Good news, bad news.

One of my favourite writers on the subject of screenwriting is Bill Martell, he's a dedicated writer of action scripts and is the go-to guy if you want to learn how to make your action sequences worthwhile and memorable.

The following is all gleaned from his daily script tips and the applied to some prose writing I've been doing recently (in fact I've been writing stories almost exclusively for the past year - it's all part of a cunning plan).

So, I've been serialising a Steampunk story, set in 1874, on Google Plus (my social medium of choice), and it's been getting good feedback. The writing itself is a bit rough in places because I'm essentially publishing a first draft. I write it on a train on Friday afternoon, it gets read over by me and my alpha reader and published within 12 hours (usually less). Luckily, my first drafts aren't totally appalling.

The episode I wrote yesterday was an explosion of action after weeks of building the tension as the first three men in space, discover they aren't and board an apparently derelict spaceship, only to find evidence of fighting and finally someone alive who pulls a gun on them.

What happens next is the good news-bad news approach to action sequences, as delineated by Bill Martell. You can read what he has to say here: Reversals in Action Of course this uses movies as examples because, well, Bill is a screenwriter.

But this works perfectly in prose writing as well, it should it's about suspense and engagement.

The following is a description of the action good news-bad news. If you haven't read it then this will completely spoil it. You can read it here first.

Our protagonist has just thrown his helmet at the man who has his gun trained on the three crew, exploring the apparently derelict ship, to distract him.

Good news: He's distracted! And fires off a random shot.

Bad news: There's an explosion in the hull and the air starts rushing out into space.

Good news: The bad guy retreats, presumably to get his own spacesuit on.

Bad news: Protagonist's helmet is being pulled towards the ruptured hull.

Worse news: He's hanging in the air weightless, with no way of moving.

Good news (phew): The Captain deliberately bumps into him to push him to the wall.

Bad news: It's going to be a close thing but

Good news: He launches himself to get his helmet.

Bad news: He misses and comes up against the window.

Worse news: Our protagonist looks through the window and sees three men in spacesuits, and guns.

Good news: The Engineer grabs his helmet and blocks the escaping air with his body.

Better news: Protagonist gets his helmet.

Awful news: It's got a hole in it from the random gunshot!

Good-ish news: The engineer starts to remove his own helmet to give it to him.

Bad news: The engineer is shot by the men outside.

And that's it. This also illustrates the importance of stakes. We've been with the protagonist for a few weeks and, though he's a bit of a wimp, he's a decent guy in a strange situation. I knew this scene was coming so I spent the previous two episodes building up the engineer, because until he'd been something of a non-entity. And we needed to care more about him so that this scene had more impact.

I hope that's valuable.

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What's on the turntable? "Second sitting for the Last Supper" by 10cc from "The Original Soundtrack"

So ... Bolivia?

What? Bolivia? No. I mean, in a minute.

First things first. Writing. Oh yes.

The talented Bill Martell has a great screen tip, which was recently re-aired, about the Antagonist. He makes the point that there's loads written on the journey of your Protagonist, but very little about the Antagonist.

Which is odd because the Antagonist is the most important character in the story. Without the Antagonist there is no story. It's obvious, so obvious it's not regarded as important. But it is.

Case in point, as you know I've been re-writing Running and it's been going a bit slowly. So I've been yanking tools out of the writers toolbox and trying them for size. They've been handy, given me some ideas and so on, but nothing's really solved the problem.

Until this script tip of Bill's popped up again and I realised that this tool had lying buried at the bottom of the toolkit  under a layer of old sandpaper and blunt blades.

The story's Antagonist wasn't clearly delineated: Why was she doing what she was doing? What is her ultimate goal? I had got some of it but there was no real plan. So I sat down and had a good think - train journeys are good for sitting down and thinking - and I got it. I know what she's doing and why she's doing it. And as soon as I did that the whole story fell into my lap. (Yes, the Antagonist is female, so is the Protagonist, I might make Detective Sergeant female too, that would balance it out.)

I should probably mention that one of Jeff Kitchen's tools implies the importance of the Antagonist's actions but doesn't emphasise it as much as Bill does.

So that was good. It meant I had to change the beginning of the story, which was a shame because I liked the opening, but that's the way it goes. Sometimes you have to kill your babies.

Bolivia? Not yet.

I've started another blog but I'm guessing most people who read this one won't be interested in that one, it's a technical blog about Drupal 7 for people who know what they're doing.

