A seriously underappreciated series
In the BBC adaptation of John Le Carre’s The Night Manager, we follow Angela Burr, member of the British Secret Service, as she convinces hotel night manager, Jonathan Pine, to help bring down a notorious arms dealer.
The Night Manager is one of the only series I have purchased on Amazon for safekeeping and rewatching.
From a writing perspective, there’s a great deal to be learnt from the script. Here’s one lesson:
When writing a scene, start with the ending in mind
In the following scene, Burr visits Pine at his place of employment in Zermatt, Switzerland. In the exchange, we might wonder why she initiates conversation by bringing up Pine’s book collection.
It’s a bit random and off topic. We may initially question whether the writer knows where he’s going with the scene.
But after a long exchange, we come full circle. By the end of the scene everything comes together and the reason for the discussion about books is made known.
Planting something at the beginning that will later be used as a little payoff is such a great way of crafting scenes.
Instead of starting the scene in a random place and hoping it will lead somewhere cohesive, it is far more satisfying for the audience, to construct the ending first and build every line of dialogue with it in mind.