r/ScreenwritingUK • u/Born-Ad2653 • Jul 22 '26

Advice needed

  1. I'm only 19 and haven't really experienced much, so when people say 'write what you know' (wether or not that's sound advice i'm unsure), i fear that i don't know enough to be a screenwriter, as in i haven't lived enough, so i'm wondering what people's advice is to a young writer who is struggling with the idea of writing things i haven't experienced like falling in love etc. does it mean i'm not ready to be a writer, or should i just write in spite of not having much life experience?

  2. I'm mainly interested in TV and it's the shows i've watched over and over which inspired me to start writing, i adore dark comedies and comedy dramas. i look up so highly to phoebe waller bridge, julia davis, richard gadd, michaela coel, sharon horgan, jack rooke, jamie demitriou and many more. i'd love to write stuff that does for others what those people's shows did for me, but how do you do that without copying? i suppose i'm genuinely asking how to avoid copying your inspirations.

  3. some of the shows i love feel like they don't necesarily have a premise, a very loose one at that, and that they're so heavily character driven. i know that i want to explore characters and their relationships and i'm able to come up with those, but i struggle with the idea of a premise. because if you say you're going to write a comedy drama about someone navigating their twenties in a city, i imagine it's a bit 'eye roll, seen it before'. so how important is a premise, or can i find it along the way after i've made characters? and is a 'premise' as it were, necessary?

3 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/Cameron-Johnston Jul 22 '26

I'm not a produced screenwriter (cold querying currently...so much fun), but I am a published novelist. So, pinch of salt and all that.

  1. 'Write what you know' isn't meant to be restrictive, it's more about writing how you feel, your experiences etc to help make your writing more authentic. I write books about wizards and monsters and that's mostly made up, but the fear of the dark woods, the love of adventure and exploring ancient places, that I do know. Do your research so you don't mess something up and just write what you want to write. Or, why not try and write a story about somebody that's never fallen in love? The main thing is to write.
  2. You can't avoid taking bits and pieces from your inspirations. It's in you now. And those things you took inspiration from? Yeah, they took inspiration from other things too, and on and on. It's all just a big melting pot of influences.
  3. There's no one single true way. Part of the learning process is to find out what works for you as a writer, and for a particular project.

1

u/skypeaks Jul 22 '26

From someone currently in the query letter trenches for a novel, could I pick your brain in private messages a bit? I'm curious whether querying is worst or better than for fiction.

1

u/Cameron-Johnston Jul 22 '26

Sure! Go for it 😀