Today has been a day all about second act problems. I think it’s David Mamet who talks about dramatists always having problems with the second act. The foothills of a new script are the opening few pages, where you establish your characters, writer a few delicious lines, and generally feel quite satisfied with your first attempt at scaling some unexplored region of the Alps. Then comes the second act, looming out at you like some dramatic equivalent of K2. The second act is where you need to test your muscles. You have to find the nub of the drama — what’s at stake, the value or thing in peril.

Dialogue is easy to write. Dialogue with purpose is fiendishly difficult. Which is where I am at the moment. I have pages of notes written down about what characters represent, but to get these things within a plot is driving me slightly nuts.

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