Plotting (How to Write a Script)

Like an unstoppable freight train, we move on to plotting, thinking over establishment, escalation and resolution, things to bear in mind when formulating beat sheets and scene by scenes, and how a plot can evolve, or emerge from different directions. And of course we apply this to our launderette based show. All this while Robin can't breathe properly through his nose due to dreaded lurgy.

If you're an at home replicator of the show, then this is your opportunity to write a beat sheet or scene by scene outline to guide your story as you write it.

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Music by Chris Stamper
Illustration by Matt Miles https://www.instagram.com/datmattmiles/
Design by Adam Smith

Transcript

Hello writer types. How are you? I’ve been ill, so sorry if my voice might sound weird. But we soldier on, since we’re on a schedule, and we all want to know how to write a script, don’t we? That’s right, we’re up to part three of this How to Write a Script Spectacular! Maybe that’s a bit grand. This How to Write a Script… thing! So in part one we came up with the essential purpose and premise, part two was mostly about the characters who would slot into that premise nicely, and now we’re going to bring those two aspects together to think about plotting the whole thing, driven by said characters I literally just said about. Dramatic beats, act structures, it’s all here, plus we’ll be coming up with a riveting plot for our launderette idea. So get ready to add in some narrative detergent, a dash of plotting fabric conditioner, and set the baffling dial of washing options to thinking about writing a script!

Thinking About Writing: How to Write a Script. Part Three, Plotting

Hi, I’m Robin Taylor, comedy writer and script editor unextraordinaire, and this is Thinking About 

Writing, the podcast for anyone who is writing, or maybe just thinking about writing, for theatre, audio, film or TV, as well as you, if you’re not one of those people, but you’re still here anyway. Aww, love you babe.

Anyway, yes, plotting. Now, as is becoming the trend across this series, these topics have been covered in previous seasons, namely the episodes on process and structure, but since this may be your one stop shop, or one series of eight episodes stop stop shop as the case may be, we’re gonna talk about again them, albeit in a slightly amended fashion, and I’ll even include some I haven’t said before because I’m bonkers, me. 

Script writing is generally story telling, and the plot gives that story form. It allows the audience to follow and understand the events being depicted as well as give insight into the broader message or perspective of the story as a whole. So, it’s useful. But plotting can be an intimidating prospect, normally we’ve got a jumble of possible ideas in our brain and trying to put them together in a rational and effective order can be a tricky task. So that’s why we’ve been working on building them up, layer by layer, and that continues across the story lining process. Our concept or premise provides the essential foundations for this structure, while the character work helps to influence the details and decisions within that so that everything feels interconnected and purposeful. With that in mind, let’s go back to premises, those couple of sentences which encapsulate the story you want to tell. The most traditional approach would be to break things down into three phases, we can think of it as the beginning, middle and end, or three acts or story beats. So if your premise is something like a young woman seeks to reconnect with her long lost birth mother, first of all there’s an inherent story there which makes life easier than just bizarrely deciding to write about a launderette, as a random example, which would require more work to figure out the story at the concept and character stage. But yeah, woman seeks birth mother, that’s the general idea and the three phases could be as simple as, phase one, the lead decides to find their birth mother, phase two they go about doing so and the pair meet, phase three they come to some understanding of their relationship. Incredibly vague, incredibly basic, but it’s a starting point and we can build up from there. So let’s do that!

Establishment and Escalation

The first phase we can call establishment, essentially introducing the characters, particularly your lead when you have one, and setting up the world around them. So in this instance you might think about the status of your lead, where they are in life financially, emotionally and so on which will influence the journey they’re about to take. And of course, you may have figured out some of this already, some may be inspired by the story building. We then think about the instigating incident, which gets the momentum of the story going, in this case we’d ask why is now the time that the lead has decided to seek out their birth mother? What has changed that they never did it before? What are they hoping for from it? Is it motivated by something more practical or emotional, or both? Does it seem practical initially but it’s actually the emotional element which ends up more important? Whatever the case this helps to understand the necessity which is driving the character to take this action at this moment and helps to give a sense of why it matters if they succeed or fail. Start out confidently and with purpose, lovely. 

