Blog
 | Douglas Watkinson October 19, 2017 |
In for the Kill…
“When they get out, we’ll be waiting…” Who said that? And about whom? It gave me the idea for Easy Prey, which is being promoted by BookBub October 21st. But it wasn’t a straight steal on my part, or an easy write, just the inspiration behind it. I kept seeing two sides to the crime and everything in…
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| Douglas Watkinson September 20, 2017 |
Taking the ssiP…
There’s a drama series on BBC1 at the moment called Rellik and it’s hit the deck in spectacular fashion. Far from being a scandi noir offering, as the title might suggest, it’s simply ‘killer’ backwards, which makes you groan before you even get to the opening scene. Or in this case the final scene. You can just hear…
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| Douglas Watkinson August 22, 2017 |
Exploiting my nearest and dearest…
I can’t tell you how difficult it is to write about people you know! I don’t mean the cannon fodder (in writing terms!) you meet in passing, or even people you see every day and would say you knew … reasonably well. They’re dead easy to draw without a shred of conscience and sometimes they prefer the picture…
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| Douglas Watkinson August 1, 2017 |
Who put the ‘i’ in mischievous?
I’m always banging on about misuse of language, but my current beef is with the word ‘mischievous’. Who put the ‘i’ in it and made it ‘mischiev-i-ous’? It doesn’t really fall into the category of language reshaping itself with use. It doesn’t make it easier to pronounce, better to look at, easier to spell, or give it a…
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| Douglas Watkinson June 22, 2017 |
How Not To Tell a Story…
Sometime in the last century I was the Script Editor of an iconic television police series called Z Cars – (If you remember it you should probably be in a museum). Because of the sheer amount of drama the BBC was making then the Producer suggested that we cast around for new directors and a wise friend pointed…
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| Douglas Watkinson June 8, 2017 |
Role Reversal…
Just as I was starting to believe the Brits could no longer make decent TV drama (with the exception of Black Mirror) and that we’d handed the baton to Europe and America, along come two series to stand that on its head. The first is Jimmy McGovern’s ‘Broken’ – so much going on in it without ever smashing…
 | Joseph Hewes May 9, 2017 |
Mother isn’t feeling well…
I’m always harping on about television sequels and prequels, and new adaptations of classics that were better done in the past. To me they are proof pudding of the lack of originality among writers and producers. ‘Endeavour’ is the prequel that’s the odd one out: beautifully written and acted with the directors keeping well out of the way….
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| Joseph Hewes May 3, 2017 |
I think it’s a female talent…
I’m talking about doing two things at once. Or even two things in succession, to say nothing of three, four or five. Plate spinning. My inability may just be the result of the business I’ve been in for the past 200 years, but I find it extremely difficult to write in the morning, stop working, stop thinking about…
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| Douglas Watkinson April 5, 2017 |
A shameless plug for my talented family…
It’s nothing less than that and I make no apology for it. You can see Dunchan Clyde (Watkinson) playing D.S.Peters in the new series ‘Snatch’ (based on the film). It’s due for transmission ‘imminently’, we’re told. His sister, Sassy Clyde (Watkinson) is one of the driving forces in ‘Get Over It’ theatre company. Their next project is a…
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| Joseph Hewes March 13, 2017 |
Do you know what happened to ‘Nor’? Neither do I…
I don’t usually care if words drop off the edge of the plate, with one exception. Whatever happened to the word ‘nor’? It’s not a particularly beautiful word in its own right but it has a purpose without which some sentences don’t make sense. ‘Nor’ is being constantly replaced by ‘neither’. I watched an episode of Suits the…