If in doubt - female.

Most of the stories I write are about men. That's because I am one, simple as that. I find it much much easier to think what a man might do than a woman. Just like it's easier for me to imagine what a 22-year-old would say than a 40-year-old. Because I haven't yet been 40 (in this lifetime).

There are some stories where I actively want a male protagonist. The last TV script, for example. And there are some occasions when I actively want a female protagonist - my last feature script.

But when I started planning what I'm working on now (a contained horror script), I saw no reason for either gender. It didn't matter whether the hero was male or female. So, by default, I went for female.

Because, no matter what anyone says, there is still a lack of women in films. Both in them literally, and working in them. One reason is probably similar to what I've said above - I'll wager there are more male screenwriters out there than female (or at least getting their material produced), so they're writing from the comfortable POV of male writer = male hero.

So the female protagonist is now my default. Unless I have an active urge to make her male. In which case, I might call him Jayne or something......

I also planned my characters (for the current script) based on a gender balance. There are more men than women in the main cast, but that still works out at 4 ladies. And many people will die in this film. It's not looking too good for the gents - my current plans have the survival percentage at around 75% for the ladies and only 25% for the blokes.

Anyway, I'm feeling good about this one. I'm sure the film industry will continue to be a male-dominated business for a while yet, but I'm playing my part by writing parts for the ladies. And, for the record, these ladies are not gun-toting "blokes with tits" or scantily-clad sex objects. We have Zack Snyder for that, right?

Over and out!

Everyone is the main character

I came across one of the best nuggets of writing advice ages ago when listening to the Joss Whedon DVD commentary of a Firefly episode. He said that every character is the protagonist of their own story. As far as Jayne is concerned, everything happens to him first, then others.

Think about The Terminator. The main character is Sarah Connor. But from Ginger's POV (Ginger would be Sarah's best friend), this is her story. She's in a happy relationship with a decent bloke. She lives with her introverted friend who likes lizards. She loves her new Walkman and listens to it all day. After a nice night out with her boyfriend, she is suddenly attacked by a huge bloke wielding a Glock. He kills her boyfriend and shoots her in the back.

It's not the best story (which is why she isn't the protagonist) but it's a story. It has a constant state (happy relationship) and a trigger (the T-101 breaks into her house). She just dies very early on.

It's all about looking at the entire story from your sub-characters' POVs. The supporting cast are always tricky to get right. Some characters are there just for expositional reasons (to show that your hero only has one good friend). There's nothing wrong with that, but you run the risk of them being throw-aways.

So a good way to make them relevant is to check out what their story is. How would your script play out if John was the centre, not Jill?

What if Captain Dallas had survived in Alien? What would the story be from his POV?

Ron Weasley is the main dude in Harry Potter - what's it like being best friends with the most famous wizard ever?

What does Alfred do when Bruce Wayne is off saving Gotham City?

You don't need to go overboard with backstory or huge developments, but by thinking about sub-characters' story arcs, they will seem like far deeper personalities.

The last script I wrote has a female protagonist who is going down a particularly rough road in her life. That's where the best story is. I have two main secondary characters:

One is her best friend, who makes it his mission to protect our hero and drag her out of the life she's made for herself.

The other is a Priest who sees the bigger picture. He's not really too concerned with the people involved, but more on what their actions will result in. He has a past that is hinted at throughout and perhaps gets explained if you pay close attention.

But the point is - they both have stories. One goes on a mission to save his best friend, and the other sets out to save the world. All three stories (these two and my protagonist's) come to a head in the final act.

Make sure those minor characters are major in their own heads!

Over and out - shiny writing!

The film I always go back to - 'Jurassic Park'

This be part of the Kid in the Front Row blogathon, the idea being that you declare which film you always go back to and why. As Kid says: the film that speaks to you when you need to be spoken to. See Kid's here.

Mine is Jurassic Park.

It's not the greatest film ever made. But it's the first film I saw at the cinema. Tiny five-year-old me, sitting in the front row (yes, I think it was the front row, due to the aforementioned tinyness), eyes wide open, staring tabula rasa at the humongous silver screen. 

Then that ominous music started as the team rolled out the huge crate containing the (unseen) velociraptor. And I was bloody hooked. Scared out of my gorram mind. But hooked.

Then there were the dinosaurs themselves - running around, throwing cars through trees, leaping onto T-Rex skeletons - generally destroying things. And the truly terrifying velociraptor kitchen scene. I remember viewing that through shaking fingers.

Those dinosaurs made such an impression on me that, for the next....12 years, I wanted to be an archaeologist. Part of me still does. Assuming all archaeologists get to endorse dinosaur theme parks. No? Ah well, writing it is.

What really strikes me about this film is that I don't recall being remotely bored at all. If you think about it, a fair bit of the film is taken up with scientific explanations. One scene actually sees the main characters sitting round a table discussing the ethics of bringing dinosaurs back to life (now that's something my script tutor would flay me for!*) This is not writing for little people.