There are a couple of things to point out with establishment. One is that it’s easy to get carried away in establishing because it’s fun introducing characters and their relationships with one another and so on. But if it’s taking too long that effects the pacing, purely in terms of the audience wondering when the story’s actually going to get started. But can also cut into the latter sections, which can lead to quite thin story telling and rushed endings. So it’s crucial to make sure everything feels vital in the establishment. If there’s a scene, say, where a character goes to their optician because you think it’s interesting or funny, you really want that to matter, something ought to come up that impacts the rest of the story related to this relationship or the character’s eyesight. Because even if it is dead funny, the audience might be left wondering what that was doing there. The other thing with establishment is that writers can interpret the idea of showing the status quo as showing mundane life, which only really makes sense if the mundanity is relevant to the story - a character wants a more exciting life and goes about getting it for example. But if that’s not the intention, then the status quo can be interesting and exciting. If your characters are bank robbers than robbing a bank would be their status quo, so you can go straight into them being in the middle of a bank job, trying to figure out how to get out of their predicament. Basically don’t feel you have to gently ease the audience in, unless you think that really fits the tone and mood of what you’re writing, you can thrust them in too.This can all be part of figuring out a relevant, important or interesting starting point, so time isn’t wasted on less significant stuff And we’ll talk more about this and establishment in general in the future episode on the first ten pages, huzzah.

Now the second phase we can call development or escalation of the core of the story. Following on from our opening, we might think, right, what will this character’s journey to find her birth mother be like? What challenges might our lead face along the way? Is she working with partial information? Is it a long or expensive trip? Are there complications en route? But wait! There’s a lot of emphasis on the journey here, it’s almost sounding like a road trip movie now. I mean, it could be, there’s plenty of good road trips out there, but lets go back to that premise, a young woman seeks to reconnect with her birth mother. If that’s what the stories really about, rather than the unreliable nature of public transportation systems, how much time and focus do we want to give to the latter? If we felt the road trip allowed us to explore that story in a different way, or it reflects the journey our character is going on in terms of seeking something out. Instinctively one would think there should be a decent bit of the core story spent on the lead character, their birth mother and their relationship. Otherwise it feels like padding or misplaced emphasis, or again we spent so much time getting to the end point that we don’t have any time to actually delve into it. Such is the beauty of story planning, you can figure out these kind of issues now, rather than after you’ve written fifteen pages or even a whole script and someone reads it and remarks, “There’s not actually much stuff with her mother in this”. 

As you get deeper into the nitty gritty you might think well I still want one or two scenes just to show the lead is undertaking a significant journey, but that could just be her sleeping on a coach, that says a lot. Maybe someone on the journey asks where she’s going which gives the audience a chance to get some insight into how our lead feels about the whole thing, excitement, nerves, shame, in which case that moment is useful, not just about the practicalities of travel.  You might think the journey thing is just an annoyance or a delay, in which case maybe the mum lives down the road but they’ve still never met each other. That can still feel like a major move or like a huge distance in someone’s life without needing to be reflected in geography alone. 

Let’s also recognise though that sometimes there’s the risk of getting into the story almost too quickly, which is a bigger concern if you’re not too sure what happens when you get there. So she could meet her mother very quickly, in the first five pages. Then what? We’ve still got twenty five, fifty five or however long your feature is pages to get through. So again we might think of complications, set backs, events that feel relevant and significant to the story rather than filler, and adding in more substance. Indeed, this is where escalation comes in. If the pair meet and get on fine, that’s not much of a story necessarily. We’d expect more conflict, disagreements, misunderstandings, to demonstrate the emotional complexity of the situation, a feeling that things need to be bashed out and earned before they can improve or a resolution can be reached. 

So in this example the development of the plot is within the evolution of their relationship, how does it start and change, what events cause them to fall out or get along, what actions do they take to improve or alter their dynamic? how might outside factors effect things? Does the mum have other kids now? What impact does that have? You can basically give yourself the tools to test your characters based on their personalities and the details of their lives so that a dramatic or emotional story can play out however suits your intentions. Which is why an intention matters, because then you have things that need to happen, rather than winging it and thinking “This’ll fill six minutes til we get to the end bit.” And speaking of the end bit.

