Finding a Writing Style

For the past couple of weeks I have been taking meetings with agencies in the US, looking for new representation. How we got to here, and why, is a matter for another time. What's relevant today is that I haven't had to do meetings like this since 2017 and a lot has changed since then; we've had Covid, the WGA fight against agency packaging, the writers' strike, and the streamers have altered the TV and film landscape dramatically.

So what shiny new literary morsel did my manager bait the hook with this time around? A brand new, unseen screenplay? A devilishly clever TV pilot episode? No. He used the exact same script that first got me a US rep eight years ago, the same script that I wrote about in Breaking the Screenplay back in 2023.

Is this because I haven't written anything decent since 2017? I mean, maybe... But that, at least, is not the official reason. It's because the script has a "unique voice" which "people respond to". And that is what I've been hearing from these various agency teams during the course of these new meetings. A "unique voice". Does that mean this is the best script they've ever read? Of course it doesn't. Does it mean this thing is going to sell for a gazillion dollars and become a hit show? Well, it has been floating around since 2017 and no one has ever made it, so you tell me.

What it means is that the experience of reading this script is not the same as the experience of reading other scripts. That is all it means. And it's valuable because the script can be used as a writing sample; it can be sent to studios and production companies with a note that more or less says "if you're bored of vanilla, try some Marmite". Now, the very nature of Marmite is that it's a distinctive flavour; a lot of people hate it, but the people who like it really like it.

Right now, the creative industries are justifiably worried about the rise of AI. Writers and artist are scared for their jobs because they think execs are going to start replacing them with AI any day now. Personally, I think that AI is going to replace studio bean counters and lawyers and executives before it gets to writers, but that's another debate. The threat of AI is still not nothing, and one of the reasons it's perceived as a threat is to do with homogeneity.