One Man’s Ceiling

“One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.”
“A fool’s paradise is a wise man’s Hell.”
“Never run with scissors?”

I’ve not had much time for Twitter or my blog recently. Alongside planning my wedding, house-hunting and starting a new day job, I’ve had a number of projects stealing my attention.

What’s interesting about the recent direction of my writing is that these projects are not my original ideas. So far, I’ve mostly worked on my spec scripts, occasionally tailored to competition requirements but mostly my own fancy.

However, more recently I’ve been working in collaboration. With The Underwater Realm, we’re working as a three-person writing team, passing the script back and forth to wrangle it into shape. We’ve all been in it since the beginning, so it’s been moulded by the three of us.

But with Small Chances, I’ve taken a script by Jack Delaney that was originally intended for film and developed it for the stage (with multimedia elements). Working with someone else’s material is a challenge, but a common scenario for television writers. Being a stand-alone piece, I’ve had some freedom in changing elements of the characters, such as speech patterns and relationships, but continuing to touch base with both Jack and the director, Cat Robey.

I’m also taking a gander at a treatment that I might be writing into a feature. At this “bare bones” stage, there may be a lot of room to manoeuvre – or, conversely, there may be a large volume of input yet to be received.

Of course, the ideal is that everyone’s happy with the final result. However, it actually works like this: you’re being asked/paid for a service. The director/producer/script editor is your customer. So, at the end of the day, they’re the ones who need to be happy. It is, however, partly your responsibility to stop them making some hideous mistake that means none of you will ever get work again.

In short, being a writer means that your Perfect Vision is going to involve a lot of other people, who most likely have their own Perfect Visions. And if you’re coming second or even third to the story, a healthy dose of tact and polite hacking apart of someone else’s Vision is required.

[A shiny gold star if you can identify the source of the lead quote]

Shoulder tension and frown lines

There comes a point where there are so many things on your To-Do List that the only sane option is to curl up into a ball and read a book.

Unfortunately, that’s what happened to my entire week. If only Naomi Novik wasn’t so damn awesome.

But the longer you put the list off, the more pressing it becomes. Every minute you’re not writing/day jobbing/loading the washing machine is another guilty nail in the coffin of your self-esteem. And getting back on the damn horse becomes all the harder.

I’ve been struggling all week to come back to my writing. And today I’ve found a solution.

Say “screw you all, I’m taking some time” and walk about in the sunshine with an ice cream. Sanctioned time off where guilt is blocked out and the To Do list is momentarily erased.

And then I came home and beat my 2A into shape with a shovel.

Sometimes, writers, taking time off is the only way to get the work done.

Read It. Like It. Note It.

I’m a girl in a digital world. Even as a kid, when I had twenty-plus volumes of Encyclopaedia Brittanica, I only had eyes for Encarta.

However, there are just some things books do better. They’re better for reading in the bath. And they’re better for focussed research.

Wikipedia can give you the essence of the thing, but it’s not detailed enough. Websites can be tended by experts or fools. A book, as a thing, has gone through some sort of curating process – or so I like to hope.

The other excellent thing about books is that you can stick post-it notes to them. (In theory, you can write in them, but I shudder at the thought.)

I read ‘The Suspicions of Mr Whitcher’ in anticipation of writing my first detective novel. For anyone considering the same, it’s an excellent primer on how to portray a mystery and provides a lot of useful background information on detective work and the public perception thereof. I stuck it with two different colours of note, one of interesting elements of the particular mystery and the other for fascinating bits of information on murder in general.

One could argue this is merely a waste of paper. It’s not searchable or indexable. But it’s also a process by which information enters my brain. The act of writing a quote fragment or notable point on the note and sticking its glaring yellow next to the text seems to fix the idea in my mind.

Recently, I’ve been researching for the Underwater Realm feature films. I’ve picked up a book on Celtic sacred places and another on great dive locations. These are more what I consider “mood” books. Like my choice of music while I write, the words and images in these books evoke a mood of mysticism and wonder which helps me set the tone for my writing. They have also been attacked by post-its.

So, if you want to do a piece of in-depth research or just want to set the scene in your mind, I recommend a trip to your local bookshop – and stationer.

Glimpses of The Underwater Realm – part two

Okay, so it’s now January (Happy New Year and all that), but I’ve finally put together some more Underwater Realm backstory.