Resolution

 Right resolution, that would typically be the third phase, and if you are having a hard time with your mid section, knowing where you’re heading towards can be very useful. Figuring out the end point early on in the process is smarter than trying to find one as you go and hoping something will pop up. You probably don’t want to leave the audience with a feeling of, “Oh, is that it.” You know those plays with the really awkward staggered applause at the end because people aren’t sure if it’s finished or not? We’re not going for that… unless you want to, of course. 

If, like me, you were raised on a diet of cartoons which were clearly just vehicles for selling chunky plastic action figures and give me body dysmorphia for the rest of my life, with little priority on the actual writing of said cartoons, you may think that resolutions should involve everyone learning something about themselves or the world and then a talking animal does something silly and everyone laughs in freeze frame. And while that is of course marvellous, it’s not necessary a model to pursue. But it does hold something within it, the sense that your characters have been through something of import, that these events have had an effect of some sort. Otherwise it’s tempting to ask why you’ve told this story, if none of it really mattered. Yes, an overly neat conclusion where everyone’s changed for the better is a bit pat. But if you create a story which is driven by a character's wants and desires then it’s natural to assume it would end with those desires being addressed in some way. Whether that means achieving their goal as they wished to, or in a different unexpected way, or realising what they thought they wanted wasn’t actually what they needed. Or you can be aware of that expectation and screw around with it, so that no one changes or learns or gets what they want and that’s the whole point, with the usual caveat of as long as that’s intentional and doesn’t feel like you got to the end and weren’t sure what to do so it just finishes in a weird unresolved state. Really it’s about considering what you want the audience to think and feel afterwards, be that satisfied or challenged, or maybe even confused. A reaction of “Huh? is better than an “Oh.” or “Ugh”. 

So if you know that you do want your lead and her mum to reconcile and basically have a happy ending, you can think how would they get to that point in a way that feels dramatic and fulfilling. You can imagine the potential phases their relationship would go through. Initial nervousness and awkwardness, bonding or over-compensation, conflicts where their outlooks or expectations don’t align, exploration of their past and any resentment or emotions they’re holding on to, before reaching a state of understanding. We can pick out the possibilities which feel most interesting and relevant to the characters and story, then begin to figure out how those would manifest. Knowing the ending can also go so far as to influence the beginning. So if you know that your lead wants to reconcile with their mum because they feel they have abandonment issues, which is making it difficult for them to form a romantic relationship, we’d probably want to set that idea up early on. So in the first act we might show her having dating challenges and by the end maybe she’s come to terms or started to deal with her fears and can try to make her relationship work. If the aim of the story is that the lead realises she’s romanticised the idea of her birth mother and her adoptive parents actually provide her the love and support she needs, then we’d expect the foster parents to feature in the first act, for there to be a conflict which they can later work through. And you might wonder if the parents actually need to be present throughout so we can see more of their dynamic. Maybe they even need to go on this journey with the protagonist, in which case it could actually be more about the road trip and their relationship than the birth mother, who mostly makes them realise that their pre-existing support system is more important - which could lead to a rethink or evolution of the premise. I’ll talk some more about ending in the final episode of this series, fittingly, but essentially it all depends on the intention and the perspective, but thinking through these beats before you start writing can help you to think holistically, how everything connects, one aspect influences another and reaches a satisfying end point. And in so doing you can begin to layer on more detail and understanding, which will then influence your scene breakdown. It could be tempting to think the resolution is just tying up the loose ends you’ve put in play, but knowing your end point can actually determine the threads that you put into play so you know what you will be tying up.

Multiple stories

There’s something to quickly point out with your general planning or beat sheets when it comes to multiple narratives, or to put it another way, A, B and C stories. This is when you have plot strands which is for the most part independent of one another. So with our birth mother example, that kind of feels like a singular narrative - you could imagine the foster parents or the birth mother get their own stories, but the way we’re thinking about it at the moment, the sole focus is really on our protagonist. If we think of an episode of the Simpsons, Homer might get the primary or A story, Bart and Lisa get a secondary B story, and maybe Marge has a rather light C story. They can potentially still interact and maybe their plots collide at points, but for the most part they’re doing their own thing. So if you were aiming to employ such a pattern in a script it’s wise to work out the beats for each strand independently, so you’d ask what is Homer’s beginning, middle and end, then the same for Bart and Lisa, then the same for Marge. That ensures that each strand feels complete, and allows you to ensure you have enough time for each. If you just jump in, or even try to plot out three storylines in a chronological fashion, the risk is that particularly the lesser stories may end up incomplete or partially told. Or on the flip side of that, the side stories drain away too much time and focus from what should be the lead story, particularly if the secondary plots have a bit of a wishy washy narrative. 

