大象传媒

Your questions were answered by Amanda Coe.

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***If you haven’t watched Black Narcissus, please find it on 大象传媒 iPlayer now as there may be spoilers within the Podcast***

INTRO:

Hello and welcome to Ask the Write Questions with Amanda Coe, a podcast from 大象传媒 Writersroom. If you haven't watched Black Narcissus, all episodes are available to view on 大象传媒 iPlayer now or there may be some spoilers. In this series we asked you to send in questions for the writer, abut their latest show and their writing career. We collated all your questions threw them in a bowl and we're going to ask the writer to choose them at random now, she's not sure what's coming next. Let's meet our writer Amanda Coe.

AMANDA INTRO

Hello. I'm Amanda Coe, I wrote the screenplay of the recent 大象传媒 One adaptation of Black Narcissus. I have written various things, including last year's The Trial of Christine Keeler, the adaptation of Apple Tree Yard, a serial about The Bloomsbury Group called Life in Squares. Single biopics, including one of Mary Whitehouse and one of Margot Fonteyn and I also write novels. I've written three published novels and a book of short stories and I'm very pleased to be here to take your questions.

QUESTIONS

Starting with the first one by email. Describe your writing style in three words?

At least they are not four letter words. I think that's a tricky one because it's probably for other people to think of adjectives for my writing style and I think my writing style for screen writing and my writing style in prose is probably slightly different. This is a hopeful description. So it might not necessarily be what my others see my writing style to be. I would like it to be – Humane, Layered and Propulsive.

How do you make sure your characters, not just your protagonist, are well rounded?

That's a really good question because I think it's really important and is the hallmark of something that's well written and well-made that every character has a particularity to them and I guess that's something that I learnt quite early on from things that I really liked; I noticed always had that spin to them with characters and working on Shameless, early on, I think Paul Abbott is just master of that. I mean, an actor who has one line, there's a character there behind it and working with actors really teaches you that, because no actor comes on set without a thought about their character, even if they're delivering a note or whatever. So, it's just something you bear in mind always is how do you just give this a bit more value and make it worth the actor's time. If they going to have a line, make it a good one or make it a meaningful one.

Best cures for writer's block?

Well…. A Leg of Toad and eye of rat. Writers’ block is a funny thing isn't it, because it takes many forms, I think. I'm a big believer in just keeping going and I know the whole notion of block is that you are literally paralysed, but I think that block can sometimes just be writing with a lack of faith in what you're writing being any good. And I think you need to unpack that sometimes if it's a project that's got to a certain stage sometimes that can be a very practical thing that is to do with often a, well, I could say a problem that you haven't resolved, but it could just be a question that you're evading in the piece of work that you've given a very vague answer to and thought, “Oh, I'll sort that out later.” And then you've carried on and, this is just my experience, sometimes you can reach this block point, it's because that question now needs to be answered. Which is not that I think that you have to come up with a brilliant solution there and then, but you have to come up with a good enough solution that you can carry on and I think that can be one form of block. But another form of block is just the voice saying, “this is crap, you’re a crap writer, what are you even thinking writing this?” You know, that very negative voice and I think it's good to know that all writers hear that voice all the time. And you just have to park it. You can let it carry on, but it's a bit like you go into the next room and close the door on it and leave it to mutter and you might be able to hear it through the wall. But you just think, well, for two hours or for twenty minutes even, I'm just going to…yeah right; I am the worst writer in the world, but I'm just going to do this little bit of work in spite of the ranting going on next door’.

What is your TV guilty pleasure?

Well, I don't generally agree with the notion of pleasures as guilty, which I guess is possibly one of the messages in Black Narcissus, that pleasure shouldn’t be guilty, shouldn't cause guilt. I guess what comes into that category, which suggests TV that you feel is, I don’t know, what? You're slightly embarrassed about, or you feel isn't particularly edifying? I really loved Selling Sunset during the first lock down. That for me was standout TV and apart from that I can't say it made me feel guilty, it just gave me pleasure.

