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TV script-writing

20 June 2011

'Writing for television is such a strange world, you have to write up to 25 episodes of a programme each year and you need to create a lot of drama. You end up thinking: "Have we done this before and if we have, will anyone notice?"

What script writing teaches you is to write good dialogue that is character-specific and that pushes the plot forward, and you learn about beginnings and endings - how to structure your scenes and storyline. On the other hand, you also learn to create drama that isn't there; every seven and a half minutes you get a TV ad, so you have to write to that.'

John Stephens, author of The Emerald Atlas in the Bookseller