Charlie Brooker Can Also Be Helpful
While Mr Brooker’s schtick consists mainly of shooting fish in a barrel with swear words and creative similes, it seems he can also provide a fine and helpful insight into the process of writing.
In this episode he interviewed several of the UK’s best TV writers, such as Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong of Peep Show, Tony Jordan of Life On Mars, Graham Linehan of Father Ted, Paul Abbott of Shameless and Russell T. Davies of Doctor Who (which is shit, by the way).
They discussed how they work and what it takes to produce great scripts.
Much of the advice differed, but they all seemed to agree on one thing: as Ernest Hemingway said, the first draft of anything is shit (although Graham Linehan confusingly compared his first drafts to toilet paper. Maybe you can wipe Hemingway’s up with Linehan’s), but the consensus was that the first draft is where the real work begins.
And there’s no reason why it should be any different in advertising.
Or, for that matter, blogs. If any of you are insane enough to re-read what I write, you’ll see that I’m insane enough to do the same, changing sticky sentences or imperfect adjectives as I go, even after I know 99% of the people who read what I write have already done so.
Nothing’s perfect (except maybe the opening sentence of A Tale Of Two Cities), so there’s always room for improvement.
Shrinking that room as much as possible is always a good use of time.