, with a rucksack full of bowling balls strapped to his back and a bottle of cold piss for sustenance? That.

But we are operating within a system where the odds are stacked against us immeasurably. We are swamped by American movies. They each cost around ten to twenty times more than our films, feature the world’s biggest stars, and have huge budgets to promote them. Whereas you’ve been sweating blood to find the four million you wanted to make your film ‘properly’ and have been compromising from day one.

Stories are one of the hardest parts of writing comedy. For a start, they’ve all been done (one of the funniest episodes of South Park was called ‘The Simpsons Already Did It’, and was all about the difficulty of coming up with new ideas for an animated sitcom when… you get the picture). What your stories are completely depends on what kind of show you want to write: you can be minimalist and trivial, you can be emotional and wrought, you can be farcical and light… just be consistent, remember you’re trying to create a world, and don’t take the mickey out of your show (other people will do that for you) unless you really have to.

What should be in every script?

The very best professional endeavour you are capable of at that point in time. Show respect to your craft and the people who are going to read your work.

How valuable is an original idea?

True originality is the single biggest disadvantage I can think of for any script. People always tell you they’re looking for something original. But they’re not. And you know what? They’re right. There’s enough risks commensurate with film-making without looking for new ones all the time. Look at it like this. If you went to see Ford and told them you’d invented an engine that runs on tropical fish they’d show you the door, no matter how impressive your pitch. They are not in the fish engine business. But tell them you’ve refined a standard engine so that it runs better and more economically and they’ll phone through for coffee and doughnuts. Most films are new takes on things you have seen before. That is something an industry can do.

But instead of exploding your brain to think of A Setting That Hasn’t Been Done (Heaven! A pet shop! Inside Michael Eavis!), you could take a setting that means something to you and explore it from a new angle. Maybe you’re a new parent: what’s it really like to be a parent now? Maybe you’re a teacher: perhaps you’re irked by the way comedy shows your job. New angles are just as good as new ideas.

Characters are trickier. One for the lads here: the amount of Sexy But Tough Women I see in scripts is depressing (it’s just a fantasy rewrite of the Sexy But Not Tough Woman of the 1960s). Why not start writing women as characters before you write them as genders? You wouldn’t start writing a male character with the words ‘He’s a man.’ You’d start with ‘He’s a lazy git’ or ‘He’s very angry.’

Characters don’t need to be massively complex. The film, television and pop writer Geoffrey Deane (who we will be hearing from later) says that your character ought to be able to be described in one sentence. Try it, first with sitcom characters you like and then with your own creations.