This Time it’s War

The second delusion was one of the most difficult ones for me to craft as a writer, I knew I wanted both Joanne and Beth to come against each other for the promotion in the office. I wanted to make it clear that they were both strong women who were fighting over this job promotion. Using a war like setting helped reflect the ‘real life’ as military strategy and soldiers are often spoken as ‘units’ and the sales in the office were also referred to as ‘units’.

I depicted Beth as a Nazi who only spoke GCSE level German, as the delusion itself was Joanna’s and of course she doesn’t speak German show only the small amount of German she learnt at school. This delusion was filled with frantic speech, that mocked old BBC broadcasts with over the top diction adding some comic relief to the frantic war text.

When the delusion finally finishes, Joanna is struggling in the war. Losing many of her units and the bunker she was hiding in, had been hit with a missile. The delusion again reflects the real world, Joanna in the office is doing well but is quickly trumped by Beth. When the delusion comes to an end, it is brought back into reality with a phone call from back home. Joanna’s farther calls, who is himself ill and is slowing down her sales.

The concept for the scene itself was not the difficult part for me to create, it was the dialogue itself. I have little to no experience in war jargon, however luckily for me our Set Designer, Sam Coggin has seen many war films and was able to come to my aid, taking the lead in writing the dialogue for this scene. I was worried at first about letting up the reigns of writing, but he knew more on the topic and was really able to help me craft some strong dialogue.

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