Notes from the New Writing North Screenwriting Weekender

Across three packed days of talks, panels, and conversations with people who are actually making things in this industry, a few themes kept repeating, and it didn't surprise me because the best panels I've been to all say the same thing in different ways:

• Stop waiting to be chosen

• Write

• Graft

• Play the cards you have

I love this event. The Live theatre is a gorgeous venue, it is specifically for screenwriters, the guests are always insightful and generous with their knowledge - they sugarcoat nothing, and Newcastle is becoming one of my favourite cities to visit.

It also comes at a great time of year - early Feb when you might be emerging from January wondering if the darkness of winter (of life?) will ever lift.

Below are my main takeaways from the sessions.

Original Drama vs IP – Demystifying What’s Being Made and Why

Panel: Meabh O’Donovan (NFTS), Siobhan Morgan (Warp Films), Natasha Heliotis (See-Saw Films)

The weekend opened with a demystifying panel on original drama versus IP, and one of the most quietly reassuring takeaways was that commissioners don’t really know what they want, at least not in the way emerging writers often assume they do. Every project that truly breaks through tends to be the one nobody was asking for.

Humour matters, even in drama.

"You can feel when a writer loves what they’re writing."

That stuck with me. Not “this will sell,” but “I care about this.”

Hat Trick, we were reminded, are literally paid to find writers, so if you can get your work on a public platform - whether it's a scratch night, or a public read through of your work, do it. You never know who will be in the audience.

And schemes—BBC, Channel 4—are still appealing to producers. They're not golden tickets, but they show you have a certain readiness if you can get onto one.

Russell T. Davies in Conversation with Terri White

Russell T. Davies, Terri White

Russell T Davies’ session wasn’t framed as advice so much as lived experience, delivered with warmth and zero mystique about the process. He talked about his first professional writing credit on On the Waterfront, a children’s TV show where he had to write jokes and sketches.

That early constraint, he said, stretched him creatively. Comedy sharpened his instincts. Children’s TV taught him pace. None of it was wasted.

He traced his route through Granada in the 1990s, working across entertainment and drama, writing Dark Season and Revelations, and later embedding ambitious, difficult material into mainstream spaces, most notably an HIV storyline for Children’s Ward. He didn’t describe this as bravery so much as responsibility: if you have a platform, use it.

A recurring theme was patience. He writes ideas he loves and thinks about them for years. He lets them knock around, deepen, collide with life. There was no sense of chasing trends. When he talked about Bob & Rose, Doctor Who, and It’s a Sin, it was clear these were obsessions he committed to fully.

He’s sceptical of overly prescriptive structure rules. Not because structure doesn’t matter, but because codifying it too rigidly can kill instinct. Stories existed long before anyone named an “inciting incident.” Learn craft, understand it, but don’t let it police your imagination.

Two ideas landed particularly hard. First: “Don’t make something for someone who doesn’t like it.” He walked away from a commissioner because he knew that they didn't love or see his idea the way he did, and that every step of production would be a painful mess.

Second: writers must be their own toughest critics. You have to know when you’re winging it, and when something isn’t ready.

Above all, his message was disarmingly simple: do the work. Not once. Repeatedly. Apply your voice to wider worlds. Make it a great script. The rest follows.

The Industrial Ideas Complex with Kat Rose-Martin

Let the idea breathe before you judge it

Kat Rose-Martin’s session was a masterclass in protecting creative momentum. She spoke openly about having over 30 ideas in paid development over six years, proof that ideas do move, but also about how much harder the landscape has become. She wasn't despairing, just honest about the way things are. Yes you have to work harder so...

If you want it, work harder. (She said it a lot more kindly and inspiring than that)

When it comes to ideas, she said that writers are often complicit in killing their own ideas too early. We interrogate them before they’ve had time to reveal what they are. She broke idea development into Walt Disney's three stages: the dreamer, the realist, and the critic. The problem is that most of us let the critic into the room immediately.

During the dreamer stage, she encouraged radical openness: get paper, free-write, don’t judge.

Ask:

• “what if?”

• “what excited me about this?”

Don't ask:

• “Will this sell?”

• “Has this been done?”

Every idea has been done. What matters is perspective.

She demonstrated this through an idea-generation exercise: list five things you saw that morning. Then ask what story could live inside them.

For me, I had a security guard as an antagonist and a stolen passport as the engine of a custody battle. The constraints of listing 5 things don't restrict your creativity - they focus it.

On choosing which idea to work on, her advice was practical and quietly radical: pick the one with an ending, the one that completes the checklist, or the one that gives you the fizzies. Any of those is valid. Just choose, and move.

She also stressed sustainable productivity. One pitch page a month becomes twelve ideas a year.

Keep submitting. Keep generating. Idea creation is the one thing you control.