We’ve highlighted before that, in early efforts, ensuring a robust central story should be a priority, and indeed if that isn’t accomplished and the action is regularly cutting away to other plot strands that can be confusing for the audience who may be left thinking “I didn’t know what was just happening, and now something else is happening instead!” But if you have a strong grasp on all of your plots, seeing the three beats of each story can give you the confidence of knowing what you need to do before you slot them into place in a full scene by scene outline. In saying this though, I would also point out that characters should still have an arc within a singular plot. A character’s through line within the story is different from an independent plot So if you were writing a two hander play, where the majority of the action involves your two characters on stage together, there is going to be a singular plot there, but individually they will go through their own journeys within that plot, and it can be very useful to map that out for yourself in the same version of emotional beats so you can make sure there is escalation, intensification etc, and they don’t remain on a plateau or pinball around in an erratic rather than developmental manner. Anyway, time for scene by scenes

Scene by scenes

So once we feel in a state where we have a good understanding of the broad strokes, and as ever bear in mind this can take a while to think over before things slot into place, we then move into the scene by scene planning. As alluded to already, this is where you figure out how to practically accomplish the goals you’ve set out, and it’s worth recognising it can quickly become more complicated here for a few reasons. Firstly is the challenge of figuring out how to accomplish your aims within the shape of a compelling narrative. So the first beat you have on your list might be that the lead character tells her foster parents she wants to meet her birth mother, a reasonable aim. But when we think about it, does that make sense as a first scene, she walks in and says “I want to meet my birth mother.” I know I said you can thrust the audience into the action, but this feels a bit blunt, doesn’t it? Particularly as a piece which is more emotional and character driven. That’s not to say it wouldn’t work, but it might help the audience to get a sense of understanding and empathy towards your lead first so this moment has more weight, which raises the question how would you do that? 

Do you go with that idea about her relationship breaking down as a catalyst? Does something happen at school or her job that makes her think about her parentage? Does someone remark on her being adopted? Are her parents a different ethnicity to her, oh gosh, that’s potentially a really impactful element, thank goodness we’re still at the planning stage so we can think about integrating that before we start. So we might recognise we need some extra stuff before we reach that first beat, but how long should it be? One scene could be enough, two or three might be necessary, five plus we’d ask is that really necessary and is it slowing things down too much.

And even when we get to the moment of her discussing her decision to find her mum to her foster parents, well that could be anything from four lines to eight pages, couldn’t it? Though the former might be too brief, and the latter is almost certainly too long. But such a moment could easily vary in length depending on what you’re trying to do there. If the foster parents are unhappy with the idea and wish to prevent it, time would be spent explaining that. The lead would no doubt argue back, there might be bargaining and reasoning. There could be a lengthy debate, there might be a frustrated “We’ve talked about this!” suggesting prehistory and conflict which doesn’t need to be reiterated here because it’s implicit, cutting out a lot of time on exposition. If the foster parents are unhappy but unwilling to express that, the scene is most likely shorter. They might express some caution, it could simply be shown in a look between them. So it becomes a matter of identifying how the characters feel, what they want, and how they go about expressing this and accomplishing their goals. 

