Scriptwriting

I love writing scripts for animation. Maybe that's because it fits in with the early writing I did as a child when I used characters from TV. In writing animation, someone else creates the characters and the setting and writes them down in what is called 'the series bible'. My role is to create stories using those characters and I really enjoy doing it.

The skills I need for scriptwriting are very similar to those I use for writing picture books. Both require me to think visually and somehow transfer the pictures in my head onto paper so they can be recreated by the illustrator or animator.

The first series for which I wrote was Little Ghosts which was shown on CITV in the spring of 2002. As the name suggests, the main characters are ghosts and the series has a wonderfully surreal feel with lots of laughs. My episodes are Dragon Flight, Washing Day Wish, Ghost Games and Superghost.

I've also written for the Canadian animated series, Henry's World, and for a series called Rudi and Trudi. I hope to write more scripts in the future, but I'm currently concentrating on books.

If you want to know more about writing for animation, visit Stan Hayward's excellent site.