Salesmen Abroad, Treatment Day #8

I'm further along with 'beat-sheet' process, for Salesmen Abroad. I've been adopting the 40-card beat sheet system championed by Blake Snyder/Syd Field (amongst others), using ten cards for Act 1, twenty for Act 2 and ten more for Act 3. So far I've got twelve cards yet to fill, but I'm pretty happy with the ones I've already got.

The flow's working well at the moment and all I think I'm missing are a few linking scenarios.

So far, so good.

Salesmen Abroad, Treatment Day #2

Ok - so I've not been working on this for too long but I'm already beginning to see where the characters are starting to go. I've created another secondary character (which may turn into the antagonist) and think I've worked out what the Act 1 and Act 2 plot-point transitions will be.

Some of the interpersonal relationships between the central characters are beginning to gel. Scott Barber and Paul Wallis are continuing to feed me with anecdotes of their own experiences in the 'world' in which the story is set - so I've plenty of ammo to call upon.

So far, so good.

It's nice to be schmoozed

I had a very interesting meeting this afternoon with Scott Barber of SeaView Pictures (and the driving force behind the FilmNav website) and Paul Wallis. I've written a couple of short pieces for Scott in the past - Selling Sweeney, and Novocaine WIll Numb the Pain - and he got in touch with me to see if I was interested in working with him and Paul in developing a feature.

The film - with the working title of Salesmen Abroad - will be loosely based on their experiences of working in the broadcast arena in Eastern Europe around the turn of the new millenium. At the moment it's intended to have an Auf Wiedersehen, Pet tone but with a more white-collar feel. We've indentified the central character, the three other 'salesmen' and the 'love interest/dilemma', and I've got three or four weeks in which to develop the initial treatment/synopsis.

Scott and Paul have some very good connections in the film and broadcast medium, so (in theory) the production and post-production element of the process should be much easier than novices working from scratch. All I need to do (all!) is to produce a strong template which we're all happy with, respond to feedback and then produce a first-draft script. We're looking at a run-time of 90 minutes with a 15 certificate.

I may be quiet here for a while, or I might use this area as a means of letting of steam.

We'll see how it goes.

If I'm not writing here ...

It's because I'm writing elsewhere.

I've been re-working the Oliver Drummond and the Four Horsemen story - including new elements which come pretty much right in at the beginning: more suspicion and (hopefully) more tension. They're going well and I'm liking the new inclusions. I think it'll make the story stronger and let the reader ask more questions about some of the character's motives.

I've also (in the last couple of days) starting fleshing out the plot for the (as yet unnamed) Tiberius Found sequel - oooh, there's some stuff going on: revenge, betrayal, intrigue, power-gaming, double-crossing. I'm thinking it'll be a touch darker and harder than Tiberius Found - the Daniel Henstock at the end of the story isn't the same person from when it started, and those events have changed him. His world's different and he comes to realise that the stakes are now much higher.

At least, that's how the Beat Sheet is shaping up. Right, back to it ...

Quiet, not idle

That's me, by the way. I may have been quiet on here of late (I've even been berated for it from some quarters!) but that doesn't mean I've been idle. As of a few minutes ago I've finished the most recent edit of Tiberius Found. Unlike a lot of other writers who find their word count drop significantly during the edit/re-write stage, I find that my word count goes up. The total count went from 75,000 to 77,000 - quite reasonable for the YA market, I think.

When I write the first draft I generally under-write and as I go through the iterations I tidy up the structure, remove redundant words/sections, correct any typos (and they always have a way of sneaking through) and expand any areas which need clarification. The up-shot of this process is a gain of 2,000 words from an original manuscript of 75,000. From what I understand, a lot of writers just get as much down during their first draft and then find themselves hacking and cutting the dross away to tighter up their story, but there are a few of us out there who seem to work the other way around.

I'm going to leave it for a while then do one more iteration - pretty much just as a read-through - to see what I think about it as a whole piece. Then it'll be put up on Amazon for Kindle.

Tiberius cover art?

Artist Julie Cuthbert has supplied a provisional end product for the cover art of Tiberius Found, following our initial meeting last week. It still needs a little polishing and tidying up but I think this is the one we're going to go for.

It has the feel of sci-fi and enforces the gentic, DNA theme which is at the heart of the story.

This version differs wildly from the original artwork as we decided that the image as was didn't really convey what the story was about.

War of the Dead UK Premiere

At last! War of the Dead, Marko Makilaakso's long awaited WWII Zombie feature, starring Andrew Tiernan, will finally have its UK premiere during Glasgow's Film Festival horror film fest on Friday 24th February.

For anyone that's not aware about this film, it's been years in post-production following disagreements between the producers and for a time was thought that it might not even see the light of day. Ironic really, considering it has zombie-based theme. However, after a titanic effort on the part of its lead actor Andrew Tiernan and a handful of others it has crawled its way onto the film festival scene and the news of a UK premiere is fantastic news.

Ten of the eleven films in the festival are getting their UK premieres and you can get more deatils / buy tickets here. If horror flicks are your bag then these films are those which need your support; you can get a festival ticket for all 11 films for £55, or pay £8 per film.