Another Year of Writing

The end of another year approaches, and I look back to find its been a slow year for writing and publishing. There have been lots of other things happening to take my time and attention away from writing, and I have been persisting in my attemps to break into the top fiction markets, which inevitably means more stories rejected and less published.

I've had three stories published this year, all translations and all three new languages for me: Scottish Gaelic, Danish and Dutch. I also self-published a story for the first time, getting to grips with e-publishing and its complexities.

I've written six new short stories of between 500 and 6000 word, which is actually more than I thought I'd done. I also spent quite some time working on the plot and outline of my new novel Promised Land, though I've barely started on the writing itself. I also spent a lot of time editing my TV series screenplay, which I found rather enjoyable. Still no idea if anything will come of it though.

Next year: who knows? More of the same, though in what quantity I have no idea.

2011 Writing Review

At the begining of the year, I had several plans for what I was hoping to accomplish in terms of writing this year. We're approaching the finale now, so how have I done?

The main accomplishment has been finishing my second novel Gap Years. After some initial editing it was read by my beta readers, then I kind of ignored it for a while, but now I'm almost done with the final edit. Definitely by the end of December...

I wrote 2 of the short stories that had been waiting for ages, plus another 2 flash fiction stories that I thought up along the way. I wrote my first complete TV screenplay and plenty of suppporting material for a potential TV series. I've also collaborated on a short story with Kenneth Schneyer and recently started on another experimental collaboration with several authors. Details on both of these will be forthcoming.

What shall I do next...

A Whole Lot of Editing to do

In the past couple of weeks I finished the second edit of Gap Years, the first drafts of a new screenplay and a new 4000 word short story and the supporting proposal to go with the screenplay. Now, I’m faced with lots of editing, reviewing and critiquing, both of my own work and of short stories I’m critiquing for others. After a first edit of the screenplay and story they will go off to be critiqued, then come back for further editing. Gap Years is now with a Reader, after which I shall work on The Final Edit.

Somewhere among all this, which will keep me busy for several weeks, a new short story is beginning to take shape and hoping to make it onto paper…

Episode One

I've completed the screenplay I was working on, and it's finished up at 46 minutes - just right for a TV episode. I'll come back to editing it in a couple of weeks, but meanwhile I shall start turning my notes and ideas into a coherent proposal for a TV series, and write up synopses for the next few episodes. If it ever ends up on your screen, it'll be brilliant.

Screenwriting

Last year I wrote my first screenplay, adapting my short story Artefact Nouveau. It turned out to be only 23 minutes long, which isn't very helpful, but I did learn a lot along the way and got some useful feedback from others who know more about the subject than I do.

This week I've started writing a new screenplay, this time destined to be a 45 minute long TV drama pilot. With this script I have much more idea where I'm going, and a whole TV series planned out. None of which guarantees that the screenplay will be any good, but I'm enjoying myself nonetheless.

2011 Writing Plans

We’re well into the first month of the year – time to start thinking about my plans for the year in terms of writing.

I’ve been saying this for a couple of weeks now, but I’m exceedingly close to completing Gap Years, which should end up around 94,000 words. I’ve written little else since April last year, so I’m looking forward to the relief of finishing the first draft and having time for other things. Editing and re-drafting will keep me busy for a while, but there’s less self-imposed pressure.

I have ideas for 5 short stories, some of which I have been harbouring for years. One is a piece of flash fiction that I’ll probably do first to achieve a swift sense of accomplishment.

I plan to work on a screenplay after that. Following last year’s experiment I have a much better idea of what I’m doing. I have grand plans to develop it in all kinds of directions, but one thing at a time.

I have a 6 page comic script completed, so I need to take a final look at that before sending it off. I also have vague plans for a graphic novelette, but being so new to the form I have no idea if or when I'll develop it.

After that, a new novel, Promised Land, about a lost colony ship. This is another idea that has been shaping up for years. I’m in no great hurry to start it yet. I want to work on the smaller projects first.

Screenwriting

As I may have mentioned at some point in the past, I recently spent some time learning about screenwriting. Last night, I completed the first draft of my first screenplay!

Soon after Artefact Nouveau was published at the end of 2005, I received an email from an independant film maker and screenwriter in North America who was interested in turning it into a screenplay for a possible future project. He said it was a suitable story as it contained lots of action and dialogue. He also siad that if I could turn it into a screenplay myself it would be more valuable. Of course at the time I had no idea how to do that, and the idea came to nothing.

Then, last year, after learning to appreciate comics courtesy of Murky Depths, I decided to have a go at creating a comic script. I used one of my own very short stories as a basis and found it a fascinating discipline to distill my own prose into scenes and dialogue.

At the end of last year I read Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, the new edition that included two screenplays that he wrote based on the stories. It suddenly ocured to me that writing a screenplay is very like writing a comic script - converting your story to scenes, action and dialogue.

I dug out Artefact Nouveau and had a go at the first page or so. It's very slow work. Then I decided to look up some information on how to write a screenplay and found some very helpful websites. I discovered that thet Bradbury script is what they call a 'shooting script' - with camera angles, transitions and all kinds of detail. What I needed to write is a 'spec script' - with just the bare bones that a director can play with as he sees fit.

So I started again. According to my calculations, the finished story would make a 45 minute drama - perfect for the BBC. Yes, I know, somewhat optimistic for a first screenplay.

What I need now is to find some friendly screenplay critiquing people to tell me where I've gone wrong.

It's been a fun and interesting experience.

Strict Guidelines

Standard manuscript format for writing fiction is well-defined and well-established, though many short fiction markets aren't too strict on the details. I was looking at formatting for screenplays at the weekend, and it's a hundred times more exacting. There are so many rules for font and alignment, depending on what you're writing! Luckily you can download free screenplay writing software that keeps it all straight for you. That's only the begining though. There's also an endless list of abreviations, conventions and other rules.

Now you're all wondering why I was looking into screenplay formatting, aren't you? Well, that's another story...