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Vol 1 | Issue 29 | ISSN 2979-8744 (online)

Something I've always been a fan of is projecting ahead. My brain can do it very easily. It works with contingencies and story world-building, but part of that process is researching so that I can be accurate in whatever I'm creating in my head, whether that's a story, a career path or problem-solving things that haven't even happened yet, like my next confrontation with the teenagers in my life.

When I first started thinking about becoming a screenwriter, one of the first things I did was research some of the writers I admired and look at their career histories. It's something I've never stopped doing because, as I delve further into the industry, I hear about more and more incredible writers and discover work that aligns with my own interests.

I always find this task very humbling, and I think it's essential if you want to understand more about the industry we're all trying to work in.

We quite often hear about writers who have plays on in the West End, programmes on the big broadcasters or streamers, or films that make it to theatrical release. But we don't hear nearly as much about the writers who are just starting out. You'd have to dig quite deep, or already be following certain individuals, to be aware of their progress.

It really isn't a race, but for one reason or another, certain individuals manage to achieve the kind of success that compels the rest of us to keep working and keep going.

And I think it's worth looking at how they got there.

Take Sally Wainwright, for example. Her professional writing career began around 1987, when she was just 24. She started writing for The Archers and subsequently worked on Emmerdale and Coronation Street before becoming better known for At Home with the Braithwaites and eventually Happy Valley. That's around 13 years between her early professional work and her first original television series, and approximately 27 years before Happy Valley arrived in 2014.

Sarah Phelps entered through a BBC Radio development scheme in 1999, wrote for Westway and then moved into EastEnders. She's since written numerous television dramas and adaptations, including And Then There Were None and The Sixth Commandment. That's at least 16 years between her early radio development work and the Christie adaptation.

Steven Knight worked in radio and television comedy long before Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Dirty Pretty Things or Peaky Blinders. His career stretches back to the 1980s, almost 30 years before Peaky Blinders, although he'd already achieved considerable commercial success by then.

Jack Thorne began writing for theatre in the early 2000s, with his first professional stage play produced in 2005. He subsequently wrote for Shameless, Skins and This Is England, among many other projects. By the time Adolescence arrived in 2025, he'd been writing professionally for around 20 years and had already enjoyed considerable success across television, film and theatre.

Of course, not everyone's route takes decades.

Michaela Coel began with poetry and performance before developing her play Chewing Gum Dreams, which premiered in 2012. It became the television series Chewing Gum in 2015, just three years later. She went on to create I May Destroy You.

Kwame Kwei-Armah wrote his first play in 1998 alongside his acting career, but it was his fifth play, Elmina's Kitchen, in 2003 that became his major National Theatre breakthrough.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge founded the theatre company DryWrite with Vicky Jones in 2007. Fleabag premiered on stage in 2013 before being adapted for television in 2016.

And Phoebe Eclair-Powell began writing seriously around 2013, with her first full-length produced play, WINK, following in 2015. She went on to write for Hollyoaks and now on the Christie adaptation Tommy & Tuppence.

It's quite a mixed bag, isn't it?

Some writers have moved from their earliest professional work to a major breakthrough in just a few years, while others have spent decades building careers before creating the programmes we now associate with them.

There's something else that I find even more interesting than the number of years.

Sally Wainwright wrote around 60 episodes of Coronation Street between 1994 and 1999.

Sarah Phelps wrote 42 episodes of the radio soap Westway and approximately 90 episodes of EastEnders across her career.

Michaela Coel reportedly went through 41 drafts of the first episode of Chewing Gum during its development for television.

And Elmina's Kitchen was Kwame Kwei-Armah's fifth play, not his first.

These are just the attempts we know about. How many other scripts did these writers start or complete? How many projects fell through, were rejected or never reached an audience? And how much of that work helped them become the writers they are today?

I think it's very easy to admire a finished piece of work without appreciating everything that came before it.

Some of these writers grew up surrounded by creative people or were encouraged to pursue the arts from an early age. Others benefited from living in London, having parents who worked in the industry or being able to access established theatres and development programmes.

That doesn't mean they haven't worked hard. But it does mean the circumstances in which they developed their skills weren't necessarily equal.

Benji Walters offers a particularly interesting example of a different route. He worked as a journalist before collaborating with director Luca Guadagnino on a proposed ten-part adaptation of Brideshead Revisited. They reportedly spent 18 months developing the scripts, although the project was never made (poor guy.)

