Hi everyone! I'm still deep in first draft-land (but almost there!) I have a quick challenge for you... Look around you at the room you're in right now (if you're not in a room right now, wait until you are, obvs). Who else has spent time in that room before you? Who were they? What were their lives like? What extraordinary things took place in this room? Now imagine they walk in, unaware of your presence/existence. Write the scene that unfolds. Are they joined by others? What is the conversation? And how does your main character, whoever they are, change by the end of the scene? What do they know, or feel, by the end that they didn't at the beginning? Happy writing! M :-)

Hi WYSers! I'm a little AWOL at present, but for the best reasons... I'm working on a new adaptation of a Sherlock Holmes story (several, actually, rolled into one) which is being produced by OVO theatre company (where I am Creative Producer) at their increasingly famous Roman Theatre festival this summer. It's been a bit of a slog (as it oftne is), but this past week my favourite thing has happened - the script has started to pull me along with it, rather than me pushing. What do I mean by that? I mean the characters, the story, the style, the way I've decided to tell the story, have come startlingly to life, and are often taking me by suprise as I write. They're maing me gasp, laugh, want to know more. It's a magical moment in any writing project (for me) and I need to stay on the ride with it until this first draft is done. So, where've I been? So far: Victorian London, the wild expanses of Cornwall, an underground bank vault, to the opera, a quaint tearoom... and many more locations to come. What about you? Where is your writing taking you? Happy magical writing! M :-)

Many of you have been asking about software/apps for scriptwriting. So, I thought I'd pop a quick little guide in here for you. Let me know if I've missed anything out! You can write a basic script using any word processor - Word, Google Docs, Pages etc. But if you want to get serious about scriptwriting, and if you want to share your work with actors at your local theatre, or agents, or film producers, at some point you’re going to want to use an app or software package to create scripts in industry-recognised formats. (and you’re also probably going to get a bit fed up of using the tab button/spending ages formatting each part of your document at some point). And yep, you did read that correctly - formats. Plural. Because each branch of the industry has its own specific format(s) - radio, TV, film, theatre - and there are even some regional variations. But, honestly, until you’re in production with something where there are very specific formatting needs, for now, you just need something to do the most common types - screen and stage. The word you’re going to see me use a lot here is ‘elements’. By this, I mean the different parts of a script. Not scenes or acts. I mean what each bit of a script within each scene tells us. These are basically the following: - Scene heading - in theatre, usually the scene number, sometimes a title for each scene.  - Character - the name of the character who is speaking, or performing some kind of action (‘MARK walks into a room’, for instance) - Dialogue - the words a character says, either out loud within the actual scene, off camera/offstage, or as a voiceover (like a narrator in a film) - Action - anything that can be seen or heard in a scene, other than the dialogue. - (Parentheticals) - usually within dialogue to explain how something is delivered - shouting, whispered, to another specific character -  or a pause.  - Transition - at the end of a scene, how it ends - e.g. blackout in theatre, fade or ‘cut to’ on screen 

Hi everyone, hope you've had a great week. We're still experimenting with features and events here, and I've had a few messages from people saying they they can't make the events scheduled so far. So, let me know what days/times work best for you...

Think of the last bit of random conversation you overheard, however short. Now think about the person who was saying it (far better if you don’t know them). Create some answers to these questions: What’s their name? How old are they? What was their first job? Who first broke their heart? What is the first thought they had when they woke up this morning? How would they describe themself on a dating app? Who would be the first person to notice if they disappeared? What is the one secret they can’t tell anyone? Do they prefer tea or coffee? And then, if you want to, write the scene of what happened just before or just after that overheard snippet of conversation. Happy writing! Mark 😀