So, Dave sold me on five short scripts and we had a brainmelting session on possible ideas for the stories. I lost track of the project for a bit (my day job unfortunately takes a lot of my attention) while Dave and Jon developed the scripts for the shorts from those five initial ideas.

The next milestone in the project was the Production Meeting at the end of April 2011. This brought together the core Realm Pictures team with the talented heads of department needed to make these films a reality. Oh, and I was there. Mostly to drink wine.

Alongside the practical business of how to build a Spanish galleon, we spent a great deal of time working through what makes Atlantean culture and how it could fit in with the actual history and mythology of the Mediterranean. A large potion of this was figured out in the pitch black of a Devon night, while I tried to blindly write it down.

Some of the key notes from that meeting that have lasted through the development process thusfar include:

Pre-Fall: “They lead the world – teachers + philosophers. Like Elves, like Star Trek.”; “Giving culture through missionary – to Crete and Egypt.”

The Fall: Ideology shift – “By conquering, we can enforce our ideals to make the world a better place”; “physical disaster to parallel their idealogical cataclysm”

Post-Fall: “Gondor. Decrepit. Memories of grandeur.”; “decaying situation of a golden past”

There were also three questions key to our further development of this mythology:

1) When do they Fall?
2) What mythology do they tell themselves?
3) What’s the most interesting story?

However, I’ve also written things like “Atlantis is in the Atlantic”. They can’t all be pearls.

I also wrote a couple of audition sides for the short films on that weekend. The most challenging thing about those was that none of the characters speak in the shorts. It’s easier to audition people with lines and the scripts themselves don’t lend themselves to auditioning anyway.

Here’s part of an audition side I wrote for 1208, trying to bring out the emotional range we wanted in a monologue style:

In the next instalment, I’ll talk about the development of the feature script through the use of script retreats.

2011: My year with writing

This time last year, I reviewed where I was in my writing career.

I thought I had written the penultimate draft of Steampunk Assassins. I was writing the first draft of The Greenwich Problem. I was planning to write a romantic comedy termed Baking Lawyer (which I abandoned due to fatal flaws). I determined that Military Monster needed a complete overall (which is still awaited.) And I put everything else on hold.

And then 2011 happened.

In January, I finished the first draft of The Greenwich Problem for the BBC’s Laughing Stock competition.

In February, Realm Pictures won the Raindance/Pepsi Max competition. This started them on the road to The Underwater Realm.

In March, I was longlisted for Laughing Stock, which caused much excitement.

In April, I attended the London Comedy Writers Festival, got some great advice and met some awesome creatives. I also wrote another feature script for Script Frenzy.

In May, Realm House hosted the first UWR big production meeting.

In July, Dave, Jon and I went on the first UWR feature script retreat.

In August, I made a wiki for Realm Pictures.

In September, I created my first storyworld.

In November, I went to the London Screenwriters Festival. I got more great advice, and met more awesome creatives, and I pitched my scripts to three producers. I’m waiting to hear back from one of them about The Greenwich Problem. I also wrote an 80K NaNoWriMo novel that I will start editing in January.

In December, Realm launched their Kickstarter. The fund is currently at 85K and climbing. An absolutely amazing response.

Wow, what a year!

So, in 2012, I will:
- Final FINAL draft Steampunk Assassins and send it to producers
- Edit my Cyber Crime Sleuth (NaNoWriMo) novel and send to publishers
- Finish my Asylum pilot, enter it in Red Planet Prize, and send it to producers
- Make a short film
- Get an agent
- See Realm Pictures take Raindance 2012 by storm
- Get married XD

2011 Top Eleven

Here are my eleven favouritest things from this year. They all come with my highest recommendation.

X-Men [Colon] First Class

Out of all the comic book movies released this year, this was undoubtedly my favourite and a good film in its own right. It takes two big characters with decades of history and brings them back to their potential. It shows a complicated relationship develop into the closest of friendships – and then shatters it. The supporting cast enliven the film and the action plot ain’t too shabby. Come for the fights, stay for the characters.

Tangled

After Disney’s recent output, I was nervous about a new film. But the trailer sold me instantly and the feature didn’t disappoint. The first song threw me completely, as I’m now accustomed to Pixar’s style, but the dynamics between Rapunzel and Flynn (who I want to call Gwaine) sold it. Easily Disney’s best film for ten years.

