Process #1: The Idea of the Idea

In the beginning and at the end...

It’s all about the idea. What we’re looking for is that great idea. The idea is everything. The idea. The idea. The idea.

Anyone foolishly embarked on a screenwriting career will hear these words, or words like these, many, many times across that career. Sometimes the person uttering said words will be sitting at a desk, in a position of power. Sometimes they will be intoned by someone standing on a stage, in front of a room full of expectant writers, looking to be inspired to find that great idea. Often, they will be used by someone whose alleged job it is to recognise a great idea when it smacks them in the face and then turn that idea into money...

The only true problem with all this idea stuff is that while it sounds very nice, in reality it is largely bullshit.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the idea of ideas. I have ideas all the time. Some of them I think are good. Every now and then I even have an idea that I would class as a great idea.

Which is a really big part of my point. Ideas are subjective beasts. My great idea is someone else’s “meh”. Your great idea is my “actually I have an idea like that, only better”. Adam Sandler’s great ideas unfortunately lead to more Adam Sandler films than the universe really needs.

Idea. A formulated thought that leads to a course of action. Or something along those lines. A beginning point, for the most part. Of a journey. But an exciting part, for sure. Who doesn’t get excited when they have or hear what they thin is a great idea? As a writer, the epiphany of the great idea is one of the purest moments of joy in the game. Sit back and soak it up. And if you’ve just had your great idea in a story room, enjoy the admiration (tinged with jealousy) of your fellow writers.

As fun as a great idea can be, it is, in my world at least, often a notion that leaves out any sense of whether the person having the great idea is capable of delivering on said idea.  Writing a 1-pager that promises a world of great ideas is a relatively easy task compared to the hard mahi of seeing those promises all the way to the bitter end. As a writer-for-hire there’s always a sense of sadness when the person offering you the gig says something along the lines of “unfortunately the original writer couldn’t deliver on the promise of the idea”.  Dream crushed. Next please.

The promise of an idea is why executives and producers love a good logline. A one-sentence encapsulation of an idea is catnip to them because it means they can “get” the show or film.  Getting or not getting an idea is the unfortunate flipside of having the idea.  Having your moment of creative inspiration pulverised before your very eyes because someone simply doesn’t “get” it, is soul-destroying.  You want to scream and shout: well, that’s not my fucking fault, is it?  Begone and bring me someone who does get this quite brilliant idea, you peasant!

“Nah, I don’t really get it.” That is a really hard position to come back from.  It’s like trying to explain a joke to someone with no sense of humour.

At the start of the process, the concept of an idea is a selling point.  Being able to pitch what is deemed, by the people in the high places, to be a great idea will get you in the door.  If you have that skill, all power to you.

But for me the true place for an idea, in terms of writing a series at least, is right at the heart of things.  At the heart of everything is where the idea grows from a collection of words into a concept that must be obeyed.  I call it the Controlling Idea and a Controlling Idea is what you measure everything against.

Breaking Bad is one of my favourite shows of all time and, from my point of view at least (going back to the subjective thing mentioned above), the Controlling Idea is all about the hubris of science.  Science teacher Walter White, to provide for his family in an unjust world, makes the unwise decision to start cooking meth.  Turns out Walter is the best damn meth cook ever.  More than the money, and despite the body count rising around him, Walter loves the fact that his meth is the best meth in the world.  He is blind to the social cost of what he does because, to him, it is all about the science.  Those who doubt or challenge his scientific genius are dispatched.  Even right at the very end, as Badfinger’s “Baby Blue” plays him out, Walter is still all about the science.  An idea that remains constant from Season 1 Episode 1 to Season 5 Episode 16 is a Controlling Idea.

The best Controlling Idea I’ve had the pleasure of working with was on Outrageous Fortune, courtesy of Rachel Lang.  A news story about the appallingly low median income for women led to a thought along the lines of “if that’s all you get for being honest, why do people bother obeying the law?”  This leads to the idea of the matriarch in a crime family deciding that the family must abandon crime and “go straight”.  The problem is, by nature and nurture, every other member of that family is hard-wired to break, flout, and/or ignore any damn law they like.  Even, if they are brave enough, Mum’s law. 

In Cheryl’s law, Outrageous Fortune had a Controlling Idea that we could come back to, time and time again, to make sure we were on track with our storytelling.  Will I get away with breaking Cheryl’s law?  What if I break Cheryl’s law, but for a good cause, does that count?  Often the most fun to be had was when Cheryl herself either broke her own law or, even better, when she was tempted to break Cheryl’s law.  Every episode, every story decision, could be tested against that one scene in Season 1 Episode 1, when Cheryl lays down her law.  The idea controls everything that follows.

A hundred and something TV hours later, at the very end of Season 6 Episode 18 (man, we did crazy long series back then), Cheryl’s law was still front and centre to everything.  Yes, Cheryl had paid the inevitable price of ending up alone, but she could look around her, at the ones she loves, imperfect but safe, and know that she was right in doing what she did all those thousands of scenes ago. 

And then she can pop outside for a fag.  And some peace and quiet.

So maybe, at the end of the day, with Th’ Dudes playing you out, as the sun sets over West Auckland, it is all about the idea.