When you first started working on Black Narcissus, what were the first words you put on the page? Did you start with a plan or did you write dialogue first?

That's an interesting question. I never write dialogue first. We had a tutor at film school, who was a very rigorous screenwriter who said to us all that we were allowed to write dialogue until very late in the process because the dialogue is the most enjoyable part. But his argument was it's the least important part of screenwriting, which he saw as mainly a structural exercise that you have to be very rigorous about the structure. And although, truth be told, I don't quite adhere to the rigour that he advocated, in that sometimes I find that you find structure through character and part of the character obviously is the dialogue. But I never start with dialogue. I would always start with action. I can't remember what the first words literally that I put on the page… I'd have to go back to an old draft. It would be ‘EXT. – Palace of Mopu – Night’ because I quite early on had this thought that we would start with a flashback sequence to what had happened in the palace twenty years before the action of the main body of the drama. So, yeah. Those would have been the first words.

What is your process for developing an idea?

Yeah, that's a big one. It really varies because obviously there are ideas that come to me and some of them are literally ideas. Some of them are more developed concepts for a drama

and sometimes it's a book as with Black Narcissus and sometimes it's my own idea which I want to develop towards a series. So everything, every project is slightly different in that respect, but I guess it's generally a process of accretion around the thing, whatever it is. If it's a book, I will start to think about it quite structurally. So it would be a case of thinking of its episodic length, like how many episodes would this really need to be and how would each episode contain a dramatic arc that then adds up to the overall drama.

If it's, say something like The Trial of Christine Keeler which was a lot of historical research that then had to be shaped into dramatic episodes; that is a slightly more involved process of assimilating a lot of the research and the looking for the dramatic shapes within that. But then coming to the same thing of breaking it down into the content of episodes with, hopefully, kind of quite hooky conclusions and climaxes.

Which draft do you find the hardest to get started of approximately five or so?

Well, one thing I would say is, it's a lot more than five drafts. Once something goes into production you lose count of all the drafts you get through really, like soup to nuts. I find that the hardest to get started for me is always the first draft and that can be harder if it's something that he's involved quite a lot of research and thought because you have to let go of that and start to let something find its feet in the form. And I often find myself getting quite glum before I start. I don't necessarily know that that's what's making me feel like that. But I always feel better once I get started. And then probably the next hardest draft to get started is much further on in the process, probably when things are going into production and you just have a lot of very practical notes it can feel like the really fun, creative bit of writing has ended and what you're doing is sometimes the most practical slogging problem solving which involves a different bit of your brain. But it requires you to be extremely dogged and organised and can be quite demanding of your energy.

I've not read the book of Black Narcissus can't compare it, but would like to know if you travelled to Nepal or India in order to adapt it?

No, I didn't. Obviously, the production did and the way they did it was they did a recce to find locations. The director and producers and then they went back with the cast to shoot. I would have loved to have gone to Nepal with them, but the nature of the shoot was quite compressed and I was busy working on the production drafts of those scenes that weren’t shot in Nepal, if you see what I mean. So, it just wasn't possible to go. It's made me really want and it does feel slightly odd never to have been an then to see it realised on screen.

Best TV character of all time?

Oh, I'll have to think about this. I should say I'm really, really bad at anything that involves lists of all-time favourites. It always makes me want to say lots of people. So I probably wouldn't pin it onto one, but I love Catherine Cawood, Sarah Lancashire's character in Happy Valley. Just what a fantastic nuanced character, full of such a range and such humour and rage and singularity. Just so beautifully written by Sally Wainwright and so beautifully played by Sarah Lancashire. She just feels like somebody you know, without having anything… She's universal without being generalised. She's utterly specific and utterly magnificent. And I also love Logan Roy in succession, who's the kind of hideous obverse of the Catherine Cawood character. I mean, he's a monster. But again, you just totally understand him in all his hideous particularity. I think detailing characters and range is very, very compelling and something that you can do in long-form TV so well because you get to know people really well. In a more comical away I always loved Hank on The Larry Sanders Show who was the side kick, again because he just felt so kind of familiar, but unique and hilarious.

