Creative excuses
Chasing up a writer recently, I got the reply: I thought I'd already sent it to you.
This leapt immediately into my top 10 of writers' reasons for non-delivery, assuming, of course, that they respond. Some just screen their calls.
And the rest of the top 10:
My computer was stolen.
You won't believe this, but my new computer was stolen too, so I'm having to start writing it all again from scratch for a second time.
No, I never got the notes, I've been waiting for you. Yes, we talked about it, but I thought you'd write the notes down for me.
I couldn't find anywhere in Paris to plug my modem in.
Is it due today? I had next Tuesday in my diary.
I was going to call you, but my phone was nicked/I couldn't get reception.
Look, use the draft you've got. Trust me, it's funny.
The 'e' dropped off my typewriter. (One writer I worked with clung to his elderly Remington far into the age of computers).
I've got a bit of a cough.
More contributions welcome.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~31~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
excuse......
well, you know I have been trying to get my writing accepted for the past 30 years, surely you can wait a couple of days.
LOL
Complain about this comment
I had a student who offered the time-honored excuse for not turning in a paper in time: My dog at it. The difference her is that she showed me the half-digested bits and pieces.
Complain about this comment
That is: the dog ate it. The difference here is . . . Sorry about that.
Complain about this comment
@Graycatbird
That's a good one. I received a script once in a rather odd condition. Turned out that it had been attacked by snails in the post box.
Complain about this comment
I was doing an emergency rewrite for bbc show. To speed things up, I got them to give me an office in Centre House. I was working in there on Saturday, finished the script, left to go out, leaving my laptop safely locked up, ready to deliver the script on Monday. It was the night TVC got bombed. So my script was finished, but locked up in a huge crime scene. The police wouldn't let me retrieve the unharmed laptop for days. I tried to convince my executive producer that as the script was on bbc premises I had technically delivered on time.
Complain about this comment
I never miss a deadline Micheal, so can't help you with this one.
:)
Complain about this comment
I can't even get an excuse acknowledged LOL
Complain about this comment
Weren't those of us on the Sharps shortlist meant to get a crit? What's the excuse for that non-delivery? :-)
Complain about this comment
@Ingmar - brilliant.
@MisterP - really? Saint Marc!
@now-and-then - nothing to do with me, I'm afraid.
Complain about this comment
Adolf Hitler (that well known comedy scriptwriter) said that the secret of lying succesfully is to lie, lie big, and keep repeating the lie - sooner or later everyone will believe you. So I guess the more outrageous the excuse, the better.
Of course I'd never need excuses. I'm like Mister P, all my scripts are bang on time - although unlike Mister P, there's actual jokes in my scripts!
Complain about this comment
I did miss a writing competition deadline on that fateful day at the beginning of last season when the great Jose was given his marching orders at Stamford Bridge, Micheal. Pathetic, I know, but I could hardly type through my veil of tears and spent the night sobbing into my pillow so was too exhausted to use the computer the next day. Pathetic excuse, I know, but more original than most. Oh, and when I did finally get my act together Jose's dog ate my script.....
Phil Taylor x
Complain about this comment
@MrsM
That would be a very acceptable reason for non-delivery. When Arsene goes, I will be observing a period of mourning.
@Aspie
I think you can only get away with the big lie once. Otherwise there's some kind of pattern. Poland can only be invaded once.
Complain about this comment
Thanks Micheal, I didn't like to say it myself.
:)
Complain about this comment
My tactic is to be so useless at deadlines that editors give you a date a week before they actually want the submission. Then when your work lands in their inbox sometime in the week after, everyone is happy...
Mind you, you have to be confident you are a brilliant writer for this tactic to work...
Luckily I am!
;-)
The Mutt
Complain about this comment
@The Mutt
Ssh, don't tell anyone that 'deadlines' are generally set early. It should just be our secret.
Complain about this comment
I think you should 'name and shame', Micheal. Who was this person in your original post, and do they not realise how lucky they are to have the BBC clamouring for their work?
Mrs M *preachy occupant of the moral high ground*
Complain about this comment
"I was abducted by aliens who wiped my brain and stole my notes."
Complain about this comment
@Matt
It didn't work the last time, Matt, and it won't work now.
@MrsM
Wild horses, etc...
Complain about this comment
'Wild Horses etc..'
Got to be John Sullivan then.
Complain about this comment
or John Wayne
Complain about this comment
@Michael
Has anybody ever been commissioned to write a script and just spent the money and not bothered to write one? Or submitted a tattered old thing that has clearly been in the bottom of their sock draw for fifteen years? And if that does happen, what does the beeb do?