Since then, Walters has accumulated credits including Noughts + Crosses, Obsession, The Leopard, and Code of Silence. His most extraodinary leap is from this to being the sole writer for the reboot of Piorot.

It's an unimaginable opportunity to spend that length of time developing work alongside an established director, regardless of whether the project reaches the screen. And it makes me wonder how many other significant opportunities never appear on a writer's list of produced credits.

We can't know exactly which experiences or connections made the difference for any individual writer. But looking beyond the finished programmes certainly changed my perspective.

I think the reason I find researching other writers so humbling is that it makes me reconsider my own expectations of time.

We're quite used to thinking about career progression in relatively short periods. You leave education, find a job and, over the next few years, perhaps work towards becoming a manager or moving into a more senior position. Before you know it, you’re in your mid thirties and have a team of radically younger people than you all thinking you’re the adult in the room.

Of course, every profession is different, and I'm sure there are plenty that require decades of experience. But when I look at screenwriters whose work I admire, I'm reminded that developing a career can take far longer than I'd perhaps imagined than when I started.

And that's quite a hard pill to swallow, particularly for anyone starting later in life.

I don't want that to discourage anyone. Quite the opposite in fact as I'd rather have a realistic understanding of the distance ahead than convince myself I'm constantly about to cross the finish line. Because what does it tell me if I look at a writer with 20 years of experience and compare their latest television drama with my first or second screenplay?

I've spoken to many early career writers who are convinced that the script they've just finished could be the next Netflix hit. And perhaps it could. There's nothing wrong with ambition, and there will always be exceptions.

But I do wonder how often we look at the finished work of established writers without asking what it took for them to reach that point.

It's not just about talent, either, we’ve talked before about how I believe talent is something we develop. How it grows through practice, through trying things and getting them wrong, through learning what works and, importantly, why it works.

There are other factors, of course. Contacts are a huge part of this industry, and so is being in the right place at the right time. But I think we sometimes mistake that for pure luck.

Writers have to put themselves in situations where those connections can happen. They have to ask questions, listen, build relationships and eventually find the confidence to share their work even if the feedback is not what you want to hear.

The difficulty is that not everyone has the same opportunities to do that. Location, money, age, personal responsibilities, and upbrining can all influence what's possible. And the routes available today aren't necessarily the routes that existed when some of these writers began their careers.

Wainwright and Phelps both gained substantial professional experience through radio and continuing drama. Those were opportunities to write regularly, learn from other professionals, and develop their craft while doing the job.

We still have continuing dramas, of course, but we've also lost programmes such as Doctors, and the number of opportunities for writers to gain that repeated experience has changed.

It's something I'll explore further in next week's newsletter, when I share my conversation with John Yorke about the challenges facing emerging writers and the importance of having somewhere safe to fail.

We've all heard the expression that a writing career is a marathon, not a sprint.

I've heard it at talk after talk, on course after course, and I understand what people mean: you need to pace yourself. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether it's actually closer to a triathlon (Lycra not withstanding) because there are different disciplines involved:

Leg 1: Learning the craft.

Leg 2: Building the contacts and relationships.

Leg 3: Finding a way to turn those skills and relationships into professional work.

And just because you're making progress in one doesn't necessarily mean you're moving forward at the same pace or even in the same leg as others.

Back in July, I shared an exercise where I mapped my career ambitions using concentric circles. I began with learning the craft and getting a short film made, then moved in towards more ambitious productions, longer projects, writing on someone else's television show and eventually creating my own.

And somewhere beyond all of that was my ambition to earn enough to have a personal chef…

But revisiting that exercise in the context of these writers' careers has been useful.

When we see the success of someone like Sally Wainwright or Jack Thorne, we're often seeing the inner circles. We don't necessarily appreciate how much work went into reaching them.

It makes me look at my own plan and ask where I am on it. It reminds me that there's still quite a broad circumference to cross. And I'm okay with that.

What I'm less comfortable with is constantly feeling as though I'm nearly there. That the next script, competition, scheme or meeting might be the thing that changes everything.

Perhaps it will. But perhaps it won't.

I'd much rather know the length of the triathlon than keep seeing the finish line without understanding how far away it really is.

So here's something I'd encourage you to do:

Or better yet, ask them for a coffee!

You might be surprised by what you discover. And perhaps it'll help you look at your own progress a little differently, too.

Helen

Next up… John Yorke: Who's Investing in Tomorrow's Writers?

© Helen Tompson 2026 | Feel free to share this newsletter with other writers. If you'd like to reproduce or quote larger sections, just drop me a message first.