This is where a most vital tool comes into play, understanding the purpose of a scene, or even just a moment or exchange within a scene. So if the foster parents try to dissuade the lead, that would feature in the scene description, and we would ideally say how the scene ends, so that there is a feeling of the ongoing direction. If the lead convinces them, or vows to do it anyway, or is given a condition she must meet to get her parents blessing, we can see what the scene has done and where it is heading next, which is naturally useful as you then go into writing the scene. Without that clear purpose in the scene it may become loose and rambling or end up not actually doing or contributing anything. That isn’t to say that the sole purpose of a scene is to progress the plot, maybe it shows us something about a character or a relationship which is important and can influence the audiences’ perceptions or determine certain behaviours further on. Maybe a scene or a moment is useful for bringing some light, levity or humanity to what could otherwise be a tough, draining experience for the audience. Some times the purpose might simply be practical, like with that debate about the traveling scenes, maybe you feel we need to know how a character gets from here to there, but if that’s the sole reason for its inclusion it might be worth evaluating how vital it really is, if what it’s adding couldn’t be done elsewhere, or more could be done within it or if you’re freeing up more time for yourself if you simply do without it.

While this should hopefully help to get a sense of how long a scene could be, it can still be difficult to know exactly how long it’ll be until you write it, especially when you’re starting out. Sometimes you can get into a scene and realise “Oh, there’s not actually that much happening here.” and other times something you thought would be brief needs more space. Nonetheless, it can help to include a little guess of how many pages you think it will be so that you can tally them up and get a feeling of how you’re fitting in around your intended page count, a topic we’ll look at a bit more in the future, I’ve forgotten which episode that’s in. But it seems fair to say that being able to estimate scene duration is something we can only really learn as we write and get used to the process, as well as the fact that a first pass at a scene can be incredibly edited later on in the process.

A scene by scene outline can also help you identify the critical lynch pin or turning point scenes and where they sit in the overall composition. So you can see how the acts play out and if the script is looking heavy in one particular direction and light in another, and you can begin to think about how to address that. In recognising the crucial moments, you may also identify scenes which would be nice to include if possible, but which are lower priorities and could be cut if necessary. This is just useful for getting into the mentality of adjustment and editing further on, either so you can accept the removal of indulgences, rather than thinking every moment is staying no matter what, or you can be strict with being concise in certain scenes so you have space for scenes that you would like to include but which need a tight structure to fully justify.

The Power of Planning

The scene by scene is also incredibly useful for thinking through the chronology of the plot, making sure things happen in the right order and right time, and keeping track of the through line of the story. It can allow you to identify cause and effect running through events, and how one scene leads into the next. Scene by scenes are also particularly relevant when it comes to those multiple storylines we discussed previously and how you can bring those ostensibly separate story points together into a cohesive whole. The instinct might be to think that a three tier scene order would simply go A story, B story, C story in a loop. But there are times where a particular story needs to play out a bit more, particularly if it is the prime story, so as not to lose momentum and to generally prevent the composition from feeling too choppy. But if such choices occur, seeing them succinctly ordered in the scene by scene can let you identify how long a story is dropped for and whether it needs to be brought forward slightly, so it isn’t too lost. 

Again it’s possible to have a flexible structure. Identifying as you plot that you might want to move things around can make that less daunting if you do need to do so when writing and that gut feeling kicks in that something needs to happen sooner or later in the running order. That may also influence your chronology, as you can ensure that events aren’t immovable due to time ordering or allow you to identify any necessary adjustments to make events work in a revised order. And it also is just helpful to see how many scenes you will have, and how manageable this feels. If you have limited time to write, then you can go into those brief or occasional sessions with a view of completing maybe just one or two scenes, with a sense of how long they will be and what they will be adding to the story. Whereas without this guide you could be intimidated, not knowing what exactly you’re planning to do, where it might go or how long it could take. So having a general plan can hopefully make everything less daunting.

And yes, it can be a general plan, everything doesn’t have to be figured out to the finest detail, something is better than nothing, as a rule. I’ve spoken before about looking at a plan as a treasure map, if that makes things easier - you’ve got a strong destination in mind and some solid landmarks to guide you, but the journey there might be less certain and throw up some surprises. Even if you just know the areas you want to capture without the specifics, that still provides some additional direction and purpose to your writing. There’s potentially always going to be flexibility between the plan and the actual script, I wouldn’t expect you to sit down and know precisely how many pages and scenes you will write, no more, no less, unless you’re some terrifying intransigent mega mind. Things are likely to change. In which case you may be thinking why am I even bothering with all this, Robin Taylor. I cut a whole metaphor about a car journey without a map here, so just imagine that. But thinking ahead can make things much easier down the line. Feeling confident about your intentions will make you more focused and assured in your writing. Any changes that you then choose to make will be because they end up being necessary or better than your original thoughts, which can make them easier to include. Without a decent plan, it can be easy to lose sight of what you’re really trying to do, and suddenly your script gets a bit too busy with fluff and non-sequiturs, which often muddy the waters more than they add anything.