But I was never bored. Why not? There's no way I could have understood the line "what you call discovery.....I call the rape of the natural world." It must have been because there were fucking dinosaurs!!! Massive, man-eating monsters roaming around, waiting to break free and wreak havoc! Perfect!

And that's why I always go back to Jurassic Park. If I'm feeling all smart and sophisticated, I can sit back and marvel at the possibility of using frogs to complete DNA sequences and bring dinosaurs back to life, or get thoroughly invested in the ethical ramifications of such a decision.

And if I'm feeling like a scare, I can regress to Five-Year-Old Neil and rewatch those fecking raptors lurk through the kitchen.

But, finally - and most importantly - if I'm feeling in the mood for destructive dinosaurs and general peril (and, let's face it - when am I not?!), Jurassic Park is always going to deliver.

Honourable mentions:

• Die Hard (I'll always watch it when it's on, no matter what time it is or how long it's got to go)
• The Lion King (my favourite Disney movie, and some killer action sequences!)
• The Terminator (greatest sci-fi horror ever? After Alien, anyway)
• Predator (same as Die Hard. I can never resist posting quotes on facebook as they happen on-film)

So what about you? What's the film that you always go back to? Please - someone tell me theirs is Jurassic Park! Please?

* My script tutor might not flay me

for writing such a scene.

Perhaps I would just be

dismembered or something....

Over here....

Just cos it's awesome:



That is all.

FADE OUT....and relax....

I've literally just written FADE OUT on the feature script I've been writing this week. And what a relief it is!

Time being quite important on this one, I didn't plan as much as I should have. I know, a big slap on my wrist. I hang my head in shame. I was working from 10-page outline when, for a feature script, I'd normally like something twice that long to go by.

Anyway, I started writing the script itself on Monday at 5am. By Monday 5pm, I was nearly half way through the outline. And I'd written just under 30 pages. You do the maths on that one - if half is 30 pages, then the full script would be 60 pages. For a feature script. To sum up ------

So it suddenly dawned on me that I'd fucked up somewhere down the line. On something we often take for granted - length. This has never been an issue before, not really. I've had to cut the odd page here and there before, but I've never come up so monumentally short on the page count.

So I panicked. Like you do. Impressively, I resisted the urge to open with an Alien-esque tracking shot, which would probably add at least three minutes to it. Self-control, people!

So instead, over the course of Tuesday, half of Wednesday (I took the afternoon off), and today, I was constantly thinking of ways to lengthen the story. There had to be bits missing that would have worked really well. There had to be subplots or characters that weren't developed fully.

And there were. I found myself doing a very strange rewrite whilst writing. If that makes any sense. I was writing draft two before I'd finished draft one. I'd be working on scene 80, then I'd suddenly stop, go back to scene 5, and put in a few extra lines of dialogue. Or a completely new scene.

Anyway, I wrote FADE OUT, then clicked 'Type Set/PDF.' That will mean something to those of you using Celtx. You wait, painstakingly, for about 10 looooog seconds as the little green bar fills, the text next to it saying "formatting script" all god-like.

I won't give away the spoiler, but suffice to say it's longer than 60 pages. Which is good. It's not yet a feature length piece, but I'm leaving it until Monday now. The weekend will give me some perspective. Space to breathe. To get my head round everything and brainstorm a few ideas. Then I can attack it on Monday and finish everything off.

So this is a cautionary tale. I'm a big planning dude. I love it. It gets a little slow after a while, but it means that when you come to write the script, you're itching to go. And nothing can stop you. You can write a 60-minute drama in just under three hours on a good day.

My other piece of advice - don't panic. Everything works out in the end. You'll come up with something. Take that half day off (like I did). Get out of the house, go for a walk, meet up with some friends, get completely sozzled in a crummy bar. Do something other than writing! This way, you won't get a massive headache! Which is always good.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to bash my head against a brick wall.

Over and out. Shiny writing!

Just because it's awesome....

A fan vid for what will always be favouritest TV show ever! Ain't it shiny?!

TV show bible template (for Celtx)

We all know TV show bibles are a huge pain in our little (relatively speaking) arses. I've never written one. Not properly. I've been putting it off for ages. Now, thanks to Mike Jones, there's a template for Celtx, with pretty much everything you need. 

What I am proposing here is a more clearly defined third kind of series bible; the Development Bible. The purpose of this is for the bible to serve as an effective writing and project development tool. Certainly parts of the Dev Bible might become part of the pitch and indeed it may also serve to guide writers of a series into the future when a show is in production, but its primary purpose is to give the creator of the show a firm structure and platform to flesh out story-worlds, natural dynamics, characters and story-archs in a way that will feed the series scripts.

Download and edit to your heart's content here. Please spread the word as much as possible.

So so shiny!