Faked Tales

That’s it, Script Frenzy’s done. A month which felt like forever, writing-wise, and no time at all, in normal terms. I’ve managed to maintain some of my social life while hermitting away on my balcony. This year I had even less holiday to take for the Frenzy and still managed to hit the deadline. I ended with a hundred and four pages, only just more than my required hundred, but I have things to do.

My current plan for the comics is to work on the pitches for each of the four series, which shouldn’t take too long, maybe as a Monday’s work in the next month. Then look on sites, Comixology and the like, perhaps, post the first few pages to see if I can hook in any artists who might work well with it.

The next thing on the agenda, writing-wise, is to edit the novel. It took three months to proofread, so I’m giving myself three months to make the changes I’ve noted down. I’ve missed the characters and the setting of the novel, which is hopefully a good sign.

I have had issues with genre lately, being that it fits a bunch of different genres and for ease of use, I’ve just had it down as a “Young Adult novel”. This month, as well as editing Lightning, I’m going to read a few YA novels. I’ve grown a bit disillusioned with the genre after a few books went down badly. I’d reached a point of thinking to myself, “Do all YA books have no plot at all, because if that’s the case, then I’m not writing a YA book.” I know, or at least I hope, this is a crass generalisation. In a party last night, discussing the tone of my book, I mentioned that it was a YA book for adults. A vast amount of YA books have a large adult following, possibly as large as the youth audience. People frown on genre fiction, while ‘literary’ fiction has grown just as formulaic and somehow even more po-faced. So the ghetto of YA seems like it’s actually a good bridge between the two. You get historical fiction, sci-fi, teen drama aping the problems of literary fiction (albeit with far less mid-life crises). So it appears to be a good place to be, from an outside perspective.

Then you look at some of the novels in it. I’m not going to lie and say I don’t want Lightning to be the next Harry Potter or Twilight, popularity-wise. I do, and hopefully that’s fine. I’m aware of my problems with Twilight, at least, and Harry Potter’s one of the books I’m actually putting myself through this month, just to see what’s right, what’s wrong, and if I genuinely do fit in this niche area. I don’t expect much, but hope to be surprised. Somehow. The other books I’ve got lined up from the genre are:

Skellig, which is a borrowed book and therefore should have been read a year or two ago when I first got it. I’ve got no idea about what it is, other than I think there was a tv version at some point.

The Subtle Knife. I was crashing at my brother’s and read the entire last half of Northern Lights from when I woke up until he woke up. We’d had a lot to drink, been up late, but I woke up early just out of habit. So when we wandered around Greenwich, looking for breakfast, I charged into a second hand book store and got a copy of The Subtle Knife. Then I promptly forgot to read it for ages. I’ve heard almost all people who know me and know His Dark Materials say to me that it’s the one I’ll love the most. That it’s a great piece of work. So that I’m saving for last, my prize for getting through Harry Potter’s first book and whatever Skellig will have to offer.

As far as indicative texts on teen media go, I’ve already read Twilight, in case people have that as a recommendation, for whatever ungodly reason they’d do that. That’s a horrible, strange tale for another time. I’ll just say I wasn’t impressed and get onto the hyperbolising later. For those who haven’t heard of it. I envy you.

SCRIPT FRENZY

I love comics. That’s not going to be a surprise for anyone who knows me. One of my first memories is watching the Superman Motion Picture with my family. That’s probably one of the more telling and shaping moments in my youth.

That and when my brother was having a doctor’s appointment for his glue ear, I stole a black and white comic which reprinted an X-Men and a Thor comic. I think that was my first ever comic. After that I went into buying Secret Wars when it was reprinted with Alpha Flight, the Iceman miniseries and whatever else the British Secret Wars comic could grab. From there I fell in love with the X-Men and started what is now an eighteen year comics habit. There are people older than my reading of comics. That’s scary.

WHAT IS SCRIPT FRENZY?

Much like National Novel Writing Month, Script Frenzy is a month-long competition. Well, competition’s a bit of a fake phrase for it. It’s a challenge for all participants. NaNoWriMo asks that all people who sign up try to write 50,000 words, Script Frenzy asks that we write 100 pages of script. Those who win get 100 pages of script which they’ve written in a month. One hundred pages of product. It can be edited, redrafted, whatever but hell, you’ve just made something.

SCRIPT FRENZY 2010

I’ve grown more pragmatic in this last year of writing. Last year I took a more ambitious approach and wrote two and a third television pilots. They were genre-based and therefore too ambitious for someone with no contacts, connections, money or even equipment to do a film.

It was a great month and I’ve worked some things out about those intellectual properties which can be used in the future.

I also decided that I want to write scripts for something visual, so possibly a web film which will be possible without any kind of a budget. But that script may have to wait until I can iron out the idea.

SCRIPT FRENZY 2011

So what am I doing this year?

I’m working on comic scripts. I have four that I want to write first issues to. After that I’ll either hit up the web film or try and carry on with the runs of these comics.

My main goal for these comic scripts is to find an artist, create a pitch and then try to get them sent off to comic companies.

This year I actually thought to look into sending pitches to Marvel and DC. I knew DC didn’t really allow anything unsolicited, but hadn’t known that Marvel’s policy shifted in this way, too.

That means I had to shelve my proposals for an Elektra series, a Stilt Man series (yes, there is a Stilt Man in mainstream comics) and, probably shockingly, a use for the 1990’s Marvel character X-Treme.

I’ll probably post little pitches here once each issue one is finished, but not the spoiler-filled proposals I’ll send to the companies I want to send these scripts to. What I will say is that the scripts are:

• A crime story in a world where retired superheroes work undercover in four opposing crime families. Think a world like that of Powers or Invincible but with a story closer to Heat and Infernal Affairs.
• A superhero comedy about characters who are better friends than they are heroes. A brightly-coloured world with character-based issues and moral ambiguity. Like if the JLA were played by the characters from Misfits.
• A city where one million people wake up with no memory, patrolled at night by things beyond our comprehension. A group of characters try to find out where they are, who they are and what’s going on behind the scenes of the city. The influences are The Prisoner, Silent Hill and Dark City.
• A modern village-based chocolate box murder mystery crossed with 1920’s Lovecraftian horror. A fractured family are brought together when an unfortunate niece inherits an old mansion and starts finding parts of her dead aunt.

So far I’m five and a half pages through the required hundred. I’m certain I’ll be annoying everyone around me with the page count I’m on until the last week of April, which I have off work to hermit away and grow insane as the deadline looms. Or chill on my balcony with the netbook and a coffee, if last year’s Script Frenzy was anything to go by.