Conclusion: Sustainable Screenwriting

Abstract

This collection of essays is an account of my attempt to understand more about shifts in writing for the screen during a time of rapid change, the fluxes and flows that sociologist Zygmunt Bauman calls liquid modernity.¹ An era in which many of us seek a sense of belonging, coherence and community, fearful of finding ourselves disposable in a consumer-driven, globalised world. The story, however, is not all bleak. We look for groups to which we can belong in a world in which all is shifting and nothing is certain. Yet many people resist liquid modernity, they attempt ‘to arrest the constant flows and fragmentation of contemporary life’.² According to sociologist Richard Sennett, who has traced the return of the craftsman, we create narratives about our working lives to generate a sense of coherence, agency and meaning in a social world that often works against this.³