Bolivia!

My daughter is going to Bolivia as a volunteer to work with the animals, to help with her own Zoo Biology degree. She needs donations so it would be really good if you (yes you! Noo not the person beside you, well that person too, but YOU) make it easier for her to get there.

She's got herself a part-time job, while studying at University. She's taken up running so she's fit enough when she gets there. And the person who contributes the most will get a Jaguar cub as a prize. (What? No jaguar cub?) Alright, well everybody who contributes can pat themselves on the back.

How do you do that? You go here or here.

She's got a way to go to collect everything she needs - and everything helps. Do something else good today.

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What's on the turntable? "Flowers never bend with the rainfall" by Simon & Garfunkel (I've lost my harmonica, Albert.) 

Story, Structure and Time

Just felt I had to draw your attention to this Script Secret by Bill Martell:

It's not about time

Which explains why structure isn't the limiter that some people think it is.

It's good stuff.

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What's on the turntable? "Do What You Like" by Blind Faith from "Blind Faith"

Bill does it again

Bill Martell on theme...

http://www.scriptsecrets.net/tips/tip181.htm

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What's on the turntable? "Jeux d'enfants" by Laurent Garnier from "The Cloud Making Machine"

Plans

Over the past couple of weeks I've been working my way through the version of my TV detective story Tec (Draft 4) which I'll be submitting to Red Planet. I'd got feedback about a year ago but I've been distracted by other writing so only just got back to it. (I do have an aborted Draft 3 but I decided to start again rather than continue that one because of new ideas.)

And I've just been reading Alexandra Sokoloff on Plans. She knows her stuff. Interestingly this has always been something I do (or it became what I always do after I learned the important lesson that the antagonist is the most important character in a story).

And, you know, much as I enjoyed Wall-E (and I really did) I felt there was a fundamental story problem which nobody else seems to have commented on: the protagonist does not solve the problem at the end. He is not the one that defeats the antagonist. He's not even there.

Say what? Are those two paragraphs even relevant to one another?

Yes.

I was thinking about the characters' plans in Tec and how at the end my plan was to let the police step in and save the protagonist from being killed by the antagonist who is much bigger and stronger than she is - and seriously motivated to murder. Her plan is to prove the bad guy did it, his (revised) plan is to kill her and get away with it.

But she's the protagonist, she needs to be the one that beats the bad guy: not just by being very clever in figuring out the bad guy's plan but then needing help at the end to deal with the physical threat. But she needs to beat the physical threat as well - by being very clever.

One thing I love about writing action scenes and sequences is the good news/bad news aspect and putting the protagonist in an impossible position - then figuring out how they can get out of it, and ultimately win.

So I thought, she needs to beat the bad guy. How? And I realised I had the perfect set-up in the first 10 minutes - in an early scene she defeats the bad guy in a confrontation over office security, and with that set-up I could bring in a great pay-off right at the end. Lovely.

Of course, I can't actually say what it is, you'll just have to believe me - it's great.

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What's on the turntable? "Watch her ride" by Jefferson Airplane (Spotify)

Hancock & Iron Man 2

I don't think there are any spoilers here - but you may not want to risk it if it bothers you.

Regular readers - well, not so regular since I haven't been blogging so much in the past year - may recall that I have a thing about people who feel the need to turn their emotions up to 11. Or, more accurately, have their emotions stuck on 11.

These are the people who claim, for example, to "hate" some creative person they've never met (singer, actor whatever). When what they actually mean is "I personally do not like...". They also like to express their opinions as absolute certainties - which one can only ascribe to a severe level of personal insecurity (though that's not really an explanation, but the real cause is probably as individual as each ... individual).

It's these adamant certainties based purely on personal opinion that annoy me. (Plus the people who repeat other people's opinions-as-fact when they have no personal experience of the real truth - one might call them "sheep".) I prefer to make my own opinions.

So, let me make it clear that the following is just my personal opinion - if you agree with me then that's nice, but if you don't, well, you're entitled to your opinion as much as me. And it's as valid for you as mine is for me.

Let's get Iron Man 2 over with: I enjoyed it a lot, but there's a slow patch in the middle. I know exactly why it's there, perhaps it could have been done better, perhaps not, but its existence has nothing to do with Iron Man and everything to do with Samuel L Jackson. (Which is not a criticism of the great SLJ, by the way.)

