We recently sent out the decisions from our latest Open Call opportunity. Everyone who entered a script should now have heard back. We spoke to one of the newest members of our freelance Script Reading team to get their impressions on the process as it draws to a close.
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As one of the new additions to the reading team at Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Writersroom, I’ve had the pleasure of spending a couple of months of the year reading a fraction of the incredibly varied projects you submitted. I love script reading. It’s the opportunity to tap into the zeitgeist, learn a little about someone else’s world, and, sometimes, be absolutely astounded by the sheer level of talent on the page in front of me. I’ve been asked by friends what the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Writersroom experience is like for a reader many times and now I’ve been invited to write a blog post about it. Handy, really, because it saves me repeating myself. I suppose it’s a mysterious process if you’re not one of the few people elbow-deep in scripts!
The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Writersroom process is a very different experience for the readers in comparison to what the writers go through. I’ve submitted my own work to opportunities hundreds of times in the past, so I can completely appreciate and recognise any compulsive calendar checking and email refreshing in the face of radio silence for months after submission. It’s agonising! It seems like time is running impossibly slowly and that nothing is happening. Well, I can assure you that a hell of a lot is happening. Between reading hundreds of scripts in the ten-page, thirty-page, and full read stages, we have plenty of readers' meetings to take the temperature of the submissions and identify any common themes we’re seeing across the board.
This year, evidently, there were lots of dead birds in the stories that we read. Not quite sure what writers have against our avian friends at the moment, but there we are. I personally saw a lot of work in the style of Fleabag, as well as high concept science-fiction stories about grossly fascist, totalitarian governments (for some entirely unknown and not at all completely understandable reason). Perhaps in response to the wider global picture at hand, the stories that struck me the most this year were, more often than not, grounded, human stories with a lot of heart. The ability of some stories and characters to express something fundamental to the human experience in an honest way really stuck with me. Similarly, being able to bring something completely new to the table, be it a perspective or character that we’ve never seen before or a unique take on a genre piece, consistently made stories stand out. I love a piece with a bit of personality in it, too. That doesn’t have to mean that the characters are big and bolshy necessarily, but that I can see the writer having fun with what they’re writing in the way that they build the world and the narrative for me.
The aspect of the process that has stood out the most to me as a new reader is the amount of respect that writers and their stories are given by the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Writersroom team. The bottom-line approach is writer positive, and in those months of silence from us, I can absolutely assure you that your work is in caring and compassionate hands. At the end of the day, we all love stories and storytelling too. It’s why we do what we do.
If I could give one piece of advice for the next Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Writersroom Open Call, it would be to write your best story the best way you can, certainly, but don’t forget to have fun whilst you’re doing it.