If you want your story writing and scripts to stand out from all the rest, write with passion and enthusiasm.

When I first started reading scripts for a local theatre, I quickly discovered how bad most of them were. Roughly thirty per cent were biographies of Nineteenth Century authors (usually French, occasionally Russian), thirty per cent were heartfelt pieces about being a creative artist (usually a writer), thirty per cent were amateurish pornography, which left only ten per cent worth reading.

When I worked in the BBC’s Television Script Unit, we classed scripts as A, B or C. The C’s were the 25 per cent which were so awful they fell off the bottom of the scale. The B’s were the two thirds which had nothing of interest in them. Many of these were intelligently written, but they just sat there on the page; so they also got the standard two-sentence rejection: ‘Thank for your script which has been carefully read and considered. Unfortunately it has not been chosen for production.’

Only the top five or ten per cent were classed as A, meaning they had something (please, anything...) that sprang to life. It may have been a single vibrant page amidst an otherwise indifferent script, but there was something that caught the reader’s attention. These were also rejected, but they got an encouraging letter and constructive feedback. After two or three A grades, we invited the author in for a chat and advice.

There were vast numbers of writers out there who had no talent at all. One morning, the deputy head walked through my doorway in anguish: ‘There are too many words in the world!’

Good writing is distinguished by its energy and enthusiasm. New writers often focus on technique, but if your writing doesn’t have passion and vitality, it’s dead in the water. The quality that sets good writers apart is their immense appetite for stories. Stephen King talks of a writer being ‘formed’; and in most successful writers this forming process begins at a young age.

It starts in the very simple way of ‘enjoying a story’. Most children enjoy stories, but in some youngsters it becomes a real passion; and it’s this appetite that sets future writers apart. They read story after story, and not always ‘quality’ fiction either. Many children love the pulp excitement of comic books, or immerse themselves in favourite TV adventures.

This appetite eventually grows into the desire to write their own stories. They copy the style and characters of the stories they love. Or they make home videos, using ideas from a TV show they’ve just watched, or organise friends into five-minute plays, copying scenes from a local stage production they’ve seen.

In adolescence the writer’s appetite explodes, and they turn into massive fans of certain stories and genres, reading and watching everything they can find, and constantly writing and creating. They argue passionately with friends, in class or on the internet, about works of great literature or their favourite episodes of Buffy or Star Trek. They read critical essays or in-depth features in movie magazines. They copy the styles of their favourite stories in their own writing.

Their writing talent grows with this simple skill of mimicry. As they write their own stories, they mimic the styles they enjoy; and through repetition they gradually absorb the basic techniques of storytelling.

Many years later, the successful writers I’ve known still exhibit those same characteristics: they have an endless appetite for stories; they love talking about details; and they’re magpies when it comes to picking up new techniques.

Most of all, what sets successful writers apart is their determination to go all the way. Their stories are strong and dramatic, their scenes brimming with emotion. Even ‘quiet’ stories are carried along by powerful undercurrents, and their comedies push human folly to extremes. This all results from the author’s appetite: the appetite for full measure, the appetite for everything a story can give.

Releasing your passion for the stories you enjoy is essential — it puts energy in your writing. And sharing your enjoyment with other enthusiasts focuses your awareness on successful techniques to copy. Rediscover those passionate teenage arguments about your favourite books and movies. Many successful writers still have teenage enthusiasms, and argue obsessively about their favourite books.

Top writers have an intuitive ‘story sense’ — a sense of when a story succeeds and when it fails — which they developed over years of consuming industrial quantities of novels, movies, plays and TV dramas, and discussing them with friends and colleagues.

Many professional writers also spent years as reviewers writing paragraphs about movies playing in local cinemas, or as publishers’ readers analysing the strengths and weaknesses of manuscripts, or as students writing essays on film and literature. By assesssing the work of other writers, they sharpened their awareness of when a story works well.

Reading autobiographies of successful writers may also encourage your appetite for writing, especially if they convey the writer’s own enthusiasm. I particularly enjoy Stephen King’s book On Writing which radiates his own passion for writing.

And then write. You’ll never learn techniques and develop your confidence by reading books; you’re going to learn by doing. Mimic successful techniques in your own work, because that’s how you learn — by mimicking. Children learn almost everything by mimicking. They copy their parents, their teachers and older children until they can perform new skills quite naturally. (Sometimes they copy things we’d rather they didn’t!) Children learn faster than adults but it’s the same basic process. We learn best by mimicking skills until we can do them naturally.

Don’t copy another writer’s words or the content of their scenes (unless you’re doing it as a purely private exercise) as that violates their copyright. Instead mimic the way their scenes and stories work, and use the same techniques to make your own story work. Eventually you’ll develop your own style; but every writer begins by paying homage to the stories they love.

Energy and enthusiasm make your story burn luminously. The rest of this web site is about technique, because that’s the craft of the writer. But technique simply shows off the story to its best advantage. The inner fire is the passion you put into writing. So write the stories you love writing, and let your enthusiasm set your stories aflame.