Her final reminder landed hard: no one is stopping you. Also - the industry thrives on hype, so fan the flames yourself.

Mastering Vertical Storytelling

Emma Nuttall, Dan Lowenstein, Nosa Eke, Anna

New formats, fewer gatekeepers

This session felt like a glimpse into a rapidly forming parallel industry. Vertical storytelling: feature-length dramas told in 90-second chapters, filmed vertically and designed for mobile , coming over from Asia and now booming in the US.

What stood out immediately was how data-driven the space is. Platforms like ReelShort and DramaBox track audience interaction obsessively. Episodes are re-edited, reshaped, and even re-uploaded based on engagement. Story isn’t static, it’s responsive.

Because episodes are so short, there’s no room for indulgence. You have to establish:

• who your characters are,

• why they're there,

• why it matters.

You can’t afford dead beats. Everything counts.

Which works on any medium really!

Breaking the Story - Sarah Morgan

Sara Morgan

Sara Morgan described breaking story as “flexing a spine.”

She emphasised causation over coincidence, referencing Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s rule that scenes should be linked by “therefore” or “but,” never “and then.” Story momentum comes from consequence.

Her most useful reframing was that structure isn’t something imposed on character, it emerges from the relationship between the character and the central dramatic argument.

The story is what happens when a character keeps making choices in conversation with the theme.

She suggested practical entry points: start by writing down what you already know (genre, tone, length), then interrogate character. First and last shots can often reveal more about a story than a beat sheet ever will.

Pitch documents, she stressed, are downstream of understanding. Voice and tone matter more than slick presentation. You can’t summarise what you don’t yet know — and knowing comes from doing the work.

What's up with TV - Sarah Asante

Sarah Asante

Sarah Asante’s session addressed the gap between writing talent and the industry.

Having spent a decade commissioning comedy at the BBC and UKTV, and now working as a consultant, she spoke candidly about how decisions actually get made.

One of her clearest points was that commissioners don’t just buy scripts, they buy confidence in execution. They’re asking themselves whether this writer can deliver again, whether they understand audience, budget, and tone, and whether they feel ready. Early-career writers, she said, are often assessed less on polish and more on potential and preparedness.

She also named something many writers quietly feel: geography and networks matter. Opportunities are concentrated in the South East. There are more good writers than available slots.

But she also provided hope and reframed rejection. Most “nos,” she said, are actually “not yet.” But the industry rarely explains that, so writers internalise the silence as failure. Her advice was to keep meticulous notes, move on quickly, and stay ready to pivot. Timelines in television are long and unpredictable; internalising them emotionally is a fast route to burnout.

While you're waiting, it makes writers’ visibility more important than many realise. Writers, she noted, aren’t doing much self-promotion online. That’s a missed opportunity.

Her closing advice was: bet on yourself. Don’t wait for the industry to choose you. Momentum, not permission, is what keeps careers moving.

Writers on Writers

Faebian Averies, Anna Jordan

Careers aren’t linear (or fair)

This session offered the long view. Both writers spoke candidly about working other jobs, surviving uncertainty, and deciding, at some point, that writing wasn’t something they did, but something they were committed to regardless of outcome.

Anna Jordan spoke about ambition and the danger of treating “making it” as a binary state. You can arrive and then unravel. Nothing is guaranteed.

Faebian Averies echoed this, describing a conscious decision to keep writing even if external rewards remained elusive.

Both stressed that finding opportunities is often a full-time job in itself, and that the work you do outside writing — care work, teaching, survival jobs — feeds the work rather than diminishing it.

The through-line was commitment without illusion. You keep going not because it’s easy or fair, but because you can't stop.

How to Create Characters We Care About with Jeremy Dyson

Characters are built from discomfort

Jeremy Dyson’s core belief is that compelling characters don’t come from clever ideas or formulas, they come from felt discomfort.

He shared how many of his characters emerged from moments of embarrassment, shame, and yearning in his own life. The power comes from daring to put those private feelings on the page and housing them in characters who can carry them further than autobiography ever could.

We don’t have to like characters, he argued. We have to recognise something human in them. Withnail works because we identify with his flaws. Les McQueen endures because his yearning mirrors the writer’s own fear of having missed the boat.

Dyson also spoke about process: free writing, obsessive notebook-keeping, and — crucially — transcription. It’s the act of returning to raw material that gives it shape. Without that distance, ideas remain inert.

His final reminder was simple: creating characters that can provide years of material isn't a head thing. It’s a felt thing.

What I’m taking forward

I left with a long list of ideas—short films, audio sitcoms, drama, stand-up—but also with a sharper filter. Get the short film done. Make the work visible. Protect energy. Sleep, eat, rest, then build.

I feel committed. Ambitious enough to believe there’s space for my voice. Humble enough to know it only counts if I put the work in.

Let's keep going.