Story planning is also a tool that is helpful when you get writing work. If you’re in a writers room, setting out a series, then understanding episodic and arcing narratives makes it easier to pitch and shape ideas which fit in to the overall vision. If you’re working solo and trying to get interest in a series, then they may well ask for episode ideas or scene by scenes so that you can prove you have a strong grip on the story, direction and that any sample script isn’t just a fluke but evidence of your narrative skills. Obviously it allows you to explore your idea before you fully commit anything to paper, because having a script can sometimes make editing and rewriting more challenging, as we’ll go over in a future episode. But most importantly it pushes you to analyse and understand the bones of what can make a story compelling and effective, how you can bring elements of ideas together and shape them into a form which keeps an audience intrigued and excited. 

And yes, this does all come with the usual disclaimers. If you’re writing for fun and this doesn’t particularly sound like fun to you, then you’re under no obligation to do it, blatantly. I’m not going to report you to the writing police, for one thing I don’t know who you are and they’re a very under staffed department anyway. I would suggest that theorising is a lot of fun, it’s interesting coming up with ideas, it’s exciting when things come together in a way that makes sense and feels exciting. But disclaimer number is two that these kinds of steps should never be a reason, nor an excuse, to put off writing. If you feel ready and raring to go, then you should do just that. Maybe it might mean you have to do a bit more work at the other end, but hey, we can handle that, right?

Let’s also acknowledge that when it comes to what these kind of plans looks like, it can vary depending upon their use. If they’re just for you, they can be as lengthy or scrappy as works best for you. If someone else is looking at them then obviously the aim is to make them as concise, comprehensible and compelling as you can. With this in mind you don’t need every detail of a scene, just what is truly relevant. So you wouldn’t need to write, “Emma comes home from school, her foster mother is disappointed that she forgot to pick up a grapefruit from the shops as promised, leading to an argument about responsibilities and the importance of vitamin C, which results in Emma cruelly claiming her real mother would never be so cruel if a citrus fruit slipped her mind”. That’s a lot of information to take in, and someone reading it is looking for what matters, so they’ll be wondering if they have to remember grapefruits. Just “At home a silly row between Emma and her foster mother escalates, leading Emma to make a cruel comment that she isn’t her real mother” can be enough. It does help to include indications of locations and time scales, for a producer or director to get a sense of practical considerations such as sets, costume, etc. But really it’s about summing up a narrative in a way which is easy to follow, which is a challenge when describing characters we’ve not yet met, which is why keeping things simple but not too sparse is potentially the best way forward.

So now we’ve got our reasoning and goals laid out, let’s see how that would be with our own concept.

Putting This in Practice

Yes, this brings us to the crushing inevitability of asking how would we apply these principles to the making of unpopular launderette based drama series, Duvets Cost Extra. Honestly kiddos, this is a testament to how being excited about your project is important, because this concept is not tickling my fancy. I will never say the word launderette again after this. Now in case you forgot, or you’re listening to this episode in isolation and wondering what the hell I’m going on about, we’ve got our initial premises of a struggling family run launderette turning to crime to stay afloat, with our lead character Gloria wanting to help save the business and basically earn the respect of her family or a better life for herself. So what might our three primary beats be here? Beat one, the launderette is struggling, beat two, Gloria explores ways of keeping the business going, beat three she realises crime is a possible solution. That’s an okay starting point, right? Well, no, not really. I think this outline, which is the first thing that came to mind, has that whole problem of being more set up than event itself. I’m inclined to think of our old friend Breaking Bad - if your compelling premise is a science teacher starts cooking meth, we wanna see him cooking that meth asap. So in the pilot he has a full on meth cooking caper, which sets the mood and tone for the show as a whole much more nicely than if we saw his crappy life and by the end of the episode he thinks, hmm, maybe I should cook meth. So with that in mind we want to bring everything forward with those prospective beats so we can get some action going.

In fact, in the spirit of throwing the audience in, I’m inclined to wonder if the family aren’t already involved in crime before the story begins. This raises questions of how involved Gloria might be, whether her being a wrong’un from the first moment effects the audience perception of or empathy towards her, how big a problem that might be, and whether it’s more engaging and revelatory to discover through her what is actually going on. These are some of those interconnected questions which have a knock on effect on each other. So for example here, at concept level we were thinking the business turns to crime, but it may in fact already be engaged in it. There are also some logical considerations, would Gloria feasibly have no idea about this? Or was she vaguely aware but not involved? And why might that be? Notably I’ve been vague on any firm decisions throughout this hypothetical process to highlight the theorising and changes in directions which can occur, but if this was a project I was looking to make (It ain’t) then obviously such choices would need to be made at some point. But possibilities can also be held onto in the old back pocket in case it turns out you’re not that keen on a choice you’ve made in practice. Equally we might think ahead to the scene by scene or even writing itself, by imagining an opening scene which appeals, such as juxtaposing criminal activity with Gloria’s day to day launderette duties. Maybe she takes her work incredibly seriously and it’s life or death to her to get the service washes and ironing done on time, but that’s intercut with actual life or death criminal activities. Maybe the men folk doing the crime don’t take it that seriously, despite the fact they’re putting themselves at risk - it insinuates Gloria might be better at what the men are doing than they are.

So the first beat is really showing Gloria as hard worker, crimes happening that she’s not involved in. Maybe her side of the business isn’t much of a concern to the family, because it’s just a front, but we get a sense that it matters to her, so she’s unhappy it’s struggling and neglected. Maybe she has plans to make it grow, or an understanding of why it matters, ie providing for her family or wanting some respect. We’d then think about an instigating incident, what’s going to shake up this status quo? It’s tempting to imagine something goes awry, the criminal activities have a mishap, someone is injured or killed, essentially taken out, leaving a power vacuum, and we all know nature abhors a vacuum, as do my carpets. I’d also wonder if Gloria is involved in this somehow, has she inadvertently contributed to this incident, just so she feels involved, some sense of culpability, like she was coming to complain that they needed a new tumble drier only to interrupt a shady deal between her family and some cartel, which led to confusion and a big gunfight. Bit daft, but ya know, action. Or conversely that if she’d been involved she could have helped. So it could be that the crime family is a man down, which leaves room for Gloria to step in, or that someone higher up in the running of things has been removed from the picture, which creates destabilisation. If we’re going down the route of family business, though I still think, urgh, Succession, then is it basically the patriarch who’s been bumped off and now everyone’s clambering to be in charge. Yeah, probably not that. We can think about whether Gloria wants to be involved in the money making crime, more active, or she doesn’t have a choice, responsive but offers more conflict and quandaries.

I’m aware these condensed theory sessions, which again ordinarily might take days or weeks to mull over can be a bit intense, so let’s take a moment to relax. Ah.

 But yeah, basically beat two is Gloria is sent on a criminal job. We’d then want to think about the details within that beat, what’s the job, what are they expected to do, what are the stakes if it goes wrong. Again, I might reverse engineer it and think, right, we probably want Gloria to succeed, even if it’s in a roundabout way, so what does she bring to the situation which prompts success? What stems from her personality as a strength and what situation would allow that to come out? Is it that she’s meticulous and organised, as we’ve seen in her job? Is she simply underestimated, as we see with her family, which allows her to take people by surprise? Or is it that she’s so determined to prove herself that she’s willing to be reckless and excessive in order to do well? A few decent options which stem from her character and which should influence the direction the predicament goes in. We probably don’t want it too simple, she does job, jobs goes well, the end, so we’d need things to mess up or become complicated, requiring adaptation. You’d think she doesn’t really know what she’s doing at first, and maybe lacking initial confidence, which makes things go wrong, but rather than give up she’s willing to do something crazy to snatch back success - a mad car chase where she’d drive like a maniac to run down a fleeing adversary, and if we’re going down that kind of route do we want something earlier on that shows her relationship with cars, is she a nervous driver or a girl racer, for example? Or she’s envious of a relative’s flashy car when she’s got an old banger, so when she gets behind the wheel of a flashy Merc she’s living her dream? 

