Inspiration…

Not much action today. I’ve mainly been thinking about some new elements to my story. My new story that is. I am currently working on a feature length script, which will be submitted for my final University project. Instead of a dissertation, we get to write a feature length (which is a pretty sweet deal if you ask me ).

In any case, I’ve been hit with a few bits of inspiration for it recently. Part of which is down to my girlfriend, for giving me the name of my antagonist; Arion. Being a monarch, Arion sounds like a fitting name for him.

The story itself follows a female protagonist named Cassidy. She lives her life with her father on a strange planet that is covered in a “living mist”. The planet is fully populated, and the era of society is going to be a sort of steam-punk era. As for the mist, it has very strange properties, namely it breathes life into otherwise mundane objects, like plants; which are hostile on the planet.

Now, I have two directions I want to take the story in, both of which centre around Cassidy gaining a unique ability to control the mist and manifest it in different ways.

The first avenue of approach shows Cassidy living with her father, scourge-free for many years. But all her life she has been plagued by dreams of a foreign place, deep underneath the ground. She knows it is on the planet, but she doesn’t know where, or if it even exists. When she asks her father about it, he disavows it; making out that they are not important. This direction of story would probably make out the father to be a sort of villain in a sense, but I wasn’t sure if that would be too cliched.It would also mean that Cassidy has had her abilities all her life, but have laid dormant. The question to this end would be: Why do the powers suddenly manifest themselves here and now? Not sure yet.

The second approach to the story would be an event that gives Cassidy her powers, which, if you think about it, is also a cliche way of doing it, but it could open the story up to much more mystery, especially if the event isn’t fully explained at first. Here, Cassidy and her father investigate a massive cave system deep underground. A surge in mist production has caused the wildlife and plant-life to become much more hostile than usual, and pose a large threat to nearby towns. When Cass and her father move deeper into the caves Cassidy comes across a huge antechamber housing an object that we, as the viewers, do not see. A scream is heard from where her father is, and, as he rushes to her, he finds her lifeless body collapsed on the floor. The ground shakes and he carries her body away. Two days later she wakes up with pale white skin, and symmetrical scars all over her body. From here, her powers begin.

The second seems much more appealing, as the viewer could potentially be trying to guess what was in that cave, and why Cassidy reacted the way she did. It seems much more viable as a means for storytelling. Need to think more, but let me know what you think about the directions. I’ll see which is more appealing to audience interpretation.

That’s about it for today I think. To be fair I’ve had a lot of procrastination today. I have the remnants of a cold which sucks. Feel sluggish.

Anyway, I’ll keep the blog updated on any revelations, changes and such. I’ll also be posting a new script every two weeks. I have a library of them, but I want to give people time to read them. So I’ll do them every two weeks for now, but if anyone wants something more to read, message me on my blog, or twitter, and I’ll send you a new script exclusively.

I also have some prose stuff to share later on as well, so stay tuned.

See ya.

Finding my feet…

So, now that I have officially set up my blog for real, it’s time to start thinking about posting some bits and pieces on here to get people into what I do as a writer. So from here on in I’ll be posting scripts and prose stuff that I either have written or am in the process of writing.

The general idea is to get people to talk to me about what they think, and what they feel about my work, and see if there is room for improvement (which there always is, of course). Hopefully, over time, I’ll amass a few followers and I can see what work other people have done.

Once again, I stress, STRESS I SAY, that any and all criticism is welcome. It’s why I’m here, and I really appreciate any persons comment, whether positive or negative.

This first piece is a script I did very recently, using the celtx script writing tool, which is a simple way of formatting scripts correctly, and is a really good way to just write, and not have to keep moving back and forth to write parenthetical titles and headings for each character (it is really tiring, and makes me want to throw my laptop at the nearest…thing, I dunno).

It was my first attempt at an action based film, that uses actual events to set the scene. The events in question are heavily altered and made to fit the scenario depicted, but you get the gist anyway.

It centers on a Russian man named Aleksandr, after he tries to stop his former comrades from destroying an apartment block while people are still inside. Instead of preventing it, he is knocked unconscious and awakens with only seconds to escape it. Caught by the radius of the blast, just outside the building, he is knocked out once more and arrives in hospital. Now the criminals responsible have escaped and Aleksandr has been blamed for it’s destruction.

Like I said, it’s only my first attempt, but hopefully it should make an impact on whoever reads it. So enjoy

Everything in the script pertaining to story, characters and events are fictional and copyrighted. Please don’t distribute this anywhere else. Thanks very muchly.

Here’s the link:  The Long Road

Edit: I re-posted the script with copyright info, and contact information too, in case people want to contact me by E-Mail, Twitter, or here on the blog.

Feeling nervous….

Well, this is my first time blogging…ever… wowza!

I guess I’m just not used to talking about myself very much to people I don’t know. But it’s exciting at the same time, and it’s probably about time I did do something like this. Let’s just hope I don’t go down in flames.

Anyway, as the “about me” stuff says, I’m a writer. Four or five months ago I would’ve said I am a science fiction writer specifically, but now I’m not so sure. You know when you hit that wall, when something new has appeared to you and you suddenly realize, “Wait a minute, I can do this stuff. And it’s easier than I could ever have imagined.” Well that’s how I felt.

So now, once again, I’m looking for my speciality, but right now I’m comfortable writing all kinds of stuff. Science fiction still means a lot to me, but now I write action, drama, and mystery (which is really fun to write).

I guess I’ll be putting a few bits and pieces up here on the blog and see what people think.

And one more thing, to anyone who might be reading this, please be as harsh as you wish with my writing. Ill take any criticism you have and take it on board.

So thanks for reading, and looking forward to hearing from you.

Jeff