This blog was partly prompted by the person I came across today who said "Iron Man 2 was rubbish. It was really good at the beginning and at the end, but it was slow in the middle." So basically, they enjoyed it but now they go around telling people it was "rubbish" because there was 5 minutes in the middle where it got a bit slow. Emotions turned up to 11.

Anyway the film is, in my opinion, excellent fun and I recommend it to you.

On impulse I bought a £4 DVD of Hancock at the supermarket. I hadn't seen it on the big screen but having heard so much criticism (including this from Bill Martell) I was curious. (You will notice that Bill does not say he "hates" the film, his viewpoint is based on a good understanding of how films work. He does not need to turn his emotions up to 11.)

The main problem with Hancock is that it doesn't know what it is. It was always presented as a comedy, but as I watched the first 20 minutes I could see clearly that this was no comedy. Yes there were comedic moments but this was serious drama. (Of course, that presents a fundamental problem to people who don't understand SF and Fantasy - how could they possibly be serious drama?) Will Smith is excellent, and Charlize Theron proves once again that she is a superb actress.

People who put their criticisms in writing usually point to the sudden change in the middle as "where it all goes wrong". And if you haven't seen the film you won't be expecting it. It's a plot twist enacted with action only which takes just a fraction of second. You're left going "What!" but it's not a bad "what", it's a "OMG the film has just taken a left turn - what's happening now?!"

In no way is that bad movie making. That is the very best movie making - except that some people don't like having their ideas about a film ripped away so abruptly, they can't handle it. This is one reason why you're always supposed to "foreshadow" things because it lessens the shock - I have my own opinions on foreshadowing.

Unfortunately what follows the twist (and explains it) is based on a premise that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. This robs the final scenes of the power that they should actually have.

My personal feeling about the script is that it did not, as originally written, have enough plot to carry it for 90 minutes (it's actually short for a superhero film anyway at 89 minutes) and the part after the twist was tacked on by someone else.

Couple that with a director who couldn't quite get a handle on how it should be shot and we get what we have: a film that has a very uneven tone, and a very unfortunate premise that makes no sense.

However, did I enjoy it? Yes I did. The first half is pretty solid, the twist was amazing (I knew there was one coming, I just didn't know what it was and it hit completely unexpectedly) and the second half was pretty good - just different.

Just remember, people, opinions aren't facts. Be careful out there.

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What's on the turntable? "Dragonfly" by Blondie from "The Hunter"

Priorities

This week I have mostly been listening to Icelandic music - somebody's blog (dammit I read so many) mentioned Sigur Ros and, as I use Spotify, I began to listen and diversify - Amiina, Olafur Arnalds, Jónsi & Alex - all brilliant stuff (and I've always liked Bjork). Being a huge Mike Oldfield fan (though not his ambient albums, like Light and Shade) as well as 70s Prog Rock this all fitted very nicely.

Which has nothing to do with priorities.

I have a lot on at the moment: the immediate pressure of the Monsters pick-ups next week, the location is still a bit of an issue though I have some ideas. Trouble is we're shooting on Saturday and most industrial estates, even the lovely run-down ones around here, still have things going on on Saturdays.

Then there's the re-write of the web series Winter, as Chris said on his blog the need to stand out is very important so we're playing to our techie strengths: extravagant imaginations and (hopefully) the technology to fulfill that imagination. One of the comments from the feedback on it was " a bit too Terminator" - the rewrite, which involves a complete change of universe, will kick that into touch.

I'm using one of Bill Martell's approaches on this rewrite: just write out, on cards, all the scenes you can think of that could happen based on those characters (in no particular order). And when you're done, re-arrange them into plot order (discarding those you don't need). I'm at the re-arrangement stage and filling in the gaps. (Although I use the card system built into Celtx rather than actual card cards.)

Then there's the web project. Which has been taking a backseat for the last couple of weeks.

Then there's the other new writing: Tec being the main one. It occurred to me that I haven't finished anything new in a year (except Unit X and Running both of which are in desperate need of re-writing).

So I have to prioritise.

Which is one reason why this blog has been ignored. But I am planning the next Application of Drama (to role-playing games) in my head. The game I was running has now finished and it worked out quite well using the principles of drama.

So the order of play currently:

1. Monsters picks-up (script and location, plus no dropping balls in other departments)
2. Web project
3. Winter re-write
4. Tec

Oh, and we're going to see Avatar tomorrow, it's unfair on the Boy not to, and it has to be seen on the big screen in 3D otherwise there's really no point. The Teacher and I could let it pass but we'll do it for him.