Have you had many rejections in your early career and what kept you going?

Well, I say rejection comes at all stages in your career, really. And what kept me going really was a certain level of encouragement that there would always be somebody, whether it was a producer or my agent or somebody who would be interested in developing something else. Or having an idea that sustained me enough, you know, something that I was really interested in that I felt that I could keep that bit of energy going to try and see if it could find another home. But rejection is a really crucial part of any writer's career and, I think, no one really teaches you how to metabolise it. Or that a rejection from one person might not mean a rejection of a project entirely. And I think that was something that I was quite slow to learn. I was quite sensitive about rejections and would feel like it meant the project had no merits whatsoever. And then would come back to them later and think, “Actually, this is quite good.” Maybe it was just the kind of climate wasn't right for it or I hadn’t quite found the right person who really got what I was trying to do. I think that learning that a ‘no’ is only a ‘no’ from one source is probably quite important if you have a fundamental creative faith in an idea and sometimes ideas get better when you go back to them because you can find a different ways to express what you trying to say you explore the theme that you're interested in.

Did you study at university and if so did it help you?

I did, I did an English degree, but then after a couple of years out of university I did a screen writing course at the National Film and Television School at Beaconsfield. I would say both of them helped me in different ways. My university course obviously helped train my mind (that sounds more intense than it probably was), but gave me the space and time and the shaping of my thoughts about what I read and a broad base about what I'd read, which is helpful in particularly in coming to adaptation. And then the film school course was just hugely practically helpful in teaching me how to write scripts. I mean practically. i.e. what a script looks like on the page or how to write a treatment and how to structure things for screen as well as spending time with other people who were wanting to do similar things. Practically making stuff that, you know, you make short films at film school. You see how it works, how what you are writing translates onto screen. And any screen minutes that you get I think just teaches you a huge amount. Screenwriting is unique in terms of writing forms like that; it doesn't really exist unless it's made. It's a working document.

What first steps recommended to get noticed as a writer?

I hesitate to give any advice like this because I think it's really tough. I think it's probably much harder than it was when I started when there were roots certainly writing for TV, there were far more chances taken on newer writers. I think it's important, obviously, to try and get an agent because an agent will do a lot to give you a sense of what the industry is. But also to reassure people within the industry that it's worth their while to read a sample script. In a broader sense, it's important to keep going and to improve and to hope that the quality of your work will recommend you to those people who are making decisions about who to employ.

Is it worth pursuing a career in British screen and stage writing after thirty if you are not connected?

I presume “not connected” means knowing people within the industry or does it suggest a certain nepotistic tinge to working on screen and stage in the UK? Yes, it's always worth pursuing a career. I read a weariness into this question as though “Oh, it could never happen”. It's harder if you don't have contacts. There's no doubt about it. And British society is quite nepotistic. Making work, trying to get an agent, forging ahead is always worthwhile . One thing I think is really true, is that both screen and stage are greatly enhanced by having the work of writers who don't live in a connected media universe. The people making programmes and hopefully post-Covid putting on plays are really, really eager to read work from people who are making work about the whole range of experience in this country. It's really, really important that that work is made. So, yeah, definitely. Definitely worth it. And you don't have to be under thirty to have work that's worth considering, there's no doubt about it.

If you had one hour of extra time a day, how would you use it?

I would like to pretend that I would use it on something extremely edifying, but I suspect I might use it sleeping because I do like my sleep. If I wasn't sleeping I’d use it to read because I feel I never quite get enough time to read. I read a lot for work because I get sent a lot of material to consider. So there's that kind of reading and then there's reading for work around projects that I'm currently doing, which is really interesting. But I also really like reading for pleasure. So yeah, I guess if I wasn't using it to catch up on my sleep I’d use it to catch up on my reading.

