Ö÷²¥´óÐã

If like us you've already become addicted to Ö÷²¥´óÐã Three's brand new fantasy horror, The Fades, then you'll be pleased to know we've just added the script from episode one to our script archive:

The Fades, Episode 1 by Jack Thorne

Jack wrote a very insightful blog piece for us last week on the genesis of the series - and how it was born of out of what he says was the worst script he ever wrote.

Here's a preview clip from Episode 2, which is on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Three tonight at 9pm.

Catch up on Episode 1 of The Fades on Ö÷²¥´óÐã iPlayer.

So, that's my last episode for this series done. This week, Jon Hunter takes up the reins as Newsjack script editor - but before I hang up my red pen (or at least put the lid on it), I thought I'd spend a bit of time explaining the contribution that the non-commissioned and commissioned writers make to each show.

You've probably spotted that a handful of the same names pop up on the Newsjack credits list every week. It's not all that surprising. I think it would be downright peculiar if every week, 30 unique names appeared, implying that no-one ever got better at writing for the show.

However, the list is jumbled mix of commissioned, non-commissioned and Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Comedy department contract writers, so it's probably handy to explain who is who. Now, I'm going to use the writer's list from Series 5 episode 2 for the next clutch of statistics. (I considered breaking down a few other episodes, but anyone with a passing knowledge of simultaneous equations would be able to work out who is who, and I suspect that breaks the data protection act).

So, here we go. In series 5 episode 2, there were 22 writers credited (not including myself). Of those: 63% were non-commissioned writers, 22% were commissioned writers, 10% were the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Comedy department's in-house writers (Benjamin Partridge and Andy Wolton) and 5% was Jon Hunter (A fellow Newsjack script editor and commissioned writer for episode 2, but who will be inheriting the red pen for episodes 3 and 4 of this series).

So, let's explain each of those roles...

Non-commissioned writers send in material to the newsjack@bbc.co.uk email address and, unsurprisingly, make up the bulk of the writer's list. 63% is a lower figure than normal for this category - but I think that's because this week's episode had fewer JackApps than normal and not as many occurrences of me constructing a gag-heavy Frankenstein's Monster of a sketch, by wedging two (or more) contributions on the same subject together.

I'm sure this process has been documented elsewhere on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Writersroom blog, but we get somewhere in the region of 1000 sketches and 1000 pages of one liners into the Newsjack inbox and every single one of them gets read. Not by me. They get read by the producers of the show, the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Comedy department's contract writers, production co-ordinators and the producers of other shows. Good sketches get put into a folder, which the script editor and both producers read on Monday night, deciding what is good to go, what might be fixable and what won't make it.

The Commissioned Writers come into the office on the Tuesday and they write sketches on stories that have broken Tuesday morning, and anything that we had hoped would be covered by the non-commissioned writers, but wasn't. The commissioned writers are people the producers are confident can be given a topic and provide a funny, broadcastable sketch in a fairly tight timescale.

The reason that the deadline for non-com sketches has to be on Monday at the latest is that we'd never have the time to read and edit everything by Wednesday's recording otherwise - that's why we need a handful of trusted writers on the Tuesday to fill the gaps.

Now, these Commissioned Writers aren't plucked from the sky or some pool of established Ö÷²¥´óÐã favourites - they are the people who have had a consistently good hit-rate, having submitted material on a non-commissioned basis for previous series of Newsjack. This gives the producers an opportunity to meet the people behind some of our favourite sketches, get to know them and show them exactly how a sketch show is put together. Newsjack would be a thoroughly pointless exercise if we just dished out the occasional on-air credit and did nothing else. Getting people in to see how we operate and how the show works hopefully offers some form of progression, and commissioned writers for the next series will no doubt include a few names that have come to light on this current series.

The Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio Comedy Department's In House Writers are currently Benjamin Partridge and Andy Wolton. They are on a one-year contract and work in the department 4 days a week, on whatever shows need extra writers. You've probably heard their names at the end of The News Quiz or The Now Show. On Newsjack, they are part of the team who read the sketches on the Monday, and are in the meetings with the commissioned writers on the Tuesday. They also do sterling work, saving sketches that the producers or I like the idea of, but aren't quite ready to go on-air. I also show them the opening monologue on a Wednesday morning, as they can always spot an opportunity for a joke that I may have missed.

Benjamin Partridge actually got his first credit on Newsjack, back in Series 2. He was then invited in as a commissioned writer, was recommended to some other Ö÷²¥´óÐã producers for other projects and was then invited to apply for the in-house job.

The Script Editor has to turn the sketches into a workable show. Sometimes it's gagging up a sketch or tweaking lines. Sometimes it's taking 4 page sketch and turning it into a 2 page one. Sometimes it's making so many changes, that when the writer receives their cheque in the post, it's a puzzle for them to work out which bit was originally theirs. Anything that helps make a broadcastable show.

I always want to put as much as I can on-air. I want to give as many people a chance at getting an on-air credit. But late on Tuesday evening, when all the sketches are in front of you, it really is only about making a really good radio show. Saying "oh, but it's all by new writers", isn't going to impress someone catching 10mins of it when they get home for work (or, for that matter, impress Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 4 Extra if we want them to keep commissioning it!) It really is all about making the funniest show we possibly can.

Which is why Newsjack is not a "new writers competition". There are no winners. It is a sketch show with an open door policy, where the team behind it promise to read and consider every single sketch that is sent in. It's also probably the best way to get noticed and get your first radio credit.

Visit the Newsjack website and find out how you can submit your sketches and one-liners to the show.

I struggled a bit when thinking about what things I could say on a writersroom blog because I always like the blogs on here that try to be useful. I read this website all the time, mainly because I want to work out how other writers do it and I was determined to think of something similarly useful to write... How to do fantasy on a budget struck me as interesting - but Toby Whithouse dealt with that brilliantly at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã TV Drama writersfest when he said 'I was thinking about how to show the afterlife without any money and I walked past a door and thought - that seems good'. How to write a six part TV show on your own also seemed useful - but the truth is, I'm not sure I totally have worked it out myself yet - it was a mad scramble mostly. So I thought I'd talk briefly about the genesis of The Fades - how it all came about...

The Fades was born out of the worst TV script I - or possibly anyone else - has ever written. I went to see (exec producer) Sue Hogg and (script editor) Esther Springer at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã. This was about five years ago and I hadn't done much TV by then - Skins series 1 had just aired, and Shameless series 4, both of which I'd written on - and they also had liked a couple of my stage plays. But I was still very new and easily intimidated and pretty rubbish at talking to people, particularly TV people, and Sue and Esther had to cajole me to speak. We talked about Skins, and the Ghostbusters t-shirt I was wearing and Sue asked that question executives like to ask sometimes - 'if you'd written any TV show, which TV show would you have written, and why?' I thought and said 'Freaks and Geeks' - still, in my opinion, one of the great TV shows of our age (if you haven't watched it, you must, and if you have watched it, buy the scripts, and if you have both watched it and read the scripts, then buy Paul Feig's books - Kick Me and Superstud) - Sue looked at my t-shirt and back at me and said - as I think I've said in every interview I've had about the show - 'what about Freaks and Geeks meets Ghostbusters?' And I nodded and said 'I can do that'.

Well, it turned out, and funnily enough this is something I've talked about less in interviews, I couldn't. The show that I wrote based on that premise - a show called 'Short Stuff and Weird' - was, without doubt, total unmitigated garbage. A kid and his friends investigate ghosts using the support of the kid's zany (dead) Granddad. There were pipes involved. There were basements. There were sheds that blew up. I could describe more but I'm hurting myself describing even this much. I tried to fix it. I couldn't. I phoned Esther, in a horrible panic, and she said - come in, let's talk about it. We talked. And then we talked some more. And eventually Esther was as convinced as I was that Short Stuff and Weird should never be seen by another human being. So she said 'then let's not hand it in, let's use this opportunity to do something different, let's write the show you want to write'. This was what I wrote that night:

"A thirty-six year old woman - SARAH - is crying hard. Tears are streaming down her face as she stares into a mirror. Staring into a mirror, she picks up a knife from beside her on the bed. She hesitates one more time. And then carefully, she slits the side of her face. Stammering tears all the while as she does it. Her breath irregular and pain-ridden. She slits from eye-socket to mouth edge. And then she repeats the slit on the other side of her face.

SARAH looks up, and tries to smile through the tears. She tries to smile again, but she can't. Blood is now streaming down her face and mingling with the tears. Her hand really shaking now. She then takes the knife and carefully cuts underneath her nose, between the slits on her face. She puts her hand under the slit and pulls hard. She begins to peel her face. She's making snuffles of agony as she does this. But she doesn't scream.

SARAH Help me - I - help me -

A hand comes into view and begins pulling hard at the slits, tearing the flesh, peeling SARAH's face. It's hard, it's not easy, this is not body horror, this is a bit more complicated than that. The camera slowly pans around her room. Coming finally across POLUS, the bone-ridden face of a bone ridden man. He is straining hard - then suddenly his face relaxes, his hand has done it's work - he sits back, with blood dripping from his hand. He smiles. The camera continues to pan. It finally arrives back at SARAH. Who has now peeled her face off, from nose to eyes. She looks down at her t-shirt, spots of blood land on it. She looks up at her reflection in the mirror. She touches where her nose should be. She makes a hollow scream, it seems to echo."

None of this is in the final show. For one thing it's too expensive, for another the Ö÷²¥´óÐã compliance unit would never pass it for 9pm on a week night, for another it didn't actually suit the character of either Polus or Sarah as those characters evolved, and finally it's a bit overwritten and would be really hard to execute well. But it was what I wanted to write. Pinter apparently always started with an opening image and only that. I don't always start with anything, and I'm sadly not Harold Pinter but this thing was what allowed me to spend the next four years writing the show you're hopefully all about to watch (please). And the strange thing is, and this is my point, I don't think I could have written it without having first written the extremely terrible Short Stuff and Weird. By thinking about ghosts and realisations for all that time - albeit on a fool's errand - I worked out how to write something I hope is a bit better. The act of chewing on shit actually really helped me.

Daniel Kaaluya as Mac in The Fades.

I don't know how many other writers share this. But it's true of quite a lot of what I've written. My first professional stage play - When You Cure Me - came about because I'd written a bad play but liked one scene in it (about bed pans). Similarly, my radio play People Snogging In Public Places (stored somewhere on this website) was a result of failed theatre commission. I wanted to write something about my Uncle and my Mum but it wasn't until I wrote a bad play about my Uncle and my Mum that I realised that the play needed to be about me, my Mum and my Uncle and that radio was the right place for it. I think, because of the way I write, I need to have space to make wrong turnings before I know the right turning to take, and Short Stuff and Weird was undoubtedly the wrong turning I needed for The Fades. It's a horribly painful process, based mostly on failure, but as I was saying to my friend the other day, I think writing - or my writing - is mostly about failure. Most days finish with me reading the work I've done and sitting there going 'well, that's a piece of shit'. Paul Abbott declares in big letters on this website - 'writing is rewriting' - I think what that phrase means for me is that most of what you write you should be prepared to throw away - but that hopefully some of it can inspire you to something you feel happier with.

Johnny Harris plays Neil, an orphan who has left the conventional world behind to commit himself entirely to the Angelic cause.

The Fades has been extremely hard to write and even harder to make, episode one went through a mammoth 36 drafts as me and the amazing script team (Esther, Esther's fellow script editor Richard Cookson, Sue, and producer Caroline Skinner) battled issues of logic, compliance, budget and humour and none of the rest of the five episodes were any less difficult. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't knackered and slightly battered by it all and I'm sure the cast and crew went through even worse. But mostly I feel extremely lucky. Everyone owns a television show by the time it airs - crew and cast -whether it's the costume designer putting the lead character in brilliant burgundy jeans, or the composer finding a noise that makes a ghost seem like a ghost, or the way Theo Barklem-Biggs makes the relatively small part of a junior Detective seem like one of the most important in the series - and The Fades is a show that, for better or worse, whether it's a success or not, I'm proud to have been part of. I'm grateful it's not frigging Short frigging Stuff and frigging Weird but I'm equally grateful that frigging Short frigging Stuff and frigging Weird brought me to it.

The Fades starts tonight on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Three at 9pm. Watch preview clips and read bios of the characters on The Fades programme page.

E20 was the first piece of professional writing I had ever done and I was very much aware that as young writers, we're almost expected to have a message. I remember sitting on a train ride back from summer school and wondered if I had one, or more so, if I wanted to have one. For me, when drama pushes a message it can become preachy. That's where I think E20 hit gold, it never pushes too much either way throughout the series, and in such a compact timescale, it's seeing those highs and lows which make you love the characters and empathise with what they're going through.

Our training came through our four week intensive course at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's Summer School led by Peter and Debs. The summer school was where we learnt the forms of scriptwriting and developed our writer's toolkit. Getting onto it was through application, advertised through various other mediums. We had to send in a character we've always wanted to see in a drama and then a monologue/diary extract for them. We then had to introduce them to EastEnders in a short scene with a Walford resident, and had an interview at Ö÷²¥´óÐã Elstree.

The new EastEnders: E20 characters for series 3 - Donnie, Ava and Faith.

All of our planning up to the point we started writing our episodes was done in a group. We had all come from different areas and all brought very different experiences to the table and it was a miracle we agreed on anything. However, it meant our characters were stronger, someone would always find the inconsistencies or ask the questions we hadn't thought of, throwing the characters into areas we hadn't considered and giving them more layers. In the end we turned out three main characters who were people we had all seen before in real life, but never on TV. On the surface you judge them, and we've played on that. But by the end of the series you know them far more, it's like the Tennessee Williams' quote, "I've never met one that I couldn't love if I completely knew him and understood him". At the end of the day in the series and in the characters, any form of hatred or criticism comes from the inability to empathise with each other and there's something satisfying when an audience member begins to get why your character makes the "bad" choice, but loves them anyway.

It became clear as we all shared our secrets to help contribute to our characters that tragedy is something that haunts us all. Despite this they still manage to have fun, and we made sure we never ever lost that. There was a general consensus that in TV there can be the assumption that because something bad has happened to a teenager, they have to live their life with a blue tinted lens, sad music playing whenever they enter and accepting they're going to die alone.

Our stories came from character diamonds we had made for everyone. We asked what they wanted and what they needed and then set about blocking steps, problems that would get in their way, and how we could really give a sense of change, without falling into the obvious. As available mainline characters changed, briefs changed and we were given more boundaries, it meant we could be planning a range of journeys to reach the character's need, which really opened my eyes to how, in a closed set from a series steeped in so much history, if your characters aren't strong, they will crumble.

E20 is different to a lot of online and teen dramas. It functions far more independently than other spin-offs from serial dramas yet contributes and receives a high amount of support from the mainline show. Because of this it has developed a following in its own right and the viewers expect a particular style and feel to the show. The characters in it are new, fresh and there's so much fun to be found in their run-ins with Walford residents and this series they will not be disappointed. Naturally with a change in the writers the series has altered, and I feel that the audience will get to see a lot more of the dynamic between our protagonists as this time not only are there three of them, but they are forced together.

After going through the entire process it's amazing to finally seeing it come into fruition. It's even more amazing to have people want to see. For me there's still an amount of vulnerability in knowing so many people will see it, I can't help but self edit everything I do and the perfectionist inside of me still hasn't gotten with the idea of a final draft. But as it approaches the public launch, I still haven't got over the fact that my episode will be opening and moreover, the fact I'm being paid to do something I love.

EastEnders:E20 Series 3 premieres online at 8pm on 20 September 2011, with new episodes every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday for five weeks.

Read a script from series 2 of E20 in our script archive.

Very excited to share a brand new addition to our script archive with you:

- Rastamouse 'Da Crucial Plan' by Michael De Souza and Genevieve Webster.

This installment of the brilliant CBeebies stop-motion series, follows Rastamouse , Scratchy and Zoomer as they try to sniff out who has has been 'teefing' all the cheese in Mouseland :-)

Rastamouse creators Michael De Souza and Genevieve Webster gave an insight into the way their script writing process works at our Get a Squiggle On masterclass last week. They begin with thinking about the story, then developing the treatment and writing a scene by scene synopsis. They admitted that the first bit is always the hardest as the story is crucial - once the treatment works, the fun part of the process is building the dialogue around it. As Rastamouse is written largely in rhyme, Michael suggested that children can get a gist of what is happening even though they may not fully understand particular words.

If you're interested in writing for pre-school, have a look at Dominic Macdonald's top tips, and a recent interview we did with Grandpa in my Pocket writers, Jan Page and Mellie Buse.

Catch up with Rastamouse on Ö÷²¥´óÐã iPlayer.

As possibly the least silly silly-season on record draws to a close, we're currently getting ready for the fifth series of Newsjack - which will see us at a new home (Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 4 Extra) and with a new host (Justin Edwards).

Because we're a few series in, there are already a plethora of articles on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã website full of tips and tricks on how to give your material the best chance of getting on-air. Dan Tetsell, who script edited series 1-3, wrote an excellent series of blog posts for the Ö÷²¥´óÐã writersroom, which you can still read, and there is now a brand new writer's brief on the show's homepage (which I'm expecting around a quarter of contributors to ignore, and stubbornly continue to send in sketches and jokes tailored for Miles).

One topic I'm not sure has been mentioned, however, is how we plan to deal with some of the larger news stories that have happened during our time off-air. In particular, one regular Newsjack contributor asked whether we were planning on covering the rioting in a stand-alone sketch, as a runner, in the opening monologue, or in gags across the show.

First of all, Newsjack is definitely about this week's news. I know Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 4 Extra often trades in archive material, but the fact we record the show so close to transmission is one of the things that makes Newsjack stand out - So whole sketches which could have been written a month ago will immediately feel rather out-of place.

Having said that, the riots were a major news story, the discussion and debate about what happened continues to rumble on, so I would expect the topic to crop up somewhere. Maybe as the punchline to a sketch on something else entirely, maybe in a sketch marrying the riots with Alistair Darling's new book (I've seen stranger things tried), maybe just in a JackApp? The truth is we don't know yet.

The way the question was phrased made me think that the contributor thought there was a "right answer" on how to cover a story. Newsjack isn't a competition or puzzle where we spend Monday sifting through hundreds of sketches trying to find the one that is most like the one we already had in our heads (which we then put that on-air and award the writer a prize based on how long they managed to drag their answer out for).

On the Monday, the team go through the sketches looking for the ones that are fresh, relevant and, most importantly, make us laugh. Inevitably, a lot of people write very similar sketches, so it's often the quirky ones that approach the story in a way we didn't expect that really stand-out.

As the series goes on, there'll no doubt be topics and jokes we get lots of, and things we could really do with more of. Keep an eye on the , updated by the show's producers, and there'll be webchats throughout the series with myself and the other script editors (Jon Hunter and James Kettle) where you can ask us anything and we can skilfully avoid difficult questions.

Good luck!

The new series of Newsjack starts this Thursday on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 4 Extra at 22.30.

Newsjack want YOUR sketches and one-liners - find out how you can submit.

We received some fantastic entries for our Get a Squiggle On competition and the readers had their work cut out whittling down 400 scripts to just 16 that got through to our second round masterclass - which took place last week.

An anxious group of 16 writers arrived at the masterclass in London, not knowing what to expect, and having travelled from all over the UK - there was a real sense of regional representation in the room as we had writers from West Yorkshire to Scotland, Northern Ireland to Liverpool and surprisingly two writers from Herefordshire (there must be something in the water).

The day kick started with an introduction from Kate Rowland, Creative Director, New Writing and Head of Writersroom, followed by the writers having to pitch their script ideas in 30 seconds. They were all original and very imaginative ideas that had distinctive characters rooted in identifiable places - we had The Birthdayling Things, Mr Sings Magic Library, Alien Nursery, Police Dog Academy, 10 Clowning Street, Aunty Alert, Elf Stacker, Goats on a Boat, Grandad Bill and his Garden Shed, In Bed with Granny's Leg, Mani & Mongoose, Potty Towers, Queenie, Roki the Robot, Scooters, and The Swashbuckles.

Michael De Souza and Genevieve Webster, creators of Rastamouse and judges on the competition, delivered a brilliant high energy session which I think everyone agreed was the highlight of the day. As the genesis of Rastamouse was from a children's story book, Genevieve and Michael began with a reading of the first title in the series, 'Rastamouse and the crucial plan' which was published to wide critical acclaim in 2003. To bring the world of Mouseland to life Micheal selected a few writers to play the characters, and to immerse them further in to their roles he helped them emulate a Caribbean accent and even do a reggae style rap, which was hugely entertaining and a masterclass first...Irie man!

Everyone then watched a recent episode of the much-loved animated series and Micheal and Genevieve talked to the group about how it all began and shared their pearls of wisdom. They both agreed that the hardest part of writing is when you don't have a sounding board and this is what they found is the biggest advantage of working together. But the burning question was how did they create such an iconic character that is loved by all ages?

What was important to them was a shared family experience that an older and younger sibling could watch together. Music is a big part of the show and the rap element is what is most enjoyed by all no matter what the age - the strong theme of redemption in each episode they find has a positive influence on older children. Genevieve advised that when writing for pre-school, writers should not limit themselves too much as children can take in more then we may think. Michael echoed this and mentioned that as Rastamouse is written largely in rhyme children can get a gist of what is happening even though they may not fully understand particular words etc. They talked about the transition from book to script, which was really exciting for them, but they discovered very quickly how important dialogue was. They also gave an insight in to the way their script writing process works - for them firstly it's important to think about the story, then the treatment and writing a scene by scene synopsis. The first bit is always the hardest they admitted as the story is crucial, once the treatment works the next bit they find the fun part of the process as it is about building the dialogue around the treatment.

Now that the writer's nerves had subsided after such an enjoyable session, the next part of the day involved working in groups brainstorming ideas - they were given the Olympic Games as a starting point for generating ideas for a new CBeebies show. We had some great ideas surface which funnily enough all had a recurring theme of animals! Titles included Mr Fields, Animal Olympic Village, Olympigs and Animal Allstars.

Barry Quinn, Development producer from CBeebies, provided some perspective on all things CBeebies and the day ended with Paul Ashton, Ö÷²¥´óÐã writersroom's development producer, doing a session on the Pre-School perfect 4 based on the charming and imaginative, Charlie and Lola. This was an evaluation on the animated show and why it was hugely successful. Paul discussed:

- What the show is about in terms of the world and tone.
- The characters - they are vivid, immediate and focused and the relationship between Charlie and Lola feels real, instantly recognisable and universal.
- The story - It hits the ground running and presents mission/aim/conflict with a clear beginning, middle and end.
- The form/style - it's 10 mins - tight and simple.

So that's the recipe for an enjoyable and successful masterclass - pitch, act, throw in some rapping, team work, give insight, and discuss!

Although the writers may have arrived feeling nervous they certainly left feeling positive and inspired. Now it is a waiting game for the 16 as only 8 writers will get through to the week long writers residency, where they will spend an intensive week developing their work with the CBeebies team.

All judges will be meeting on the 19th September to deliberate and decide the winners, so this may be 3 long hours of arguing, shouting, disagreeing and then agreeing to disagree, or complete consensus and harmony (one can hope!).

Keep an eye out on the blog for details of the winners and their scripts. Best of luck to all the writers!

Find out more about the Get a Squiggle On new writing competition.

Catch up on the latest episodes of Rastamouse on Ö÷²¥´óÐã iPlayer