I’ve been heavily implicated in multiple murders, endless affairs, a
case of amnesia, a bit of stalking, and a period of drug addiction leading to
prostitution. More interestingly, I’ve also been implicated in developing some
great characters, exploring the particular texture of their lives, finding
humour in the most serious circumstances, and finding nuance in what appear to
be black and white situations. Because I wrote soap for over a decade. Emmerdale. I didn’t
mean to, I sort of stumbled into it and thought I’d do it for a couple of years.
For a while, it felt like I was married to novels and I was having an affair
with soap. After a couple of years I was thinking of leaving but soap came up close and
whispered in my ear: ‘Stick with me and I’ll buy you a house.’ So I stuck with
soap for a long time. And I’m glad I did. And not just because of the house - I enjoyed it.
It sort of prepared me to write for teenagers in The Impossible. The
character, texture, nuance and humour mentioned above are all good, they're all things that make for a novel that engages you. But I already knew
about them. The thing is, soaps also love cliff-hangers. There’s one at the end of every
episode, and on ITV there’s a mini one before the ad break too. Cliff-hangers,
suspense, jeopardy, they're all things that make for a novel that grips you. I got very familiar with them, on Emmerdale.
I also learnt something else from writing soap. More on that soon ...
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