Easy A

I missed this at the cinema, so rented it on DVD (yes, people still do that). It’s a funny teen comedy! With a real heroine! Emma Stone rocks this movie and the other characters are well-realised and engaging. The plot is simple yet compelling – and did I mention it’s FUNNY?

Arthur Christmas

This film was sprung upon me by my friends who wanted some “Christmas spirit” – and we laughed constantly throughout. This modern Lapland vision was populated with a dysfunctional family and an adorable hero, with a simple “coming of age” story that invokes warm Christmassy feelings.

Merlin

The fourth season of Merlin has been the best yet. With the cast extended by a whole lot of knights (one of whom looks just like Flynn Rider…), there are a lot of relationship dynamics in play. The mythos is tied up in knots and broken apart but our heroes Merlin and Arthur, emerge stronger and better at the end. Swords and Sorcery Fantasy on the BBC.

Castle

Also now in its fourth season, this year saw a jaw-dropping end to Season 3 that left me stunned and yet eager for more. I loved these characters from episode one, but they’re just as fresh four years on. With barely one episode off the pace, this show is consistently great detective fare.

The Fades

Sci-fi horror on the BBC? Pull the other one. Geeky horror with a teen protagonist I feel for and a best friend who I want to take home for life commentary? With scary freakin ghosts and a fantastic series arc? Realistic teen issues and not taking the easy way out? Fan-bloody-tastic.

Downton Abbey

I watched this series for the first time this year and I see why everyone’s been raving! The thing that struck me most was the 20+ regular cast members. Developing storylines for so many characters convincingly takes a deft hand, but it was perfectly done. This series proves that good writing trumps set conventions, like “maximum six main cast” rules.

The Dido Kent Mysteries

I picked up “A Moment of Silence” in The Works for cheap. The premise caught me instantly: Georgian heroine solves crime. It’s Jane Austen meets Miss Marple! Including Austen-style letters to her sister and a peripheral romantic interest, it’s a country house murder mystery that provides all the ingredients for solution yet kept me guessing completely. The next two books are equally engaging and well worth a read.

Mistress of the Art of Death

A female coroner in Medieval England? Hells yeah! A fiercely-independent medically-trained woman who solves murders. I devoured these books in a couple of weeks and then discovered, sadly, that the author had passed away. However, while that leaves a terrible cliffhanger, it doesn’t diminish the brilliance of the series as it stands.

Sharpe’s Sword

Another epic reading endeavour this year involved the Sharpe series. My favourite author is Patrick O’Brian (Master and Commander etc.), so I was always going to be inclined towards a military hero. Whilst somewhat formulaic, the Sharpe series is an action-packed, womanising ride, with great friendships. And Sharpe’s Sword, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of the series – where a devastating injury to Sharpe shows the extent of Harper’s devotion.

Some emergent themes are large ensemble casts, crime-solving, and period drama. The unifying feature is compelling characterisation, with an emphasis on Strong Characters, Female.

Things I’m looking forward to in 2012:
- BBC Sherlock (FINALLY!)
- The Muppets (a long overdue return)
- The Hobbit
- The Underwater Realm premiere at Raindance 2012
- My wedding

Glimpses of The Underwater Realm – part one

As the Kickstarter campaign continues for The Underwater Realm project, I thought I would take you through some of the development from my writer’s perspective.

When Realm Pictures won the Raindance/Pepsi Max MAX IT competition in 2010 (with this moving short), they were given the opportunity to première a short at Raindance 2012.

Initially, we were talking about a ten-minute film concerning this Roman soldier who drowns in battle and wakes up able to breathe underwater. We went through various iterations of the idea, involving everything from a bleak journey across the ocean to that first wondrous glimpse of the city of Atlantis.

I have e-mails from Dave, charismatic director (you can see him talk enthusiastically here on a weekly basis). They go:

“stuck with where to go – thoughts?” accompanied by beats/outline/script

to which I reply:

“How about something more like this:” …with a completely different thing that bears some relation to the original, with a follow-up note like “The major point is that I think the downer bit needs to go after the crazy fun times – the rest was just framing.”

Meanwhile, Jon (producer) writes mood prose to get us all in the right frame of mind and he swaps scripts back and forth with Dave, which I read at intervals and hack up the descriptive passages to be less wordy.

Then I get an e-mail from Dave wondering if we should just write an entirely new short to a completely different treatment. Wait, isn’t that my line?

