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The 10 Most Iconic Teachers in Movies, TV and Literature

Iconic Teachers In media, teachers are often relegated to secondary character status. They may appear onstage to inspire their students, drop a pearl of wisdom, and disappear from whence they came. And while this can be an accurate of the fleeting presence of teachers in our own lives, it doesn’t do justice to the impact a good (or bad!) teacher can have on us. With that in mind, I wanted to pay homage to the most iconic teachers from movies, TV, and literature in true Bang2Write fashion. Consider this a star-studded teacher’s lounge, featuring some of the most memorable mentor… Read More »The 10 Most Iconic Teachers in Movies, TV and Literature

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5 Top Tips From The Black Phone Writers Can Learn

Watch & Read The Black Phone Now The Black Phone is a movie adaptation of the 2004 short story of the same title by Joe Hill. Directed by Scott Derrickson, the screenplay is written by Derrickson and his long-time collaborator C. Robert Cargill. I’m a HUGE fan of both Hill and this duo’s previous output including Sinister and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, so I was keen to watch the movie regardless. The logline for The Black Phone on imdb reads, “After being abducted by a child killer and locked in a soundproof basement, a 13-year-old boy starts receiving calls… Read More »5 Top Tips From The Black Phone Writers Can Learn

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10 Awesome Young Female Characters Recommended By My Kid

All About Young Characters Young characters are hard to write … Yet writers frequently under-research young people when it comes to characterisation. As I was a teen mum, I’ve been a parent for over half of my life now. It is often very clear to me which writers hang out with youngsters and which do not. As with all authentic characterisation, we need to do our research or get found out. If we want to write young characters, then it pays to find out what young people are actually interested in!! This might seem obvious – and it is! –… Read More »10 Awesome Young Female Characters Recommended By My Kid

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Top 5 Mistakes Writers Make Writing School Scenes

Prepare To Get Schooled! You probably went through the school system, so that means you know how to write a school-based scene, right? Nope …. Even if you only left school recently, the chances are that things have already changed. It’s important to do your homework if you want to get 10/10 for authenticity. Here’s my top 5 mistakes I see in school scenes with suggested alternatives (FYI – this is based on the British school system, so be sure to do your research on your own country). 1) Teachers arriving and leaving school at the same time as their students… Read More »Top 5 Mistakes Writers Make Writing School Scenes

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5 Simple Tips For Balancing Kids And Writing

Writing And Kids Kids are great. We need them to carry on/fix the planet. They also give purpose and meaning to life for a lot of people, me included. Obviously not everyone wants or even likes kids, but I do and I cannot imagine my life without my beloved spawn. But kids are also the absolute worst, because they take up loads of time you could be writing. Arf, seriously like I said … I lovelovelove my kids, I would literally die for them. But they’re also annoying and selfish and loud and oh, just like me. What a surprise. NOT!… Read More »5 Simple Tips For Balancing Kids And Writing

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How To Survive Being A Writer: Check Out These Fun Memes

Writer PAIN Being a writer is hard, who knew?? Well, all writers you know!! Check out some of these fun pics this weekend … They’re funny ‘cos they’re true my friends! See you on the other side 😉 Recognise this?? So I’ve been writing, writing, writing this week … and it would seem I now have forty billion versions of essentially the same document on my hard drive. And in my Dropbox. And in The Cloud. Plus I’ve emailed it to myself. Because you JUST CAN’T BE TOO CAREFUL, OKAY! It’s the only way to survive the horrible moments you… Read More »How To Survive Being A Writer: Check Out These Fun Memes

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Happy Cultural Diversity Day. Will You Pledge?

It’s Cultural Diversity Day! It’s May 21, which means we are celebrating cultural diversity today, as set up by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). But what does the term culture mean? Well, that can depend on who is using the term, but one commonly-used definition is: “[Culture] is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by [a human] as a member of society.” In other words, culture is a people’s ‘way of life’ meaning HOW they do things in their group. This group may be… Read More »Happy Cultural Diversity Day. Will You Pledge?

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No, Your Female Characters Don’t Just Need More Dialogue

Wanted: More Dialogue More dialogue is something screenwriters always seem to want – chains and chains of it, in fact. I’ve written many, many times that too much dialogue is a HUGE problem in the spec pile. Yet it would appear film researchers and commentators ALSO want more dialogue … especially when it comes to female characters. So, you don’t have to go far online to discover studies and articles galore about how male characters talk more than female characters generally. You may have seen this pic (below) doing the rounds of Facebook recently, which backs this assertion up: Male as… Read More »No, Your Female Characters Don’t Just Need More Dialogue

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5 Things I Learned About Going Viral on Twitter

B2W likes to offer perspectives from writers on the ‘X Things I Learned’ series, not just about writing or careers, but also some of the weirder things our lives may include from time to time … Cue children’s author Maz Evans, who went SUPER viral on Twitter recently! If you’re on there, you may have seen this play out in real-time, like me. Here’s what Maz learnt during a crazy 72 hours and I’m sure it’ll pop up in her writing at some point. It’s all material! Over to you Maz … It was no big deal. I was awaiting… Read More »5 Things I Learned About Going Viral on Twitter

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Why PADDINGTON 2 Is The Best-Written Family Sequel, Ever

Paddington 2 Love Have you seen Paddington 2? I did, over the Christmas break (which seems like a MILLION years ago now! Waaah!). In fact, I ended up seeing it TWICE! But unusually, I had no issues watching Paddington 2 a second time because it was so damn good — a script editor’s dream, in fact! I actually think it improves on the first Paddington in pretty much every way. Here’s why, plus what writers can learn from it as ‘Top Tips’ to take away. Ready? Let’s go … 1) The plot has a MacGuffin A MacGuffin is ‘a plot device in… Read More »Why PADDINGTON 2 Is The Best-Written Family Sequel, Ever

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How To Write Young People That Are Actually Realistic

Young People Wanted Young people hardly ever turn up in the spec pile. Yet young people characters are BOUND to get a script reader’s spidey-senses going (and not in a good way). Why? Because too often representations of  young people are TERRIBLE and two dimensional! To ensure YOU don’t fall into the trap of writing a dud, chew on these pointers for size: 1) Don’t make them sound too young First up, the obvious. The typical child in a spec screenplay is nearly always wildly ‘off’ in tone, especially if they’re toddlers up to the age of approximately eight. They’ll sound… Read More »How To Write Young People That Are Actually Realistic

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The Truth About Success: 30 Top Creatives Who Broke In Late

It’s Never Too Late I get SOS messages, tweets and emails from writers all the time, but what they frequently boil down to is, ‘I worry it’s TOO LATE for me!’ NEWSFLASH – it is never too late. Now, I don’t want to put a downer on proceedings, but the facts are,  any one of us could die at literally any moment. So really, it doesn’t matter if you’re 19 or 90! We probably won’t die though, so in which case USE YOUR TIME WISELY. This means, if you want to be a writer?? EFFING WRITE. Go for it. Why wouldn’t… Read More »The Truth About Success: 30 Top Creatives Who Broke In Late

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