Stephen Buck is a radio dramatist who has just begun writing for RTE soap opera Fair City.
There are about 30 people involved in writing Fair City, from the story editor to the "breakdown" writers to the dialogue writers. So far, I've done a trial script as a dialogue writer. The script was fine, so I'll be writing my first actual script now.
The way it seems to go is that the story editor and story writers come up with the story line, then breakdown writers work it out further - things like "then John says to Mary he wants to go for a cup of coffee" - and then the dialogue writer writes:
John: "Mary, I'm going for a cup of coffee." So, no, as a dialogue writer there is no great creative input, but you have to be familiar with the soap and the characters. The trick is you have to write naturalistic dialogue - it has to sound like people from Dublin would actually speak; but, importantly, it has to sound the way the particular character in the show would speak. You also have to make sure it all fits into the length of the scene - you couldn't have anyone going on for too long. With both radio drama and a soap you have to deal with the constraints of time. With radio drama you have to draw listeners in within the first five minutes - it has to be very tight. Soap-writing has an even stricter format. Every scene has to end on a dramatic high and you have to build to a false climax for the ad break. In virtually every scene of a soap there's an argument. But it's great fun to make the characters come to life, using their speech - you lose yourself in it.
I enjoy making people shout at each other, and it's a good way of arguing with yourself! It's always cathartic, it's a way of relieving your own stress, so I feel very relaxed when I'm finished. The radio plays are much more personal. You can sort through all sorts of relationships writing a play, so it's an interesting way of thinking about things and working things through. I get up at about 9 a.m. most mornings and if I'm doing a radio play I write all day long, every day, for about two weeks, until it's done. With the soap script it's different. I'd have about 10 days, so it's much more nine-to-five, and I'd spend a lot of time revising and tweaking scenes as I go along. With the radio play, I'd get about five to six good scenes and then build around them, rather than going from beginning to end.
It's very hard to get a full-time job as a writer on a soap. You are generally brought along slowly, so as to be sure you know how to maintain the formula. You have to fit into a system, really - they aren't looking for an outrageous performance from a writer once they've established a scheme which works. But they tend to employ a lot of freelance writers, like me, to keep it fresh. The classic British model would have used one or two writers - and you end up with maybe six brilliant episodes before it all gets stale and starts to go downhill. Now most soaps would have a committee of writers. With Fair City the script is written about six months in advance of when it is shown. For the time being, I'll probably get the occasional episode and it will evolve from there, depending on how I do.
Maintaining continuity of the story and the characters is easy enough for me. The story writers and the breakdown writers are there ensuring it; I don't really have to know the history of the characters, for example - someone else has to worry about that. There is a fictional address book in the office at RTE which I would have occasion to check - I couldn't have someone popping-in to see their mother at number 12 when in fact she lives in number 17.
Writing for radio is a lot different to writing for television - most radio plays wouldn't actually work for television. I've written a number of novels, but I started writing for radio by accident - I'd sent one of my books to Dermot Bolger, who wrote back: "Fine, but it's not a novel. Try doing it for radio."
I worked with it a bit and sent it off to RTE, and they were happy with it.
Some writers are good at descriptions, some are good at dialogue, and the latter seems to be my skill. I hadn't started out with any ambition to become a radio writer, but it seems to be the thing I'm most competent at.
In an interview with Jackie Bourke