As the busiest UK script consultant in UK film and TV – I try really hard to keep my website up to date with fresh blogposts as often as I can – a portion of my work involves helping and encouraging new scriptwriters with my hugely popular script report service and a lot of my online content is aimed at helping new writers get their work into shape – and advising them on the business aspects of scriptwriting as a career (especially in the UK).
Thanks to helpful online tools these days – I can see what content is the most popular with readers – and with that in mind – he’s a handy list of the best of the best script writing advice from my own blog:
Scriptwriting agents
In at number one is this article – a handy list of all the UK scriptwriting agents – with useful links to their website and submission pages – and some very helpful advice on submitting your work to an agent as a new writer. That blogpost gets literally hundreds of individual views every single day – the competition to get an scriptwriting agent is hugely fierce (so best follow my advice).
Where to submit scripts
My second most popular bit of content is all about where to submit scripts if you live in the UK – this blogpost is hugely popular and covers lots of information – especially about the BBC Writersroom submission process.
Netflix script submissions
This blogpost is very popular too – and it seems a lot of writers want to get their scripts read by Netflix – is it possible? Can you submit a script to Netflix? Read on to find out more…
What do scriptwriters earn? Is it a viable career?
This blogpost gets hundreds of views daily – but also, people spend a lot of time reading the info on here – about whether scriptwriting is a viable career – and how much can scriptwriters be expected to earn – all valid questions if you want to be a pro scriptwriter. The info on here is pretty UK specific – but the general advice covers scriptwriting careers the world over.
The UK soap script writing hand book
This is a long post – and its massive online – with readers lapping up my UK soap opera scriptwriting handbook. The handbook covers writing for soaps in more detail than ever before – including how to get a job as a soap scriptwriter (and earn 100k plus a year in the process). I used to sell this ebook online – but its free to readers of my script consultant website.
So that’s the top five – and it’s interesting that a lot of these articles are very practical – and business related (Its show BUSINESS after all).
These articles attract readers partly because I’m a professional scriptwriter with a long career– and this sort of info often only comes from having spent years doing the actual work as scriptwriter on various shows including Eastenders, Emmerdale, Hollyoaks and Family Affairs (plus add in features films, short films and online comedy and drama shows). So, readers are getting this straight from the horse’s mouth. Giddy up!
Matthew Cooper has been a script writer for hire and UK script consultant for over 20 years. He’s written for most of the UK soaps, including writing award-winning episodes of Emmerdale, EastEnders, Hollyoaks and Family Affairs and has been BAFTA shortlisted and Royal Television Society nominated as a script writer.
His directorial debut, the rubber reality horror thriller ‘Markham’ was released in 2020, his second feature film as director ‘At The Mountains Of Madness’ hit the screen in 2021. You can find out more about Matthew’s work as a director here.
You can find some of his broadcast credits on the IMDb. Matthew is also a judge in the Page Turner Awards 2022.