Skip to content

case study

5 Great Story Twists

It’s the Britcrime Festival this weekend, a free ONLINE event – and it’s going on right now! Get over to the Facebook page and DIVE IN! You can like the page & participate in panel discussions, HERE. To celebrate this great event, I’m delighted to host the amazing @AlexSokoloff on B2W, talking twists in the tale. Alexandra is both a novelist and screenwriter and has some GREAT writing insights, so make sure you check out her website & follow her on Twitter. Needless to say, this post is SPOILERIFIC and then some, but if you haven’t seen these classic movies… Read More »5 Great Story Twists

Share this:

10 Common Errors In Your Writing You Need To Fix Right Now

Common Writing Errors When it comes to common writing errors, there are PLENTY doing the rounds in the spec pile. Rightly or wrongly, this is how ‘professional writing’ is perceived … Professional formatting + Professional layout + Professional grammar, spelling & punctuation = Professional writing. It’s not rocket science. Look, the odd mistake or typo will always slip through. NO reader, agent, producer or assistant worth their salt will ever care about that. What we’re talking about are the CONSISTENT CLANGERS that can get you marked down, or worse, thrown in the dreaded OUT tray! So here’s a list of those… Read More »10 Common Errors In Your Writing You Need To Fix Right Now

Share this:

8 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Drama Screenplay DEAD

Drama can be ANYTHING. Literally, anything. So why am I reading the same stuff??? Whether short film, TV pilot or feature, here’s how to KILL your drama screenplay’s chances in the spec pile: 1) Write about the same-old, same-old These are the facts. Everyone writes dramas about: i) depression/suicide ii) addiction iii) domestic violence iv) terminal cancer v) poverty Sometimes ALL of these in one piece! True story. Now, you CAN write about these things, but you gotta have some authenticity and emotional truth, otherwise DON’T BOTHER (see number 2). Also, make sure it’s not written the same way as… Read More »8 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Drama Screenplay DEAD

Share this:

5 Times It’s OK To Sacrifice Facts For Drama

Getting Your Facts Right Writing historical fiction, I have come to learn, is like navigating a slippery slope along a precarious cliff. God forbid you get facts wrong. Anyone who knows anything about the time period you are writing about will let you know that you did: in the reviews, on the internet, for all to see. Let’s face it. Getting the clothing down, the setting, the politics and social graces of the times is the easy part. Keeping people entertained in another time period is what makes the story a story. So I have had to take liberties with… Read More »5 Times It’s OK To Sacrifice Facts For Drama

Share this:

5 Things Screenwriters Can Learn From Games

Some great food for thought for screenwriters today from WGGB’s Chair for Video Games Steve Ince!  Make sure you check out Steve’s book on writing for video games as well, since this is a great market for writers. Enjoy! I was recently at a conference in Rio when someone posed the following: “People say that film is a director’s medium and TV is a producer’s medium – whose medium is games?” I’d never been asked this before but my answer was almost immediate – “Games are the player’s medium.” Because they’re such an important part of developing games and interactive… Read More »5 Things Screenwriters Can Learn From Games

Share this:

The Secret of Writing Great Conflict In Scenes: 3 Examples

What is conflict in scenes? Bang2writers often ask me this question. Many believe – erroneously – that characters have to ARGUE to put the idea of conflict across. This is because I’d wager MOST writers think scenes are principally about dialogue, which as we know is a HUGE problem for the spec pile and makes for highly theatrical, dialogue-led scripts. We often hear the old screenwriting adage, “characters are not what they SAY but what they DO”, but writers  don’t always get what this means, or how to implement it. So my advice is: think instead about how each scene… Read More »The Secret of Writing Great Conflict In Scenes: 3 Examples

Share this:

5 Reasons Why Gaming Has Its Place In Literature by Christina Lewis

Video games don’t get much of a mention here on B2W, so I was interested to hear from Christina on her thoughts about gaming and literature, especially as they chime with our previous posts on transmedia. I agree mediums are NOT as far apart as writers might first think, which in turn enables a lot of NEW opportunities. Some good food for thought for Writer Wednesday … enjoy! With the world of paper books and print media crumbling all around us, it’s hard to believe that there will be an existing industry for publishing in a few years’ time. Everywhere… Read More »5 Reasons Why Gaming Has Its Place In Literature by Christina Lewis

Share this:

11 Experts Share What They’d Like To See Next From Trans Characters

In my previous post on transgender representation, I spoke to a range of people – writers, journalists, filmmakers, activists – most of them trans, to find out their thoughts on how transgender people are represented* in Comedy and Drama, on television and in film, at the moment. *Pics inspired by this post from the BFI: 10 Great Transgender Films, check it out. To find out where we’re going, I asked people what they want to see next. This is what they said: 1) Jo Clifford, playwright/performer. Trans* characters who are just getting on with our lives. Where our ‘transness’ is not particularly an… Read More »11 Experts Share What They’d Like To See Next From Trans Characters

Share this:

11 Experts Share Their Notable Trans Characters Of Recent Years

2014 was – according to TIME magazine – a ‘transgender tipping point’. Increased visibility of transgender people in the media – Laverne Cox, Laura Jane Grace, Paris Lees – brought the trans community into the spotlight. Here in the UK, transgender characters are starting to become a staple of our rich diet of cops and docs, popping up as bit parts in Doctors, Holby and Casualty with increased regularity. Last year, Hollyoaks introduced a trans character, Blessing, and Paris Lees became the first openly trans person to play a trans person on UK television in a cameo on the show.… Read More »11 Experts Share Their Notable Trans Characters Of Recent Years

Share this:

How To Attach Named Talent To Your Screenplay

I get asked a LOT about by Bang2writers about named talent “attaching” to a spec screenplay to make it more marketable. Produced stuff makes this look easy, yet as spec screenwriters and filmmakers soon discover, it’s NOT. Here’s my 2p’s worth: i) Star Power is real. Yes, yes it’s very easy to slag off the notion of “star power” or even argue the toss over who IS a star: Danny Dyer is the classic example. Yet regardless of what you think of Danny’s previous output, Danny has a MASSIVE fanbase of lovers AND haters (1 million Twitter followers now!!) and he has… Read More »How To Attach Named Talent To Your Screenplay

Share this:

7 Things NOT To Say Or Do When Meeting Your Idol

We’ve got a cautionary tale today about being THAT writer again – we make the mistakes at B2W, so you don’t have to! Round of applause for Janey please for having the guts to out herself … And enjoy, everyone else! A couple of years ago, I was travelling back to London from the South of France after a particularly depressing five days. I had gone there alone to see the sun, stare at the ocean and (most importantly) to try and finish my first screenplay. However, it poured with thunderous rain and just days earlier I had fallen out… Read More »7 Things NOT To Say Or Do When Meeting Your Idol

Share this:

5 Things I Learned At Berlinale

Many thanks to Stephen Potts, who’s just arrived back in the UK from the Berlinale Film Festival and very helpfully written a newbie’s guide for the rest of us Bang2writers! Enjoy everyone and over to you Stephen … I’m heading home from my first trip to the Berlin Film Festival, still very much a newbie: but here are the five things I wish I’d known before I arrived five days ago. 1) Berlin(ale) is BIG Thousands of delegates and hundreds of screenings are spread across scores of venues in this large capital city. The central action is at Potsdamer Platz,… Read More »5 Things I Learned At Berlinale

Share this: