The marks are in and I have wrapped teaching another semester of Dramatic Writing. I read twenty-six one-hour drama pilots written by mostly third year university students. The trends, you ask? Fewer mafia hitmen and teen vampire series this year. An uptick of dystopias. A run of thrillers where the hero finds themselves trapped in a nightmare dreamscape. The requisite number of soaps following young college grads dipping their toes into the even scarier worlds of true romance and real-world jobs. Some excellent scripts. There is talent, like the truth, is out there.
The biggest trend of the year – Scoffing. Characters kept “scoffing”. Some examples from the stage directions:
Rourke scoffs
Cecelia scoffs quietly.
Daniel SCOFFS and shivers.
Margaret SCOFFS at his use of language.
I teach in the class that sound effects should be put in CAPS. Maybe a scoff is a grunt of dismissal. The short painful marriage between a snort and a cough. Or perhaps scoffing is a visual attitude. An alternative for “He rolls his eyes.” Another example:
The marks are in and I have wrapped teaching another semester of Dramatic Writing. I read twenty-six one-hour drama pilots written by mostly third year university students. The trends, you ask? Fewer mafia hitmen and teen vampire series this year. An uptick of dystopias. A run of thrillers where the hero finds themselves trapped in a nightmare dreamscape. The requisite number of soaps following young college grads dipping their toes into the even scarier worlds of true romance and real-world jobs. Some excellent scripts. There is talent, like the truth, is out there.
The biggest trend of the year – Scoffing. Characters kept “scoffing”. Some examples from the stage directions:
Rourke scoffs
Cecelia scoffs quietly.
Daniel SCOFFS and shivers.
Margaret SCOFFS at his use of language.
I teach in the class that sound effects should be put in CAPS. Maybe a scoff is a grunt of dismissal. The short painful marriage between a snort and a cough. Or perhaps scoffing is a visual attitude. An alternative for “He rolls his eyes.” Another example:
By James Nadler
