I'm currently reading "The Writer's Tale"by Russell T Davies, who, amongst many things, ran Doctor Who as head writer and executive producer when it came back from 2005 until 2010. It's an amazing book, with lots of brilliant insight into the mind of a brilliant writer, and it could help any aspiring writers a great deal - I'm certainly finding it very useful.
I could sit here and share a lot of quotes from the book, but this one jumped out at me:
"First of all, Michael Grade said some fascinating stuff at that lunch the other day. He said 'Do you know the difference between drama and melodrama? Melodrama is: I've got a gun, I'm pointing it at you, I hate you, I want to kill you, my finger is squeezing the trigger... and the gun jams. Drama is: I've got a gun, I'm pointing it at you, I hate you, my finger is squeezing the trigger... I can't do it.' I think that's brilliant. And he mimed all that, pointing his hand at me. In the Ivy! Funny thing is, it cropped up the very next day. Because the same difference applies to drama and science fiction. Gareth has written a Sarah Jane script where she meets her parents in 1951, but she knows she's got to get away. So, she drives out of the village, but the roads keep twisting back, space folding in on itself. She's caught in a loop. Every path she takes brings her back to where she started. She can't escape. But the drama version is: Sarah Jane knows that she's got to get away, and tries to drive out of the village.... but she can't. She knows that it's wrong, but she turns the car around, to go meet her destiny. Thank you, Mr Grade!"
So there's an important lesson in the difference between drama and melodrama.
Now, I'm off to give "Arrow" a try. Let's see if knows the difference.
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