Plays

Script Frenzy is run by the same group that run NaNoWriMo, and follows a similar premise: 30 days, 100 pages, 1 script.

My script is a stageplay, because that's where my background is. I have spent a large portion of my life rehearsing, taking music and drama lessons and performing on stage. My practical background in theatre gives me a fantastic advantage when writing for stage; able to write with a real knowledge of how theatre works.

When I began Script Frenzy, I was writing a horror script called 'Seventeen Steps', but this has suffered from a case of, to borrow a phrase from another Script Frenzier, "Character is Smarter than the Author." Basically, my characters hijacked the script and started writing it the way they wanted it to go, no matter what my thoughts on the subject were.

I love it when characters take over; it means the characters are fully formed, and it creates a storyline which is true to them, their motivations and emotions. Plus, it makes it a lot easier for me; I just write what they tell me to! However, this did leave me with a script with no visit to a haunted nursery, no ghosts of children and a whole host of characters taking the script on a totally different path.

And so, the script is now a kind of Sc-Fi Thriller, entitled 'Cutting the Bloodline'. It still has Kenton Hicks, it still has Keah, although her name is now Amie, but the plot is now largely being pulled along by two brand new characters; Gus Murphy and Dr Conley.

We do have the same original premise however: Kenton Hicks, a young, enthusiastic journalist begins researching a book about the Lost Generation; the children born in a decade that saw them abandoned for having a genetic 'defect'. Put into orphanages, the authorities and the public turned their back while they suffered years of torment and abuse. Now viewed as second-class citizens, Kenton Hicks seeks to tell the true story of the Lost Generation, spurred on even more by the number of people who will do anything to stop this book from being written.

The Motherland Hears is a short stageplay for three actors which follows a fictionalised version of Yuri Gagarin's first journey into space. Finding himself in the loneliest place in the universe, he is kept company by his greatest love and his greatest fear.

Friday 30 July 2010

Article Pubished on Essential Writers Site

My latest article, commissioned by the Essential Writers site, has now been published there.

It is an advice piece about how to make the most of your...