BBC Writersroom Newsletter

The new edition of the BBC writersroom newsletter is now available online.

The BBC writersroom website champions new writing talent in film, television, radio and theatre and runs schemes to promote new writing alongside providing resources to help writers hone their craft. For more information, visit the website at www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom

Highlights from the current newsletter include:

Continuing Drama Series
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We've launched a new section on the website to talk about the BBC's Continuing Drama Series and how the process of finding writers for them works.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writing/continuingdrama.shtml

John Yorke
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Interview with the Controller of BBC Drama Production and New Talent.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writing/john_yorke.shtml

Tony Marchant
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Read our interview with Tony Marchant, the writer of Holding On and Garrow's Law.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/tony_marchant.shtml

Jimmy McGovern
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Interview with the writer of Cracker, The Street, The Lakes, Brookside, and many more...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/jimmy_mcgovern1.shtml

James Parriott
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Interview with the showrunner of new SF Drama Defying Gravity.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/james_parriott.shtml

John Collee
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Interview with the writer of Creation, Happy Feet, and Master and Commander.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/john_collee.shtml

Dean Craig
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The writer of Off The Hook and Death at a Funeral tells us about his career.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/dean_craig.shtml

Simon Maxwell
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Interview with the producer of new drama Off The Hook.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/simon_maxwell.shtml



New Scripts
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Our scripts are in PDF format - if you can't read them, download Adobe Reader from http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/categories/plug/acrobat/acrobat.shtml?intro

Holby City: Just A Perfect Day by Dan Sefton
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/downloads/scripts/holby_city_s11e32.pdf

Holby City: Out of the Woods by Rob Williams
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/downloads/scripts/holby_city_s11e48.pdf

Don't forget you can browse through all of the scripts in our script archive.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/script_archive.shtml

Submitting your script to BBC writersroom
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Want to write for the BBC? Find out what to send us on our script submissions page.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/writing/submissions_writersroom.shtml

Stoke-on-Writing Submission Guidelines

At it's last meeting, the group adopted a set of guidelines for submissions. The purpose of these is to ensure that group members are submitting work to a standard that publishers would expect. The guidelines are those specified as the standard professional layouts for prose and poetry and apply to all group members when submitting pieces of writing.

Prose Writing

The following criteria are those specified as the standard professional layouts for prose writing:

· Text should be double line spaced

· Margins of at least 3cm at either side of the page should be used

· A 12 point standard font (Times New Roman, New Courier, Arial) should be adopted

· The first line of every paragraph should be indented, with the exception of the first line in each chapter or section

· There should usually be no space between paragraphs. A line space between paragraphs indicates a section break – a change of scene, or viewpoint or to indicate that some time has passed

· Asterisks can be used to draw attention to a section break that falls at the end of a page, that otherwise might be missed by the reader

· Dialogue – each person’s speech should begin a new paragraph (indented). Single quotation marks should be used for speech and quoted words within the text. Double quotation marks should only be used when they occur within another pair e.g.

‘I can’t explain it,’ he said. ‘It’s a complete mystery.

‘He couldn’t explain it,’ William said. ‘Just that it was a “complete mystery” to him.’

This is the modern standard for writing dialogue, which is widely specified by today’s publishers and editors.

· Alternatively, if preferred, the more traditional approach of using double quotation marks can be used instead for speech. In this instance further quoted words within the text should be enclosed using single quotation marks i.e.

“I can’t explain it,” he said. “It’s a complete mystery.”

“He couldn’t explain it,” William said. “Just that it was a ‘complete mystery’ to him.”

Poetry

· Stanza breaks and the gap between the title and the first line of the poem should be indicated by an extra line space, otherwise, poems should be single-spaced within stanzas

· Margins should be positioned to the left of the page (poems should not be centred). This requirement does not prevent the writer from indenting lines as part of the poem

· The title of the poem should be in bold type

Duotrope Digest

Duotrope's Digest is a free writers' resource listing over 2575 current Fiction and Poetry publications. More details on their website.

I haven't used this site, so if anyone has and is able to supply feedback to post on the StOW blog, please do so.
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