http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/dec/01/research-tv-drama-csi
Here’s a link to an interesting article from The Guardian. Some boffins try to apply a scientific \ mathematical approach to script analysis. Interesting how they quite successfully boil down the plot of a CSI episode to 30 keywords(!) and allow writers to identify sub-conscious themes in their work.
It also reminded me of how I started to think about ‘Waking The Dead’ stories in a similar way as mathematical equations that needed solving! So – you have your cold case story (from the past), which is one story-line that runs through the 2 x 1 hours.
But you also need a story-line in the present (so it’s not all just retrospective backstory) – classically, another series of murders committed by the killer from the past to evade discovery.
So you have two parallel storylines that ultimately connect; and into this mix you have to throw other elements, for example: –
flashbacks (an essential characteristic of the show), and how you ‘motivate’ these flashbacks;
the issue of making sure your WTD heroes drive the story, while also creating compelling guest characters;
giving each of the regular investigator characters an investigative story strand that uses their particular specialist expertise;
and providing your protagonist – Boyd – with an antagonist who’s a match for him, the default end sequence being a long interview sequence between protagonist and antagonist punctuated by revelatory flashbacks.
Not forgetting your big turning point \ twist at the end of Hour 1 to hook audiences for Hour 2 the following evening!
Thinking about all this, it would probably would have been a good idea to give writers a chart that looked like a scientific diagram to illustrate it!
Philip Shelley
www.script-consultant.co.uk
Jan 20th 2010
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m a weird hybrid of scriptwriter and computer programmer, and there is certainly some kind of truth in this. Interestingly different programmers exhibit a different ‘voice’ in how they write their code, just like scriptwriters.
Actually, it’s not *that* interesting, but it gets a laugh at parties.
Would you advise writers to create a diagram of their script *before* the first draft, though…?
Hi Laurence,
Well no I certainly wouldn’t recommend a diagram of the story as an essential script pre-requisite! But I do think that certain stories – particularly those 2 hour ‘long-form’ TV investigative stories, like Waking The Dead, Silent Witness, Wallander, etc. – lend themselves to this approach, in their tricky combination of regular \ investigative characters, guest \ antagonist characters, serial story elements and complex, gradually unfolding investigative plots. Perhaps my next blog should be story ‘diagrams’ of certain shows, although it may be something of a challenge for my limited computer skills…!
Philip Shelley
http://www.script-consultant.co.uk
I was half-joking about the diagram idea; I think they can be interesting when trying to analyse the finished product. Check out XKCD’s take on movie narrative charts (http://xkcd.com/657/) – my favourite is the one for Primer, which cracked me up.
Personally I’d love to see diagrams of WtD, Silent Witness, Wallander from your point of view. Shorter shows like Hustle, Casualty and Spooks probably also have a kind of base DNA that could be decoded to show their fundamental structure.
I’d never take this approach when writing something completely new but it might be helpful when briefing new writers on these existing shows.
Hi Philip,
Just browsing around – couldn’t help but comment – I remember the guilt with which I first started using a spreadsheet to storyline my new scripts – and then the sneaking realisation that a lot of story editors and other writers did the same – and then, of course, it’s very similar in principle to having a mass of index cards pinned to a corkboard – and much easier to work with.
I ended up developing my own reasonably complex spreadsheet that has slots for all sorts of story beats, act breaks, different character stories – and I’ve used it all all stages of the storylining process, and in between drafts to check everything is in a sensible place – on everything I’ve written since probably 2003. Overall, with the caveat that you are prepared to throw away large chunks of it if you have a better idea, I would strongly recommend some version of this for every writer’s process.
Would be fascinated to see your diagrams of other shows – I bet there is a massive commonality underlying them all.