Chalk Scribblers meet the screen agent: Leah Middleton

Join the Chalk Scribblers to meet Leah Middleton, a script agent at the Marjacq Agency.

Leah’s talks on screenwriting have become a regular fixture and as before, she’s offered to include a critique of treatments sent in advance in her talk with a promise to be constructive rather than eviscerating!

For that reason, please try to use a decent sized screen if you're attending. It may be difficult to see the screenshares properly on a phone.

If you'd like to put a treatment forward, please message David (the giraffe) for the email address to send it to. Do NOT send them direct to Leah as they will get lost in her slush. Please bear in mind that while the files will not be shared beyond Leah and the event hosts, the treatments will be screenshared, the discussion will be public and any slides that Leah prepares will be shared with the attendees.

Leah is willing to look at a maximum of five treatments. If more than five are submitted, she’ll choose the five that offer the most generally valuable points and if forced to choose between two, she’ll use whichever was submitted first.

Deadline for submissions is 7pm on Wednesday 21st October.

You can improve your chances of having your treatment selected by doing some online research on what makes a good treatment.

Please read and follow ALL of Leah's guidelines:

• Title (try to be original, and memorable)
• Name (or penname)
• Format (slot length and genre)
• Logline (no more than two cracking sentences that sum up the main conflict of the programme)
• Short summary that intros the world and main character(s) arcs (one or two paragraphs)
• One line character bios for each main character
• Longer synopsis that fills out the characters as it goes. If you are writing a film think of the act structure as a guide to writing the synopsis. If you're writing a TV series then structuring your synopsis by episode can be helpful in making it sensical. It can also help you see whether you have enough plot for that many hours of television! And remember, writers always want to leave their reader wanting more, but you need to outline the entire plot; if you have a brilliant twist that the whole thing hangs on (think The Sixth Sense) revealing it in the treatment could be the difference between getting a commission, and not.

Length: 2-3 pages.
Format: PDF or .doc

Leah represents all genres and is happy to see scripts from all genres, but has offered the following tips to anyone keen to get the most out of their writing and of the session:

'The main thing I would encourage your writers to do is really challenge themselves to offer characters and narrative arcs that feel original. I see a lot of very competent scripts in my line of work, but oftentimes we're treading very familiar territory, and it can be hard for writers to stand out if they're ploughing an already well-ploughed furrow. An example of this is an overreliance on genre tropes and off the shelf charactersations, and overuse of withholding as a device to create tension. The pace of plotting in today's scripts is very fast, and withholding can limit a writer to just one big reveal moment rather than delivering a number of twists. Dealing with the fallout of a secret can generate a lot more conflict and plot than building to the reveal of a secret is able to do. So consider what your story engine is - is it strong enough to keep generating conflict and intrigue over the full format? And ask yourself what your script would look like if you got to the meat of a secret more quickly.

Think carefully about whether your treatment spends enough time telling the story in action. Film and TV is a visual medium, and your storytelling must be visual. The most common mistake I see in treatments is lot of time being spent on explaining the world and set up of the story, with too much focus on the internal machinations of the characters, what they think and feel about things, but without adequately expressing how this internal world is to be externalised. Tell your story through what your characters are doing, rather than what they're thinking.'

Although there is no charge for the session, there is an attendee limit so if you find you can't make it, please remember to change your RSVP so someone else can take your place.

Relevant links:

• Leah’s profile