Soap plots

heffomike54

Hi folks, was watching Emmerdale tonight and saw that they had a plot concerning a half brother and half sister becoming romantically involved with each other. I seem to recall that Fair City, had a similar story line and this got me thinking. Do soaps all just copy each other's stories?

It seems to me that every soap repeats the same plots over and over again. Murders, Weddings & Affairs etc etc etc

So can anyone recall an original soap opera plot?

xalot

yer man getting buried under the patio in Brookside was pretty orignal!

deelite

Haley being a transexual in Corrie (I should point out I really watch Fair City and Corrie)

Also Starring LeVar Burton

In today's society it's rare to find original thought full stop, not only in soaps. Everything has been done before. One of my English lecturers in University once mentioned that all fictional works can be traced back to Homer's Odyssey and that every work since has stemmed from that.

heffomike54

xalot wrote: »

yer man getting buried under the patio in Brookside was pretty orignal!

deelite wrote: »

Haley being a transexual in Corrie (I should point out I really watch Fair City and Corrie)

Eh the first one was just another murder in the end, just the way the body was disposed for somewhat original. Yeah the transsexual plot in corrie wass fairly original all right

Long Room Hubba

I think your terms are a bit narrow, Hef. Every story with a murder in it doesn't have an identical plot. Otherwise Othello would be be the same story as Some Like It Hot.

I think Roy and Hayley's romance was one of the greatest soap stories ever, and it seems to me that it was utterly original. The current main story in Fair City may be less less startling, but I believe it's the first time a soap has tackled female-on-male domestic abuse.

Soap stories try to deal with fairly fundamental emotions, in a style that aims at contemporary realism. There are a few factors that rule out some stories.

1. You don't have the resources to tell some stories properly. Anything that involves stunts or extra locations will probably cost too much to shoot.

2. Soaps tend to be broadcast before the watershed, so that limits the ways you can tell sexual or violent stories, and makes some stories completely impossible.

3. You're working for a major broadcaster, and therefore subject to a fairly stringent mainstream morality. You won't see many soap stories about a happy recreational ecstasy user, for example. The media storm would very quickly reach the director general, and heads would probably roll.

4. Similarly, you're not as free to deal with political or social issues as a novelist would be. Introduce a corrupt Lib Dem MP to Eastenders and see how long you stay on the air.

5. The contemporary setting and the realistic style rules out many kinds of story. Most genre stories are gone. No westerns, horror stories, science fiction, history, etc. Think how many films that would knock out of today's roster at Cineworld: Saw, Red, The Hole, Burke and Hare ....

6. You can't tell stories about real people. (There goes The Social Network.)

7. The stories have to be set largely among pre-established characters in a previously defined milieu.

Within those limits, I think the soaps do very well. As for copying each other's stories, I would say it rarely happens. I worked for a while on Fair City, and it was taboo in the story room even to mention a story from another soap.

That's not to say that individual writers don't get inspired by other shows, or by books and movies, but professional writers will always try to develop a story as far away from its source as possible - for pride, as much as anything.

Ann22

heffomike54 wrote: »

Hi folks, was watching Emmerdale tonight and saw that they had a plot concerning a half brother and half sister becoming romantically involved with each other. I seem to recall that Fair City, had a similar story line and this got me thinking. Do soaps all just copy each other's stories?

It seems to me that every soap repeats the same plots over and over again. Murders, Weddings & Affairs etc etc etc

So can anyone recall an original soap opera plot?

Remember Nat and Georgia in Brookside? Another stomach turning brother and sister storyline.

heffomike54

Ann22 wrote: »

Remember Nat and Georgia in Brookside? Another stomach turning brother and sister storyline.

Yeah this is what I mean and what kinda of annoys me about soaps, is that almost all the plot lines seem to be repeated from other soaps. Only a handful of plots are original, which is a shame.

Ann22

Has any other soap had a husband beater storyline like Fair City's doing at the moment? I can't think of one.