What is the balance of realism and drama in particular soaps?

In most soap there is a general 50% balance of realism and drama. Writers will try to make soap as realistic as possible so the audience can engage with the events that are occurring but an element of drama is also included to keep an audience engaged with the events and make the soap more enticing to watch.

Hollyoaks tries to tackle realistic problems that concern young teenagers for example the couple Newt and Lauren. There was a story where they where debating whether or not to have sex and showed Newt trying to make up excuses as he was worried about it but was too scared to tell Lauren this. For their age group of 15-18 year olds this is a common issue, which occurs, and therefore teenagers can relate to Newts character and compare his issues to their own. However a slightly un realistic love story of Hollyoaks is Nancy, Chris and Ravvy. Nancy and Ravvy where originally together but he’s gone behind Nancy’s back and seeing Chris who is Bi-sexual who is also seeing Nancy. They’ve now found out about what is happening and are scheduling when they can see each other. This love triangle is more un-realistic to regular life and shows Hollyoak’s making the story line into a drama. Soaps will often do something like this to regain the interest within the soap and it’s clear that Hollyoaks is losing some their viewers and are trying to spice up their storyline.

Another soap, which mixes realism and drama, is Eastenders. A recent episode showed the Trumans sitting round the table eating pancakes. This episode was aired on Pancake day so it gave the impression that the viewers where watching a live family, as it wasn’t just the Trumans on pancake day it was also showing the mum coming in stressed after work wanting a drink and the daughter trying to cheer everyone up by cooking. This episode also showed the daughter out on a date and pulling techniques, which men try to use on woman. Eastenders will often show these sorts of episodes before or after a dramatic event is about to happen. If they where to show this type of viewing every day then the attention of the audience would be lost as viewers rely on drama to make their lives appear easier to handle than the ones they are watching. Therefore the audience can see an storyline progressing in the character the daughter has gone on a date with as he asks a lot about the background of Patrick an elderly man she lives with. He’s very impersonal about what he asks and is insisting on seeing him. It is clear that a plot twist is about to occur from this. For example in past stories of Kat shouting and Zoe in the street that she was her mother. A dramatic event realised after a long period of storyline.

It is this contrast of realism and drama which makes the events that the audience relate to appear more dramatic than their own and therefore feel that their life is easier to handle and the problems which they are dealing with can now be resolved easily as they are able to gain ideas relate to experiences of characters.