Which is when, in the middle of a long e-mail conversation about Script Frenzy, Jon says: “BTW Has Dave filled you in on the new Atlantis plan?”

To which I reply: “Did he go through with the crazy idea of the one act with the girl?”

Jon: “Um, not quite. Basically, putting long one to one side, and instead creating 5 viral shorts showing people interacting with Atlantis through history. ie start with a 2 min video about scuba divers finding strange ruins, then maybe a crashed spitfire pilot finding footprints under the sea, then drowning sailors in midst of Battle of Trafalgar etc etc until we get back to Roman soldier seeing the city of Atlantis in distance.”

Me: !!!

Cue three hours of e-mail in which poor Jon makes Dave’s arguments to me and I am both confused and think he’s insane.

Dave calls me up and I prepare to tell him exactly how much of a stupid idea making five shorts is. But he really sells the wonder of the sea stories.

Present Day divers discovering eerie ethereal beauty of the ocean, hints of a strange culture beneath the waves.

A World War II pilot crashing into the waves – a desperate drowning sequence, a half-remembered dream.

A sinking ship, Atlanteans clinging to the side, harvesting from the dead wood.

A stricken medieval young woman, choosing the sea over a life of confinement.

The Roman soldier drowning only to look on his dead comrades as a man who can breathe the sea.

Okay, well, it sounds pretty awesome. It’s difficult to argue against something that sounds that damn cool. We spend an hour-and-a-half talking about all the possibilities and what we can do with these five microcosms of fantasy awesome.

I hang up feeling exhilarated.

Next post, I’ll talk about the initial scripts for those shorts, how our big production meeting in Devon shaped the culture of Atlantis, and writing audition sides for characters who don’t speak.

The Underwater Realm – Kickstarter

The ocean. Vast. Unforgiving. Beautiful. Hostile.

Imagine that this untamed place is home to a tribe of people known to the Surface dwellers as Atlanteans. They have touched humanity but five times – this the story of those encounters.

Five short films premièring at Raindance 2012. Shot on RED Epic on location from the Egyptian Red sea to Tintagel clifftops, huge water tank sets to dry-for-wet studio wirework. The gateway to a world ripe for exploration in a feature-length fantasy trilogy.

I can personally attest to the dedication, talent and perseverance of the guys at Realm Pictures. They’re some of my oldest friends and I’ve watched them make an action-packed Zombies B-movie on a shoestring budget, win the Raindance/Pepsi Max competition with an inspiring, hopeful short, and now embark on an ambitious, revolutionary series of shorts.

You can see for yourselves that these guys can deliver and deliver big. So when I heard that they were launching a Kickstarter campaign, I was delighted that the peoples of the internet would have an opportunity to support this fantastic project.

Meanwhile, while funds are flowing in for the shorts, Dave, Jon and I are working on the script for the first feature film to follow these remarkable shorts. We’ve had two intense script retreats and are beating out scenes at present, putting some meat on those bones as we head into 2012.

To reach the feature stage, we need to make the best shorts we can. We want to inspire people to love the ocean and enter our world below the waves. We can only do that with your help.

Realm have put together some amazing rewards for your pledges, so please check out their Kickstarter page. If you’re unable to contribute, please spread the word via Twitter, FB, etc.

I hope you’re all just as excited as I am and want to get involved with The Underwater Realm.

Writers’ Tools: Wikis

Say you’re a writer. And you live in North Wales (not the worst place to be right now). And your favourite production company is based in South Devon. And their producer is based in London.

You could meet for the odd script retreat, of course. And there’s phones, e-mail, texts, Facebook, Twitter, etc. – but what if you want to work on something together? Simultaneously, recorded, organised and categorised?

Enter The Wiki.

What’s a wiki? The most famous example is, of course, Wikipedia. It’s a set of webpages available for editing by anyone with a username and providing an ever-changing information resource.

The name comes from the Hawaiian word for quick, and if you’ve ever witnessed the speed of vandalism following an England football loss, you’ll understand why.

Wikipedia in itself is an excellent resource for writers. While old media snobs may doubt its reliability because it’s “on-line”, it’s actually fantastically reliable – because it requires notability and is policed by its members.

However, this post is not just about the glories of Wikipedia. It is about creating a private wiki for your film company.