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What's on the turntable? "Lori" by Amiina from "Kurr"

Bill does it again

Screenwriter Bill Martell has been writing some new Script Secrets for his web site and this is the latest:

Conflict driven

I've read other stuff by him on the importance of the antagonist in a story, but this is the best so far. Also explains why Indy II and IV, are so poor compared to Indy I and III.

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What's on the turntable? "Why don't we live together" by the Pet Shop Boys from "Please"

Now is Winter

I spent over an hour working on the web serial Winter yesterday evening - and a whole two hours on it this evening.

Excellent.

Spent the time yesterday re-acquainting myself with it and re-writing whole sections to improve the flow of the action sequences. And did more of that this evening until I reached the point I had previously written up to and then wrote a whole chunk more, finished episode 3 and nearly finished episode 4 too - it's in 6 x 5 minute episodes.

Basically it's an action feature in 30 minutes, with the added extra that each episode has to end with sufficient cliffhanger to make people want to tune in for the next episode.

Not entirely sure how we're going to shoot it, although the locations are quite simple. There are stunts required, though I've got rid of the first gun (replaced with something more effective and more personal) we will need guns for later. Hey ho. At least it won't be in public.

Bill Martell (bless his cotton socks) has some of the best advice for writing action, which you can read over on his Script Secrets site (go via his blog). I just love writing action.

But a good action story isn't just about the action, you have to fit character development into that as well, and I think I'm managing to do that too. All squeezed into 30 minutes, what fun.

Of course what I forgot to put in my 2010 Goals was shooting and releasing Winter. Silly me.

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What's on the turntable? "Go your own way" by Fleetwood Mac from "Rumours" - except this is one of the extras on the Deluxe album; it's slightly different to the original album version.

Keeping up appearances

I've not been blogging because this is primarily a screenwriting blog - and I haven't been. I've been rather tied up with a little web-based project that could net me a few extra pounds. And we could all do with a few extra pounds (as long as they're monetary - I have plenty extra of the other sort).

Anyway if you don't read Bill Martell's blog you should and this one is another interesting insight into the curious world of scriptwriting in Hollywood.

Tomorrow I'm heading down with family to That Crazy London, to see relatives and go to a birthday party of an old friend. I'm pretty sure he doesn't read this blog - and he doesn't know we'll be there. I hope I haven't spoiled the surprise.

I'm planning to invest much of the Christmas break to writing - hopefully getting the first draft of Winter complete.

Oh, the Boy hasn't been on TV yet - we have no idea when he'll be on because it hasn't been the last two episodes of Bamzooki and isn't the next one either (apparently).

The Daughter has discovered there's a major (well-loved) fantasy book which is not currently optioned ... she wants to make it. She really wants to make it. With that kind of intention, she just might.

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What's on the turntable? "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac from "Rumours" - except this is deluxe edition with lots of extra tracks. And this is a previously unreleased version of the song with slight differences to the released one, though not many.

Death to characters!

Here I am having a jolly time in Brum.

And I've been getting some writing done, hurrah!

I've been doing more planning on my next TV series pilot, Tec, and I've disposed of another character. There I was busily using one of Jeff Kitchen's plotting techniques from Writing a Great Movie and lo! I suddenly went "Is this main character really necessary? Could I combine him with this other main character? Would it hurt the plot? Damage the story?"

And I could only answer "No". In fact it improves it.

So let me see, I have now chopped out: one series leading character, one supporting character and one episode main character. (Oh, and a murder victim who is now offed before the main story starts, instead of during, so that's another one.)

Curiously enough the technique I was using is a refined form of something Bill Martell wrote about in his Script Secrets post for today. The only difference being that while Bill tells you that you must write your scripts in a logical cause-effect sequence, Jeff has a nifty technique to make it easy to achieve.

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What's on the turntable? "The Deserter" by Gordon Giltrap from "Perilous Journey"

In the cards

Bill Martell, in a recent blog but also in his Script Secrets, talks about one of his writing techniques when it comes to writing features: having got the story idea, setting and main characters sorted out he writes ideas for scenes on index cards.

He doesn't write the ideas in any particular order, he just writes out lots and lots of scene ideas - things that could happen in the story. Doesn't even matter if they are self-contradictory, the key point is to just write out lots of scenes - more than you need.

