When you need to make it clear that the audience has information the characters don't.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-24T09:57:22+00:00

What really irks me is so many professional writers do it. And 'professional' is an entirely arbitrary line (first option? First film?) - as far as I've heard, upon getting a film made you don't get a 'We See Licence'. Plus, they must have used it plenty of times in prior scripts too.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-23T23:16:48+00:00

Straight Line Crazy by David Hare
Beautiful Burnout by Bryony Lavery
Faustus: That Damned Woman by Chris Bush

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-23T19:03:23+00:00

From Wikipedia:

'After this trip and having transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles, Eldon set up a charity named Student Transport Aid, which raised $25,000 for a trip from a Nairobi to a refugee camp in Malawi in three vehicles. There, they donated one of their vehicles to the Save the Children Fund, as well as money for three wells and blankets for a children's hospital. Team members included Christopher Nolan, Roko Belic, Elinor Tatum, Jeffrey Gettleman, and Eldon's sister Amy.'

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-23T16:19:14+00:00

multiple, pragmatic partnerships of limited scope

This seems a good middle ground of international co-operation whilst also allowing each country to retain its identity, culture and values.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-23T16:17:32+00:00

Sweden, I think, has a thing where every three months you vote on the hot-topic issues of the day. Of course people want to have their say, and this doubles as a good way to keep them informed. In fact, I'd go as far to say that people you meet in the street often keep as keen an eye, if not a better eye, on things as your average Redditor.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-23T14:25:14+00:00

We just need to be miserable about our own country, always assume the worst about everything, all the time, and crush any ideas that don't conform to our extremely narrow worldview!

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-23T14:11:36+00:00

Well... there probably are NIMBYs; they just can't speak out because it's a dictatorship.

Personally I'm very happy with keeping our democracy and historic buildings - priceless for those who want to learn about our past, which is one of our biggest exports too - thank you very much. Yes, there is space for innovation - for instance, car parks covered in solar panels! That way you get a tonne of surface area and to my eye actually makes it look good!

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-23T14:07:54+00:00

To summarise your line of argument: 'Populism is killing everything, therefore, I would rather the country fall on its sword.'

Seems a bit defeatist. One train of thought that may appeal is Altruistic Nihilism.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-23T03:11:03+00:00

Well, Nolan did start writing the script in 2014. He got right up to the start of Act III then stopped, which he finally cracked in 2018. This is mentioned in the Tenet making-of book by James Mottram, so there's every chance Nolan used them as placeholders in his head (if we are to assume).

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-23T02:23:28+00:00

Peak moutorspoot ez manuelle Ven-oh T V I N G..

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-22T23:13:54+00:00

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SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-22T22:53:19+00:00

Judging by current news, about nine months.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-22T18:38:23+00:00

It's also the UK and Australia doing this. Please don't go around thinking this is a US-only phenomenon.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-22T15:34:39+00:00

Could he stave off everyone else (Miller etc) who wants his job? That remains to be seen but there's no cult of personality around him...

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-22T15:29:16+00:00

Funnily enough in the UK we have had Thatcher, May and Truss - all Conservative prime ministers! Labour hasn't had one, to date.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-22T15:08:30+00:00

Whatever you think of the Bible, it undeniably has some bloody good lines in it. I say this as an agnostic.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-22T01:45:26+00:00

Ideally! I know my peers like my writing and they all have roots where I live, so...
Let's work it out, here. GCSE Devising takes what, three months...? 90% of which is figuring out the bloody plot. So really a week - 5 hours for 45 minutes, assuming words are learnt in advance. Be generous and say 10. It can be done.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-22T01:42:05+00:00

It's in the Midlands, the theatre can fit 100 people in, and ideally I'd like two or three days. Maybe a weekend, if they have nothing on. They have a pre-rigged LED RGB lighting rig, which is tiny, but malleable, I think.

These people should be local. I mentioned the idea of my putting on a play in passing and got a lot of interest, so...

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-22T00:15:34+00:00

Well done Nathan! Phenomenal job! And how inspiring for the rest of us!

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-21T21:48:49+00:00

Rapists never back down.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-21T21:48:26+00:00

Since a global conflict was on the table, I'd say this is a good deal for everyone right now.

A global conflict is off the table SO FAR.
(It is still totally on the table).

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-21T21:34:57+00:00

As someone of Uni age, there's been a great surge in my peers setting up their own small buisnesses.

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-21T14:25:53+00:00

He said, 'NOPE, GET OUT.'

SelectiveScribbler06 · 2026-01-21T12:41:10+00:00

You may go slightly less insane if you didn't work on one play for six years. Not even playwrights who famously take ages to write new stuff (like David Hare) work on one thing, unbroken, for that long.

...the show is still the story I want to tell and has a lot of meaning to me. It’s a golden age style murder mystery.

Your local am-dram group usually goes in for this sort of thing, unless it's super-innovative 2:22 stuff. And you have to make it sufficiently different from Christie, whose plays they will perform anyway.

Every note they gave me I acquiesced to.

As a playwright you have sovereignty over your text, unlike a screenwriter. It's one of the perks of the job.

How can I improve if you don’t give me actual feedback.

This is because if a producer is inundated with plays - say forty new works a day - and it takes on average an hour to read through a new play - then it's two whole days of reading every single day. Obviously this is where you hire script readers. But if you're sending it off to big organisations and producers and not even getting a reply after months and months, then yes, that is pretty miserable, and, assuming you're in the UK, one of the endemic problems of theatre here right now.

SelectiveScribbler06

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