What keeps you going when you feel like giving up?

Well, that’s a good question. Caffeine I find quite helpful. I think less facetiously, sometimes you have to let yourself give up. It's no good flogging yourself on if you really, truly have run out of energy on something and feel very frustrated and out of ideas. It helps to have more than one project on the go at any one time because sometimes you can just turn to something else that's at a different stage and feel that little bit of creative magic in another project that maybe you've lost faith in the thing that's made you feel like giving up. But, yeah, I don't think there's any point flogging yourself on in that moment of despair when you just think “Oh, this is just it. No further.” But then, you know, go and do something. I've got a dog, so you can go and walk the dog. That's often very helpful. There's always laundry, I find. And writing, you know, it's got to be better than laundry. Just be kind to yourself. It's not meant to be a horrible thing to do all the time, writing. It is hard and you've got to be fairly accommodating about your energy levels. Everyone's energy levels are different and know when your best time is. But I'd also say you do have to learn a certain stamina. Listen to yourself, give yourself those breaks and then you go back to it. So it’s not a definitive giving up, it's a giving up for today. And the nice thing about coming to the screen or the page fresh is tomorrow's always another day and you can feel quite differently about something when you've given yourself that break away from it. You see it with a different perspective. So time, even if it's just a few hours, or a day, or a week doing something else. If you have that luxury, it really helps.

What does it mean to be an Executive Producer as well as the Writer on a show?

It can mean a lot of different things. There's an increasing tendency I think for writers to have an Executive Producer credit. It can be more of a courtesy title and I think it's, in my experience, kind of up to you as the writer how involved you want to be as an exec. I really, really like the responsibilities and contributions that you make as an Executive Producer. I think in your contract it is defined as a “meaningful consultation”. So, for example, things like casting, you would be absolutely involved in that in that you would see casting tapes and have discussions, but you don't get to dictate anything. I mean production is quite a collegiate process anyway, but you would be a voice in the room and any major creative decisions in pre-production. And then in post-production as an exec you watch assemblies along with the other execs and give notes and are involved in the discussions about the edit. I think that is fantastically helpful for writers. Both for the writers themselves and for the production because obviously when you've lived with the material for a very long time you know it incredibly well. And as long as you're prepared to take the step back and know that your substantial contribution has come to an end. So it really is a different hat you're wearing which is not to sort of hang on to everything that you've done and insist that it be put back in, but to see what has been made in the edit and augment that. Sometimes drawing on what you've written previously, but sometimes being a fresh pair of eyes. I think it's the work of the editor and the work of the writer is extremely sympathetic. And you stand at either end of the process and so being involved in that as an Executive Producer is really fascinating and hopefully a positive contribution that you make.

Superstitions, rituals, good luck charms with writing?

No, not really. I suppose the closest thing I have to a ritual is I’m quite fetishist about notebooks in that I like them. I like stationery and there aren't many kind of working accessories with writing. So I have certain pens I like to use for notes. I don't like lines in notebooks. I like blank - literally a blank page and it has got harder to find blank page note books so I get quite excited when I find new ones. So, yeah, starting a new project I like a fresh notebook. One of colour that's distinctive, so that I don't get the different things mixed up and then when I've finished a project I quite like that sense of closing it, putting it on top of the stack of drafts or notes or documents and research that have come with it and feeling that, that's over. I have on occasion, burnt my production drafts and made little pyre in the barbecue in the garden and burnt the production drafts because I was so relieved that the project had been filmed. So, yeah, that was a bit of an extreme ritual, but I don't think I'll be doing that every time.

Thank you for listening to Ask the Write Questions, a podcast from 大象传媒 Writersroom. All episodes of Black Narcissus are available to view on 大象传媒 iPlayer. Find out more about 大象传媒 Writersroom, and keep up to date with news and opportunities at our website bbc.co.uk/writersroom and follow us on social media. Thank you.