Cultivating screenwriters
The late stage and screen actor and director Hugh Lee once said: “Dramatic works condense and reflect people’s stories.” Writers are the driving force behind these stories. How do they make them moving and engaging?
“Screenwriters have to love telling stories. The moment I think up a good story and imagine audiences enjoying it, I get excited,” says Wang Wei, the veteran writer behind the TV show Wo de Yeman Qianjin (“My Barbarous Daughter”).
Wu Luo-ying, who won a Golden Bell for Best Screenplay for the series The Hospital, expanded her skillset by also taking part in the writing, filming and promotion of The Amazing Grace of Σ in 2022. In addition to working in TV, Luo has been teaching scriptwriting at Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) and National Taiwan University for the last few years to pass on her real-world experience of the craft.
On the day we interviewed Wu, she and her students had been busy brainstorming a script about a 30-year-old female mob boss managing her gang, loosely modeled on the hit American crime drama Breaking Bad.
Wu says that her screenwriting class begins by introducing students to basic character building, plot and story, structure and outline, and the “beginning, conflict, and resolution” of three-act scripts. It culminates with students writing their own scripts, which are expected to have vibrant storylines. To develop a convincing screenplay, the students need to be able to draw on a rich body of life experience, and to be able to conduct field research.
She cites her own series The Hospital, which centers on doctors competing amongst themselves for power and prestige, as an example. Though she was only 32 years old when she began working on it, she was already a mother of two who had lived through marriage, divorce, and a cancer diagnosis. These experiences added depth to the show’s depictions of medical work, the meaning of life, and care for others. But she says that Taiwan’s educational environment funnels most people into an education-to-career pipeline, and thereby deprives them of unique life experiences. “Why don’t people work first, and then return to school to study?” she wonders.
Taiwan is currently using multiple channels to support the projects of screenwriters and producers. For example, the Ministry of Culture (MOC) organizes a screenplay competition and provides grants to produce both short and feature films. Similarly, the Taipei and Kaohsiung city governments also hold screenplay competitions and offer subsidies for filming in their respective cities. In short, many forums exist in which writers can express themselves.
Meanwhile, the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) began operating in November 2019. The group works with the MOC to flexibly channel capital from the National Development Fund and the private sector to film, animation, and TV productions, as a means of fostering the emergence of a Taiwanese content industry. Chen Jia-yi, a graduate student at TNUA who received a grant to produce a short film entitled Dear Me, says: “There is so much government support. That’s an advantage we have over China and South Korea.”
To retain writing talent and protect the rights of professionals in the field, organizations including the Taiwan Screenwriters Association, the MOC, and the Taipei Art Creator Trade Union have drafted model contracts for writers and directors in the performing arts. Introduced in 2022, these contracts set standards for working hours, compensation and copyright ownership for writers, choreographers and directors in the hope of improving working conditions in the industry.
Wu Luo-ying teaches at Taipei National University of the Arts, where she passes on her real-world screenwriting experience.
Taiwan’s free and democratic environment means TV and film writers have no lack of subjects to explore. Wu says that if they produce good work, our entertainment industry’s international profile will rise.
