us folks at Runshaw Writers have been running a weekly soap opera on our website, http://runshawwriters.blogspot.com since May this year. This is deliberately intended to be an inclusive exercise in team writing. If you are interested, you can see all of the episodes so far at the link given. You are also quite welcome (a) to copy them to your own website if you wish, in effect 'syndicating' them (with due credit); (b) you are also invited to take part in writing episodes. I can supply the backstory details of the characters, locations, ongoing and proposed plot lines - please contact me at thepeterbird@talktalk.net.
Soaps may not to be to everybody's taste - indeed I myself am not really a fan. However, it has to be acknowledged as a very popular form of dramatic entertainment these days - yet it is nothing new - I gather that some of Charles Dickens' writing started off like this in printed periodicals. Writing for one, as a member of a team, is also a very good writing exercise in a large number of ways :
- writing within certain boundaries - such as characters that have already been created by someone else consistent with pre-existing plot lines,
- writing to a strict word count (1,000 words per episode)
- creating 'cliff-hangers' to make the read want to read on,
- writing to a deadline amd writing with other people, no longer the loneliest profession.
- Above all it can be great fun and who know where it might lead? Soap writers at the BBC typically are paid £125k a year.
Please let me know if you are interested or have any questions.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Bird.
