If you love writing, especially comedy writing, can I share a little secret with you? Write for radio. Write books, for magazines, greetings cards too, but give radio a go because radio loves writers. If you love writing scripts, love writing dialogue, if your imagination sometime gets the better of you, then radio is the place for you.
I'd never really considered radio as an option and saw it as a dead medium, a dusty old thing, beloved by those who grew up listening the wireless, but completely irrelevant to a modern, hip, kick-ass writer like me.
But the truth is, really there's no better place for new and challenging ideas outside of the novel. I love to write scripts. I like writing prose fiction too, don't get me wrong, but there's something about the structure, the format, of scripts that I love. It has an immediacy to it, perhaps due to it's being written in the present tense, it cuts to the chase and it's exhilarating to write. Now the one thing that a writer has bags of is imagination and of course sometimes, this imagination gets reined in because of budget restraints or scheduling issues. On radio the budgets are much smaller than on TV, but the beauty of writing for radio is it relies on the listeners imagination as much as your own. It's an audio medium; if you can produce the right ambience, you can put the listener there. A far flung outpost on Mars, a rock concert, a pencil case...the world is yours to create. It's as liberating as writing prose with the added bonus of hearing it on the radio, like a fledgling pop star getting their first number one.
I first got the bug trying in vain to get one liners on Newsjack (BBC 7, now 4 Extra) and managed it, to much celebration (I think my wife might have made me a cup of tea, I can't remember). Since then I've busily beavered away, working on radio scripts that I hope one day I'll get to hear on the radio, and feel like...I don't know, Justin Beiber. He's a pop star, right?
Man I'm getting old.
Newsjack is probably the best place to start, being an 'open door' show that anyone, even those without a writing credit to their name, can write for. It's a topical news show, lampooning the week's events and is a great place to try out one-liners and if you show promise they do commission writers for sketches. The current run has just finished but keep an eye on the BBC Radio 4 Extra website for future programmes.
Getting your foot in the door is probably easier on radio than TV as producers are hungry for new writers, and tend to have a more hands on relationship with you. In fact if you feel like you've got a good idea, radio producers are more than happy to be emailed directly, although bear in mind that they may have several projects running each year so be patient as you might have to wait for a response. Writing is all about the waiting, just as waiting is all about the phoney French accent and pretentious attitude about wine.
Find out about Newsjackhere.