Complain about this comment
@Aspie
Scripts aren't commissioned blind, so there's always a preliminary discussion about ideas and a decision as to which idea feels best. So bottom drawer scripts aren't a problem.
Sometimes a script is commissioned and not delivered, which can be for several reasons. It might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but the writer can't make it work. It may still be a good idea, but the writer is suffering personal problems and can't write.
The default position is to ask for the money back, but it's possible to convert the commission into one for another idea, or to keep faith with the suffering writer in the hope they will get over their problem.
If a writer has simply spent the money and failed to deliver, then it's an industry where people talk to one another a lot, so that writer is going to find future commissions scarce, if non-existent.
My best anecdote in this area is a script which arrived out of the blue, with a covering letter saying something like (from memory) - many apologies for the delay. This script was commissioned by Robin Nash fifteen years ago, and I'm sorry it has taken so long to complete it. I don't imagine you will want to produce it now, but not delivering it has been on my conscience.
Complain about this comment
Here's one on the flipside for you Micheal. How about delivering something and being told you are SIX months early!! 'Oh didn't your agent tell you? I'm sure we told him.'
Complain about this comment
@Mister P
Wouldn't you be making a rod for your own back delivering stuff too early? Since they'd constantly be expecting you to deliver stuff super-fast in the future?
Complain about this comment
@Mister P
This is starting to get quite surreal. Soon you'll be delivering something before it's even been requested!
Mrs M
Complain about this comment
@MrP/Mrs M/Asp
Agents, eh?!
I take it that it was the agent who messed up, rather than Marc being over-keen.
Complain about this comment
'rather than marc being over-keen.'
You know me too well! :)
Complain about this comment
By sheer coincidence I was reading today that the late Douglas Adams, who HATED the prospect of writing to a deadline, used to shut himself away in a hotel room (presumably to avoid distraction) until the writing project in question was finished.
This wouldn't work for me at all on the writing front as the temptation of eating and drinking my way through the contents of the mini bar would be far too great.
Mrs M
Complain about this comment
@MrsM
What a pity your old man isn't still at the helm of Porto. Then I could do a bit of crowing.
Given that polishing off the minibar would probably equate to your script fee, I foresee tough choices.
Complain about this comment
And you won't get that fee until some few months after that mini bar has been polished off!
:)
Complain about this comment
Of course, the real reason writers are late is because they know their script will sit, unread, on a producer’s desk for three months. So, in the same jovial spirit of Micheal’s original post:
The Top 10 Producers’ Reasons For Having Still Not Read A Script After They’ve Had It For Three Months.
10. I’ve been on holiday in the south of France. For the last three months.
9. I’ve been at the Edinburgh festival. Why, weren’t you there?
8. I didn’t realise you’d sent it to me. I’m not very good with computers.
7. I’ve still got so many scripts to get through from *six* months ago I haven’t got to yours yet.
6. I’m so sorry. I’ve spent the last three months stuck in the studio/editing suite/BBC Vision seminar.
5. I passed it on to my boss to read, because unless they likes it, there’s not any point in me reading it, is there?
4. Please don’t hassle me again or I’ll tell my colleagues you’re ‘difficult’.
3. I’ve been busy getting married/getting divorced/giving birth/having therapy.
2. You missed the last commissioning round by one day and I’m not even going to think about the next commissioning round for another three months.
and in the top spot
1. Don’t bother giving a reason at all.
Complain about this comment
@Micheal,
Jose is currently out walking the dog so I am unable to pass on your good wishes.
Porto were feeble opposition. The boy Walcott could have scored against them with both legs tied together.
The Special One enjoyed the game against Hull. He he he....
@Mr P,
Now that the Job Centre has found new employment for Mr M the exorbitant cost of yer average hotel mini bar holds no fear for me. The Special One is very generous with the joint Amex card....
I won't be touching the Russian vodka.
Mrs M
Complain about this comment
@Mrs M
Probably some sniggers about Cluj round yours?
@onlyjealous
I'm sure your list will ring many bells, though number 6 is actually quite valid (with the exception of the seminar). Production, from pre to post, can be all-consuming in terms of time and brain space.
Nearly all my original examples related to production scripts with real deadlines, in the sense of no script, no show, or to scripts which had been commissioned with deadlines.
But since I worked at Alomo, I've had a self-imposed discipline of responding to work within a fortnight or at the outside a month, which is a long time for a writer, i know.
Complain about this comment
@Micheal.
