Quote: Jane P @ November 26 2009, 7:55 AM GMTAhh Marc P - The Master of the Subtext.
Personally I am mostly my own audience and have no career so it's working out great for me so far!
I have been quite interested in audiences lately though. And wonder if you, Mr P, can be serious for a moment would say it's something you consider much in your work?
It's a pretty good question. With comedy it's always worth thinking of your audience, especially with sitcom or comedy theatre because you want them laughing out loud, and there is nothing in the world quite so jolly as sitting in an audience when they are laughing out loud at your material being performed. Bookswise, again it's tricky because I write in different styles in different formats, as you say. The only thing I do there is to replicate the style and as it's mine it's not too hard to do. The hard part is thinking up the story and the making it up as you go along approach is cool at first but as the dealine approaches it can get quite stressful. The good thing though is that if ou don;t know what the ending is four fifths of the way into the book as the author - the reader probably won't either. Fingers crossed.
As for writing for shows like Holby or the Bill or EastEnders or Emmerdale etc, there pretty much is a house style that you have to fit into. EE used to be a bit more voice orientated now it's more shouting. Doctors allows you a lot of voice although the serial element is perhaps a bit stronger now. In the early days of the show Christopher Timothy was on trial for a suspected euthanasia/assisted suicide, I wrote a two parter where I got to write the prosecution and then the defence, which was not only great fun they gave me the licence to write what I wanted with no moral guidance on the issue. So as a playwright I got to use my voice and explore what I wanted to say on a real emotive issue. There's not a lot of Soaps where you can do that. But like I say Doctors is only a quasi soap.
