How did you first come to work on Neighbours?
I'm afraid my story confirms what a lot of people say about TV - it's not what you know, it's who you know. (Although I'd like to think that what I know played a small part, too!) I think the big thing is that most jobs in TV aren't advertised like "normal" jobs - you get wind of them by word of mouth, or you get recommended by someone, whatever. Anyway, to my story: my partner was working in-house as story editor. Over the years that he'd worked there as a storyliner and script editor, I'd seen firsthand what a great job storylining was. And I'd helped him come up with ideas - you know, just chatting on the couch at home, passing on stories I'd heard. He kept encouraging me to try for a job because he thought I had a talent for story, but I didn't want to work at the same place that he did. Talk about a fast way to kill a relationship! But at a certain point he decided that his stint in the story ed's chair was going to be his last with Neighbours at that time, and a job came up on the table... So I put my hand up for it, took a week off from work and tried out on a volunteer basis (ie unpaid) for a week. I loved it and Ben Michael offered me a job after three days. And it all went on from there.

Were you a fan of the series before joining the crew?
Yes. Obviously, because my partner was working on the show, I watched a lot. But I'd always watched, always been a fan of Neighbours and not Home and Away. Maybe because it was set in Melbourne, but also because I always liked how warm and grounded in normality the show was. Sure, it gets a little crazy sometimes, but it always comes back to home and hearth. Through my teen years, I watched all the stuff with Charlene and Scott - God, their weddings was so sob-worthy, especially for a future romance novelist - and listened to that Angry Anderson song over and over again.

As well as writing scripts, you also spent two years as a storyliner, between 2001 and 2003. What does this job involve? Were you responsible for creating any key characters during this period?
Basically as a storyliner you are helping to come up with every scene in the show, five eps a week, 48 weeks a year. It's a gruelling, crazy, hilarious, emotional job. There are usually four storyliners and one story ed. Starting from Monday, we all sit in a room and spitball big shapes for the week. We're obviously picking up stories that we left at Friday's episode of the week before, as well as kicking off new ones. Where do those stories go next? What direction do we go in? Sometimes there's a big, overreaching plan for major stories and that's all worked out in advance - things like Steph's cancer story, Susan's MS - major, big story arcs. But also you're looking for stories that might just last a week, or sometimes just a few days. Hopefully, by the end of that Monday, we've got some shapes in place for the week. Tuesday, we sit down and start plotting in earnest. Scene one, Monday ep, off we go.

I've worked with different story eds, all of whom have their own way of plotting. Some will divide the episode into A, B and C story strands and plot the scenes - or story beats - for each story separately, then weave them together at the end when they've all been plotted. Others will plot as the episode runs - what do we need to see first? What do we cut away to? What next? Typically, we're looking for 18 to 20 scenes per episode. There are location restrictions regarding how many outside or non-studio scenes we can have every week, and how many different places we can shoot those scenes in. There are also cast restrictions. There are also limitations on how many guest characters we can use, and there is generally a push to keep the drama playing out between our regulars, both for budget and audience reasons. Most watchers want to see things happening to the characters they know and love, not some newcomer to the street. As a storyliner, I used to sit there thinking "how would I feel if this was me?" And "is it in X's character to say/do that?" The story table demands that storyliners and story eds offer up a lot of their own lives, memories, experiences and the experiences of people you've known to the story gods. This is where stories come from, after all - imagination + human experience.

Typically, one storyliner writes the scene breakdown for one episode a week, but because there were usually only four of us, the fifth episode was usually split between two storyliners. We rotated who that was on a weekly basis so no one got bogged down with a higher workload than anyone else. Once the Monday episode was plotted, the storyliner writing that breakdown would leave the room and head off to write it up. And so on for the rest of the episodes. By Thursday, the Monday and Tuesday ep storyliners were usually back in the room, helping to plot the Friday ep. Then the story ed and story/script producer would read the eps, give us back notes to change things for continuity across the block, story tweaks, whatever. Then the whole block would be released as a draft document to be read by the higher powers that be. And, when they had all said their two cents worth, the block would be released to the freelance scriptwriters who would turn the storyline into a script.

As for any characters that I was instrumental in helping create, it's very hard to take responsibility for creating anything entirely on your own on the story table. You have an idea, someone else jumps on board with it, before you know it everyone is batting it back and forth, adding detail here and there. It's very collaborative - which can be both exciting and invigorating but also frustrating when you have a very clear, vivid idea of where a story/character should go but you are the only one who believes in it. I do remember the discussions we had around Izzy Hoyland, however. We decided we needed a villain with the demise of Darcy (oh, Darcy, how we loved you!). We wanted to have a woman for a change, and we were throwing around a lot of ideas about what kind of woman she would be. I suggested we keep her a smaller, more human villain, rather than going larger than life like Pat the Rat or something like that. A woman who was both charming and selfish but also damaged and vulnerable in her own way. A charmer of men, someone who was needy and constantly manipulating people to cover her own failings and lies. This was based on a woman I had seen in action at around that time - one of those people who is constantly telling people what they want to hear, then going into the next room and blithely betraying the first person to get the second person to like her. This was one tiny seed of the discussion from which Izzy grew - and you know, if you asked other people who were at that meeting, there's a fair chance they might remember that they contributed a great deal to her character, too. The story table is like that.