Al Smith

Al's plays include Chalk, Enola, and Astronaut Wives Club. He has won the Pearson Playwriting Award, the Sunday Times Playwriting Award twice, been selected for the Old Vic 24 Hour Plays, and was a young writer at the Royal Court Theatre. In 2007 Al was selected for the BBC Writers Academy. His current commissions include an interactive series for BBC Switch, an original drama series being developed for ITV Productions, and a new play for Bush Theatre. He has been commissioned for several episodes of Holby City in 2009.

How did you get started as a writer?
I first started writing when I left university. I'd directed plays whilst a student, and very much wanted to put a play on at the Edinburgh Fringe, but I couldn't afford to pay for rights, so I wrote my own.

What advice would you give to anyone wanting to write for a living?
My heart says just go for it. Think up a good story, start tapping away, and don't worry about getting it right, just get it written. My head says I suppose it depends on what you mean by "For a living." On the one hand I have friends for whom writing theatre is the only kind of writing they want to do, and I guess, in large part, they struggle to make a living from it. On the other, those folk who want to write for radio and television generally find it easier to make ends meet, but perhaps forsake what it is about writing that gives them a real kick - be it control, or scale of ideas, or whatever. So I guess, in short, it's important to try to figure out what you love doing, and if forcing yourself to make a living from it damages that spark and passion, be a lawyer, and write on the side. I love telling stories, for any medium, and I feel bloody lucky to be able to make ends meet.

What's your writing routine?
I live in London so I go to work every day in the British Library. I get there when it opens, and leave when I get hungry.

How does your writing process work?
I depends on what I'm writing – for plays and telly scripts of my own, I like to figure out a writing process specific to every new piece of work. For serialized telly, quite often the writing process is established by the particular show you're working on, so there's less freedom for movement.

Do you break stories beforehand, or go directly to script?
I love to just go for it, read a whole bunch of books and get stuck into a first draft, but quite often I get stuck along the way, at which point I break the thing down into pieces and try to apply a structure to it to figure out where I'm going wrong.

If you do break story, what tools do you use?
If a story's not working, I have a whole bunch of act structures floating around my head, so I pick one, see if it kind of fits, and then try to fit my story into it. Nearly always, that'll highlight where a character's making a wrong turn, and help me steer it right. Also, it's a simple trick, but trying to tell someone your story often highlights where the mistakes lie, as they're not burdened by all the thinking you've put into it, and so can see the wood for the trees. So I often bore my friends that way. I'm also a big fan of long walks and playing my guitar (though rarely at the same time). Most of the time, stories don't work if I haven't thought them through properly, so strutting or strumming helps me mull them over.

You're currently working on an interactive drama for BBC Switch - how is that different to an ordinary drama?
It's great fun and unlike any drama I've worked on before. The idea behind the project is to give the first line and last line of every scene in a story, and then give the Switch audience the challenge of making their own version of each scene before sticking it online. I give them some guide-lines as to what has to happen per scene, and then they get to think up the most creative way to get from A to B, before uploading their scenes and editing them all together. You can then rate other people's versions of the same story, and string together your favourite sequence of events. I started out just writing a complete script, and then boiled it down to its simplest chunks, stripping out most of the dialogue, but keeping the flavour of each scene to give in one simple direction. It's a bit of an experiment, but I think it'll be fun to play with.

You're a graduate of the BBC Drama Writers Academy, how did you get in?
I sent in a play I wrote, was fortunate to be invited to interview, and then waffled on about EastEnders for a while. I'm still surprised I got in.

What was the training like?
Tough but fantastic. Until the academy, I'd never really considered the theoretical structure of storytelling – I just kind of started from scratch and got on with it. Apart from getting you up to speed on the BBC's continuing drama series, at its root,what the course gives you is a toolbox for getting over narrative hurdles. It was a fantastically useful experience, offered me a much needed systematic approach to writing, and presented the very fortunate opportunity to pitch my ideas to each show.

What's the best thing about writing for a living?
Getting to tell good stories. It's the best job in the world.