Playwright and screenwriter Ben Brown talks to Daniel Cadwallader about his time in the industry, his eclectic career and how he got started.

Ben discovered a passion for writing during his gap year; initially he wanted to write a novel, but discovered he was more attracted to characters and dialogue than a narrative voice so naturally turned to play-writing. He spent some time working as a lecturer in law and philosophy until one of his works was put on the Edinburgh festival and he hasn’t looked back since.

Ben has won the Barclays best new play award (for his second play Larkin with Women in 2000), adapted works such as Rebus for television and continued to produce for stage and screen since the late 90s.

Advice for new writers
Obviously someone with these credentials has some useful advice for aspiring writers. Ben tells me about his writing process: “I used not to have a definitive plot laid out before I started writing, but I’ve learned from my mistakes, so I have fewer false starts now and I really like to work out where I’m going before I sit down in front of the computer.”

As well as writing Ben has several other ways of earning money, one of which is advising other writers on the adaptability of their work for his agency: “I’ve been doing this for about a year, I read two books a week, it can be fiction or non-fiction, usually by Curtis Brown (literary agency) authors. Often it’s a manuscript that’s just about to come out, and I advise them on the story and where to go with it.”

From stage to screen
The leap from stage to screen (television specifically) may seem like a huge one but Ben tells me how he’s achieved it. “It was through my agent really, I started off in theatre, which is a fairly common path, but I did then want to write a screenplay, so I wrote the arrangement (an as yet unmade romantic comedy) which became my sample and it’s important to have a sample, particularly a screenplay sample because it’s quite often that producers won’t produce, in television and film, what you want to write.”

Commissioning ideas
In Ben’s own words “all writers are essentially freelance”; with this in mind I’m wondering how Ben goes about finding work. I ask him if he works to commission or writes for himself and then finds funding. “Every play I have written, as opposed to TV or film, has been my idea, but having said that I’ll quite often have the idea and then try and get it commissioned. I have written plays without commission, obviously everyone says to do that at the beginning, but if I really believe in something, even if I think it’ll be a hard sell I will write it anyway.”

Ben Brown is a great example of a jobbing writer, a guy who hasn’t really compromised on his personal integrity, but also knows when he has to play by the industry rules. Ben shows that to keep your head above water you have to branch out into a little bit of everything, and not be too precious about your own work.

Ben Brown interviewed