Having done that he starts to organise them into the film structure. He uses the cards so he can shift them around easily. There will be cards that he doesn't use at all in the end. (As an additional factor he likes to have something cool in each scene - doesn't have to be a big cool thing, it can be a little cool thing - but always something.)

So I thought, for Clones, I would try it. But I used Celtx instead, which has an Index Card facility.

I wrote scene ideas, one in each card and just kept adding. After about 20 minutes I had everything I could think of for the first Clones episode, in no particular order. Then I spent another 20 minutes putting them into an order that felt right. Threw some away, and added some others to link between the ones I had.

Then I read it through and added detail. Finally compiled it into a single text document (manually, there's no feature for that) and I had the skeleton of the treatment for the first episode. In just one hour.

Neat.

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What's on the turntable? "Souvenir from China" by Jean Michel Jarre from "Aero" (courtesy of Spotify)

Cheshire cats

I'm grinning from ear to ear. I hope my jaw doesn't fall off.

And then my kettle exploded. All the lights went out. Using my mobile as a torch I unplugged the kettle and reset the fuses. Phew.

I've had feedback from my other main script reader, Dave Bull, about my "Air" script. Modesty forbids me to quote everything he said in his opening remarks but the word "Wow!" (with the exclamation mark) came into it. Mind you, modesty didn't stop me from boring my wife with it over the phone.

However he did have some script-readery things to say, and he was right. He noted that the tone of the main character, and thence the script, changed significantly at one clearly definable point. Which is a bad thing.

But still, I was pleased because he did say a lot of nice things.

I did get three full pages of Monsters OGN (see I'm calling it that now) written yester-eve, and popped it over to the illustrator. It's really interesting how it all works out - the things that I'm including in the OGN but left out of the TV script, and vice versa. Now, we wait.

Do you think you want to write for Hollywood? I thought I might, but I think I've changed my mind - no, I have definitely changed my mind. Why? (You may ask, and if not, why not?)

Why?

Because of this posting and then this one. And I am unwilling to be crapped on like that. From my reading of Bill Martell's blog I knew that this sort of thing went on, but these two guys are even higher up the tree than Bill.

Then again, it's not that I've completely changed my mind - it's a case of ensuring that when you do write for Hollywood you're in a sufficiently powerful position that this does not happen to you.

Funnily enough there is a book which would make a cracking SF blockbuster. It's written by one of the absolute masters of SF, yet the book is available, I almost optioned it a couple of years ago. Good thing I didn't, I wouldn't have been able to write a decent script then.

One day.

I'm going to do some work on Unit X. Right now. Honest.

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What's on the turntable? "Leon's Room" by Vangelis from "Bladerunner CD2"

Backwards into the future

You may (or may not) notice that, at the time of writing, the Unit X progress bar has not advanced. I wrote no pages yesterday, though I did fiddle a bit.

This is because I had come to a point in the story where I had an extremely complicated action sequence involving 5-6 viewpoints and that is not something it's easy to write off the top of one's head. I also had a number of key scenes to be included and the ending had to be quite specific.

So I spent much of yesterday afternoon planning, using a spreadsheet to create a kind of step outline, but just for the action. One column per main character and time as rows.

The obvious way to do it is to start at the beginning and work through placing each character's actions as you go along. In fact this is wrong, especially for complicated stuff, and I know better.

I am told there is a tribe in South America that believes we are travelling into the future backwards - because we can only see what has passed us, not what is to come. Luckily, as writers, we have the opportunity to know the future so don't have to write backwards (though I know some writers do).

Hm, that paragraph didn't quite come out right - but you know what I mean.

The best way to plan things it is to work backwards from the ending you want to see. This technique is covered in Jeff Kitchen's book "Writing a Great Movie" (as I've said before, it's a bad title, the book sounds cheesy, it really isn't). In the book this method is used for plotting everything from individual scenes up to the entire work. It's a method you can use to ensure that you have a logical cause/effect going on through the entire story.

I applied it to this long and complex sequence to ensure it: (a) makes sense; (b) says what I want it to say; and (c) stays focussed. Now I just have to write the damn thing.

Bill Martell writes action movies so he's another person you can learn a lot from, his take on revealing character in action sequences is very valuable - you might like to read his analysis of why Die Hard is the quintessential action movie. It's down to character.

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What's on the turntable? "Fading Away" by Vangelis from "Bladerunner CD2"

Script secrets

Bill Martell is great, he really knows his stuff. His daily script secrets are great too, that's where he reveals all the stuff he knows.

