British Ghostwriter - Screenwriting/Scriptwriting

I can save you thousands of £££

Does your story have to be a script? Are you absolutely sure it can’t be a book?

Can I be honest? Hiring me to write a script for you should be your very last resort.

I’m very expensive and writing a script is very high risk for you.

most scripts vanish without trace

The movie and the TV businesses are bearpits where scripts pile up in skips, and writers’ longings and hopes and beautiful passions rot like rose petals in a storm drain.

Most scripts don’t get anywhere near being made. Even if they're excellent. I’ve known writers grow old and exhausted working to get their passion project onscreen. It’s really not for the faint-hearted.

The British TV industry was my life for 25 years.

I worked in-house for years at major TV studios such as the BBC and ITV, and one or two of the better indies, where I developed loads of shows.

I sold many scripts and edited hundreds more. You might even have seen some of them.

I’ve also got a cracking eye for a screen story, and many contacts high up in the industry (as my agent will tell you) so I’ve a much better chance of writing you a sellable script than most writers out there.

Once the script is written I can even tell you how to get it on the desk of some very powerful people.

But even with all that on your side I could never guarantee that you will sell any script I write for you.

In fact, I can almost guarantee the opposite — that you will never see it on screen.

firstly, IT TAKES FOREVER

The high-ups won’t read it. Even if they look you in the eye and shake your hand and make a solemn promise.

They have sixty other scripts to read before yours, and they don’t have time to read anyway.

They’ll either give your script to their readers, and then it’ll take about two months to get a reply, or they’ll be interested enough (or feel convicted over their own promise enough) to put it on their own reading pile, where it will sit for the next six months inducing guilt (but not enough guilt to get it read).

You'll get a 'Sorry, not for me' note many months in the future, usually way after you have forgotten you sent it to them.

Even if through some miracle it comes to the top of the pile and they open it, and read it (all), and they really do love it, then that’s just the beginning of your pain.

Did I say the TV world is a bear pit? It’s worse than that. Think of a bear’s mosh pit, with added vipers and rhinoceroses. And the TV industry makes the world of movies look kind. Without backbone, deep self-confidence, and maybe desperation, you'll be steam-rollered.

But all this isn’t the thing. Plenty of writers deal with all the preceding. No, there's another, massive hurdle.

THE REAL PROBLEM

The real kicker is that you didn’t write it yourself.

Even when they love your script more than their first-born, no-one ever in the history of the business bought a script and put it straight into production.

They’d see your perfect script as a working draft.

A crude pointer to something interesting that they would need to reshape with you.

So there’d be meetings to discuss. Face to face meetings. Stacks of them. Over months. Or years.

During which they’d discuss every story beat, every line with you, and they’d ask for rewrite after rewrite.

It’s just the way it works. And it's a problem.

You see, I couldn’t be in those meetings as your ghostwriter because they only want to work with the person who actually wrote the script.

They want to take it to pieces and they need the actual engineer in the room to do this. And then they want the rewrites fast.

YOU’D FIND YOURSELF OFF THE PROJECT

So that moves you to some kind of executive producer or 'writing partner'. But that’s not a good place to be. These people don’t like too many people in those meetings.

Soon you might find yourself edged to the edge. And beyond.

Soon you might be an ex-executive producer, with no control over your own passion project.

i have a proposition for you

I’m going to make you an offer. It seems a fair one.

First of all I'll show you what it takes and how unlikely you are to get this idea on screen.

If you still want to hire me as a scriptwriter after that, well, you my friend are really determined, and you really believe in your story, and I love that.

So we should talk.

I'll share everything i know

Here's the deal.

One of my books spares no quarter in giving you every scrap of my scriptwriting experience.

It’s a giant download of everything I know about writing and the TV business, in forensic detail and with (I hope) a whiff of entertainment.

I ask you to take your time to read it and see if you can’t write and sell the script yourself with what it teaches before hiring me.

It’s called Screenwriting Goldmine, and you can get it from Amazon.

It’s currently £11.99, which you may notice is many tens of thousands pounds cheaper than hiring me to write a script for you.

not enough? let's talk

If you read the book, and give it a fair try, and you still think you can't write a script, and you still want to hire me, then get in touch.

I’ll ask you what you thought of the book, and then I’ll be fair, and square, and if I honestly think I can help you with the script then I’ll write you the very best script I possibly can.

When it’s done and you’re happy, then I’ll even wish you well as you tuck all 90 pages under your arm and head for the bears.

But I won’t come with you. I only like writing these days. I don’t like mosh pits.

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