Actually that's pretty impressive! I've had something at the Beeb for something coming up to the time of the deadline for the comedy college - so that must be about 6 months. I am taking that to mean it keeps being passed up the chain of command with a tick on it. But then I do still want to believe in Father Christmas.
:)
@ Mrs M.
It's the Red Bull that does it for you.
:
Complain about this comment
@MisterP
Well, I can't see why things aren't read more quickly. All it needs is a system, and if you don't have a frightening pile, then you can keep on top of it. It's ever-bigger piles of unread scripts that make you feel hopeless.
Complain about this comment
@ Micheal
I can understand if it has gone through the writers room perhaps, and if having read something one has to write a report on it. I have done that and pretty much didn't like having to do it. I liked the reading part but not the feedback - particularly as, after a while, the same sort of comments crop up so one would almost be cutting and pasting from memory.
And you are quite right, it's the ever bigger piles that sometimes stop you from sitting down and getting on with it!
Complain about this comment
@MisterP
Unless a script really stands out, to the extent that it feels worth doing notes for the writer, a report along the lines of: 'one-dimensional characters in an uninvolving and unstructured story with an unappealing setting in a script which sets out self-consciously to be funny' covers nearly all eventualities.
It's depressing that most people who want to write comedy can't, which is why any hint of inspiration, interest or originality is seized on and encouraged.
But it's particularly gratifying to see a writer putting the work in to develop the craft, and move from 'may do it' to 'can do it'.
Complain about this comment
I always liked TS Elliots quote. 'Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.'
Complain about this comment
I have just recently discovered this blog and I now have yet another excuse to read instead of writing!!!!
Complain about this comment
@Micheal,
The Special One's verdict on the Chelsea match on Weds night was that they were rather Clujless.
I have now sent Mr M to the doghouse for that remark.
@Mr P
I like the TS Elliot quote. It reminds me of a similar one about the teaching profession - ie 'Those who can, teach. Those who can't, teach other teachers to teach etc.....' Anyone who has survived teacher training will empathise with that statement. (I don't think that quote originated with TS Elliot - more likely some disgruntled student about to fail their 'how to teach' degree at college.)
@emthatch
I'm also becoming addicted to this blog and it is stopping me from becoming the next big thing in comedy writing. Or any writing, apart from shopping lists for The Special One.
Mrs M
Complain about this comment
@Michael
"It is depressing that most people who want to write comedy can't"
Too true, Michael. Unfortunately this also applies to recent BBC comedies Lab Rats, The Cup, Coming of Age and that gaycom on Thursday nights. If any of them had been sent to the Writersroom would they have got past the first hurdle? Feel free to chip in on that, Mister P.
Complain about this comment
@Aspie
These things are subjective, Aspie, as you know. I will try to do a 'script to screen' blog this week to set out how shows are commissioned in the hope of a discussion which will rise above the - that's rubbish/no it isn't level, to which I'm sure you'll have an interesting contribution.
Complain about this comment
@Aspie
My only experience of the Writers room ffrom a submission viewpoint was a comedy/drama radio thing which went through the blind readers thing and up to being submitted at 'offers' for production where it was shot out of the water. I am not sure the writersroom are particularly good at spotting good sitcom - but some have come from there as Micheal will attest.
I certainly wouldnt think of them as the absolute arbiters of taste and judgement. What any reader should be able to tell from the first ten pages or so, however, is whether there is a good story there, if there is they will wan to continue reading, if there isn't, they wont. I imagine that is where most uncommissioned scripts fail, the funniness is I would imagine a secondary reaction, probably being caused as someone once remarked by someone setting out self conscously to be funny, can't remeber who, rather than that comedy arising organically from the characters and the original conceit of the thing.
As Micheal says all comedy is to an extent subjective, what I think matters most is work craft, comedic vision and honesty from the writer. I liked Lab Rats in the main, I havent seen the Cup or the Thursday comedy you mention although I did like Gimme, Gimme Gimme. The coming of Age product seems to have had in its genesis something somewhat out of the ordinary processes. I haven't seen it so can't comment on it really, but maybe there is a sense of lets do the Susan Nickson thing again and hothouse some young talent. It didn't do the BBC or SN any harm. Maybe the test of time will tell. MJ seems to have mentored SN and PMA seems to be mentoring the new young writer. So I know who my money is on .. and it has nothing to do with the fact that PMA turned down my Female Vicar sitcom and then went on to write on the Vicar of Dibley. :)
On a serious note though, the writers room is one way to approach getting your work seen and perhaps commissioned, it is not the only, or indeed, the best way.
Get youself to Cambridge and join footlights!
:)
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS