All the fun of the fair

Well I finally managed to stop procrastinating about 10:00pm this evening, because I really really had to start writing Which.

And I did.

Oh, what a jolly time I'm having - and I've chopped out one of the TV shows I was going to incorporate.

Just because I'm writing something fun doesn't mean that I'm not applying all the tools at my disposal, because it still needs to be good (hopefully).

The TV programmes I'm combining are Being Human and Torchwood. And I've started the story by echoing the opening of Ep.1 of Being Human (script). Cutting to a brief scene in the Torchwood Hub (Cardiff), then an all-action sequence in Bristol.

But the writing tools? As Lucy mentioned on her blog the other day, consequence is everything - everything in your script must flow logically, and as a dependent action, from the previous event. Aristotle, over 2000 years ago, warned against episodic stories, so this has been known about for a while.

In his book "Writing a Great Movie", Jeff Kitchen expounds a technique which helps you to write consequential plot lines. It involves starting at the end and working backwards. You write down the end you want and say "which is caused directly by...". You do this at a high level for the overall action. Then do the same for each sequence within the story. And then even down to individual scenes.

I applied this technique to Which as I came home on the train today. Obviously it didn't take very long because I'm only aiming for 10-15 pages. But the important thing was that I had planned to include The Sarah Jane Adventures in the story as well but, using this technique, it was found to be surplus to requirements.

So there we go. Fun fun fun.

---

What's on the turntable? "Amarok" by Mike Oldfield (58 minutes in)