I spent the evening working on my One Page Pitch for Winter (see Adrian Mead's How to Make it as a Scriptwriter, Chapter 8 - honestly I don't get a commission).

Actually I am quite pleased with the way it's coming together, although the antagonist needs work.

You see it's like this: Bill didn't like Indy IV and I wasn't overly impressed by it, Indy II wasn't great either but Indy I and III were cracking tales. Why? Was it because I and III had Nazis in them? While II and IV didn't?

Mr Martell says yes and no. It's not because they were Nazis that they made great antagonists, it's because, as antagonists, the stakes were clear. The viewer understands why it would be really bad if Hitler got hold of either the Ark or Immortality.

In II and IV the stakes either weren't high enough (II, yes it was bad what they were doing to the kids but what would actually happen if they got all the stones?) or too vague (IV, so the Commies wanted psychic powers ... okay ... so what?).

This is one of the problems I have to fix with Winter, the antagonist has his evil goal but if he succeeds ... so what?

This is the "So what?" rule which is expressed by my other favourite screenwriting adviser, Jeff Kitchen in his "Writing a Great Movie" and I quote:

Harry Cohn, the founder of Columbia Pictures, ran his development process as follows: He would sit his writers down at a conference table and ask for their ideas. The first writer would lay out his idea and Cohn would respond, "So what?" The next writer would pitch his idea and Cohn would shoot it down the same way. An idea had to pass Cohn's "So what?" test before he was willing to pursue it.

I need a motivation and consequences of the antagonist's actions that answer the "So what?" test. Currently it's way too vague and ephemeral "something bad will happen".

The other thing that needs dealing with is the theme. Now it's true that theme often doesn't reveal itself until you've finished. But there are ways to divine the theme without writing everything, in this both Bill Martell and Jeff Kitchen agree:

1. How the protagonist resolves the story.

and

2. The main philosophical difference between the protagonist and the antagonist.

Which, for reasons I can't reveal, makes working out the theme in Winter quite hard, but I'm sure I'll prevail.

It's funny how things work out I had been wondering about theme (because Adrian Mead suggested I should for the One Page Pitch) and then I looked at Bill Martell's daily script secret which, if you don't know, you do by going here and then just waiting (don't click "Enter").

I got tip #144 which didn't excite me, so being a naughty hacky type lad, I deleted the "1" from the URL and pressed return. And lo! I got Bill Martell's take on Theme. The fates were with me this eve.

Writing blogs is a great way of prevaricating when you don't have anything to read.

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What's on the turntable? "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell from "Hits". I love this song.

Monsters outline

So I'm pretty much finished on Monsters for the Red Planet competition, there's one scene that needs a bit of modification because the technology doesn't match what happens in the scene after. No big.

My first 10 pages are honed to perfection and carefully edited to hit a cliffhangar at the bottom of page 10. What? Every trick in the book, I say. Bill Martell says you should try to get some sort of mystery or cliffhanger at the bottom of every page. Something to keep the reader reading.

What is big is the problem of the one page pitch. I am truly rubbish at this. My ideas are so big, there are so many interleaved plot-lines, there's so much background, that it's "impossible" to do a quick and easy outline.

So I went back to basics. Who's the protagonist and what is her story? I also recalled from somewhere that you should concentrate on the emotion and character, less on the actual events. So I wrote six episode titles, figured out that I could spare three lines per episode for the page and put together an outline. In addition I use Aristotle's Dilemma, Crisis, Decision/Action and Resolution principles in the outline so that it told the story. It worked pretty well.

I need to go back to it for some editing but it's not bad considering how bad I am at this. Just read David Bishop who also points out thrillers should be have thrilling pitch docs, comedies should have unny ones and so on. What does that mean if you have a Teen Sci-Fi Detective Action Thriller? Hm.

I also added a paragraph that mentioned that this was the journey of the protagonist and that there were major plotlines covering the other major characters.

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What's on the turntable? "Magic Touch" by Mike Oldfield from "Islands", not his best work in my opinion but listenable.

Plot vs Character? Bill talks Aristotle

And I meant to mention that Bill Martell's script tip today discusses the perennial argument as to whether script or plot comes first - and he quotes Aristotle and discusses The Bank Job as his case in point.

Bill Martell is definitely worth reading, he knows his stuff.

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What's on the turntable? "Oxygene (Part IV)" by Jean-Michel Jarre from "Oxygene"