So, why would you need a wiki? Firstly, the aforementioned long-distance collaboration. Particularly if your various departments are spread throughout the UK and, indeed, the world – the way that most major comics are created, for example.

We wanted one to keep track of our canon, particularly Atlantean history and culture, to use as a reference for various departments and ensure continuity between the shorts and the films.

How do you get one? There are dozens of wikis out there, but broadly-speaking, they can be divided into hosted or own-server. The Choice Wizard at Wiki Matrix can help determine what you need and compare the most popular wikis.

If you’ve never made a website before, going for a hosted option is probably for the best, though not all hosts allow private wikis. If you want more control and a wiki within your own website, you need to host it yourself.

After reviewing the options, I decided to go for MediaWiki, the software behind Wikipedia, for one reason: it’s the software behind Wikipedia. Therefore, users are familiar with the look and, undoubtedly, some of our collaborators will already have experience of using it.

I have a working knowledge of HTML and FTP, but nothing much beyond that. Therefore, when looking to install MediaWiki, I was somewhat daunted by the fact that the software requires co-installations of Apache, mySQL and pHp (an AMP package).

However, if you have a decent webhost, they will often already have this capability – and so I was able to install with relative ease using this invaluable tutorial.

After that, it was a piece of cake. The software installation process asks basic questions to setup a fully-functioning wiki and then you can edit away just like Wikipedia (though I admit I got scared when I clicked ‘Help’ and realised I had to write that page too…).

Wiki markup language is easy to learn, like basic HTML or BB code, and the comprehensive MediaWiki support wiki has a good markup dictionary. I built a handful of pages, organised them in categories, and added two new users in about two hours, having never used the software or language before.

So, there you have it – long-distance collaboration with relative ease. How could you make a wiki work for your writing and production?

The Inaugural Realm Pictures Script Retreat

Anyone who thinks writing is a sedentary occupation should try a script retreat to Dartmoor. While on a quest to the pub, this writer got stuck in a thorn bush, dropped her handbag in a ditch and was unceremoniously fireman’s lifted across the marshland by her director.

Not my finest hour. In my defence, there had been afternoon wine.

So, apart from ill-advised marsh treks, what happened on our script retreat?

(For “what’s this script retreat business?”, check out my previous blog post. For “the story so far”, check out The Underwater Realm blog)

We had a trilogy of movies to plan based on some rough mythology and a few ideas from our production meeting in May. Also, we had done our homework, as laid out by the producer – protagonists, set pieces, secondary characters, settings and goal/task had all been brainstormed prior to our arrival in our luxury holiday cottage.

As an opening gambit, we discussed our favourite movies, with particular attention to what we did and didn’t like about Lord of the Rings, THE epic movie of our generation. Other movies frequently referenced were Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Avatar and Star Wars, with noted books including the Regante series and the works of Bernard Cornwell.

We moved on to Type A vs Type B characters – i.e. the journey from zero to hero (finding courage) against the already-badass dude (finding compassion). We played with a Type A character arc across all three movies and what development he needed with some discussion of plot and situation required to achieve this.

We then attempted the same exercise with the Type B character. This was much harder and we floated several different Type B characters. We considered plot points and relationships to drive him through the movies, but we struggled to get past movie one, let alone take him across the trilogy.

Setting Mr Type B to one side outside the local pub, we moved on to Atlantean society. What’s it like underwater? Why does our protagonist love it and why will our audience dream of breathing water just to get there? We discussed societal structure, leadership, religion, housing, tools, materials, villages and cities, bartering, role of women and children, and the rule of law. When we crept to bed at two o’clock in the morning in the pitch black of a generator-less night, we had made a culture.

Today, we moved on to set pieces and outlining the movies. I’m the first to admit that I’m not very good with set pieces and much prefer developing characters, but I think we came up with some suitably epic visuals and dramatic tension galore.

Our one real sticking point was Movie 3, Act 3 – because how do you end an epic trilogy without being a huge disappointment? Everything has been building to this: the pay-off of your character arcs, your society’s struggle, the thematic resonance of the piece. To bottle it in the last scene is to spoil everything that’s gone before.

All-in-all, we recorded around thirteen hours of tape and discussed another fiveish hours while traipsing around the Moor and eating excellent pub grub. We made a great character, chucked him in a rich and colourful society, and pushed him through three gruelling movies without mercy.

Not bad for two days in a cottage, is it?