Through all this I’m thinking who is she actually with during these events, something we vaguely touched on last episode. Who would bring out useful qualities in her, who would she clash or cooperate with? I’m thinking something like her nephew, so it isn’t a usual sibling dynamic. Maybe he’s the heir apparent to the family business, even though he’s quite a lot younger than Gloria. He’s got no work ethic, so that’s a major difference between the pair. Maybe it’s his Merc they’re racing around in, so he’s a bit entitled and materialistic, which would irk Gloria a lot. Why’s this punk getting handed the business instead of me? Now I’m not sure we want him to be a total wanker, so he’s got some good qualities, he’s loyal or protective, but even there I think it materialises in violent ways. So the end point of the second act might be car chase, they corner the guy who shirked on his payment, Gloria wants to scare him, nephew kills the guy. Oh Jeez, that wasn’t the plan. We’re now entering the resolution beat, so what’s the fallout of this event? Now they’re in trouble? Or they’ve got some respect, they’re on the up? Is Gloria expected to go back to laundry duties, or is that what she wants, she thinks she’s not built for crime, but too late, she’s in it? Are she and nephew demoted because of their failure or are the pair now bound together but what happened, are they trying to keep it secret? 

I’m also thinking what’s the hook leading us into the rest of the series. Are they seeking revenge for what happened with that initial whack job on their family member? Have they recognised a new opportunity for business in the course of the episode, like taking work from another crime family? Is Gloria now keen to prevent her nephew from ascending to power, knowing he’s a little psychopath? And what the heck’s going on with the launderette? Maybe this is where the series instigation comes in, while Gloria and nephew (Who really should have a name by now) are sent to the launderette, unfolding events, potentially linked to their reckless ways, leads to the rest of the family getting taken out by rivals. Now all that’s left are Gloria and nephew, a crappy launderette and a desire to rebuild their business empire and get revenge. So I’d make all of these decisions, with the proviso I could change my mind down the line, flesh out any uncertainties, then knuckle down to write a scene by scene that would bring everything together. I’m not going to get into a full episode plot now, because we’ve all got better things to do with our lives, but if some slash any of you get in touch saying you’d like to see that, I would put one together and post it on my website. So it’s up to you if you want me to be tortured by that or not.

Now admittedly, I’m still not in love with this idea as a whole, and if this was real life rather than an act of delusion, I might question if I actually wanted to write it. But at the same time there’s still avenues to explore and elements that are interesting, so it doesn’t feel like a dead concept with nowhere to go. Of course we all have lives and responsibilities and limited leisure time, so pursuing something you’re not convinced about could be a bad use of your energy. That being said, I would encourage resisting not trying. If your reason for giving up on a project is based in simple doubt or insecurity, sometimes you’ve got to tell those voices to cram it. And if something isn’t fully rocking your Kasbah, but it’s the best idea you’ve got right now, it’s better to work on that until something better comes along, rather than on nothing at all. So we’ll keep going and come back to this more specifically in episode six, the first ten pages. Speaking of episodes, this one is basically over!

Outro

So there we go, another opportunity to imagine and take us from the gaseous state to a more liquid form, still movable but taking shape. And beat sheets, episode plans, scene by scenes and so on are great assistants in creating that shape. Oh, I’m meant to be doing audience involvement, aren’t I? Yeah, this week is obviously about planning so I’d say have a go at a beat sheet, get down a solid through line for your concept, maybe even a scene by scene if you’re so inclined then show it to me if you like and I’ll tell you what I think. Next week we’ll be changing tack slightly by looking at the anatomy of a script, as we think about all of the different practical elements in a script, what they contribute and how to use them effectively.

If you don’t want to miss that, why not subscribe to the show, write a review, give a rating, send messages of support and, via twitter because nobody calls it X, or instagram, where we are @writing_pod or say hello through my website, robinleetaylor.com where you can also make an enquiry about getting feedback on your script from me, paying what you can afford. And there’s the Patreon where for five British pounds you can hear bonus content and support the show, that’s pateron.com/ThinkingAboutWriting. All details and links in the episode description. Let’s get together again next time and until then, carry on thinking about writing a script. Okay, take care, bye bye.