General Archives – The Writer Muses

A Story About A Girl – 10 Years In The Making

Colin Parton — Sun, 31 Jan 2021 00:46:18 +0000

Myra: The Gathering, Part 1. - By Colin Parton (Me)

Before you stick up your nose and leave this is not as narcissistic as me reviewing my own book. Not even I would have the gumption to do that.

This post is more about the writing and publishing process that I went through with this book.

Boy Meets Girl

Well it wasn’t really that romantic. I had my first table top role-play experience with my friends at high school. Here I was, the new kid from Australia in the wintery north.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Well not really, we had recently moved to Guelph, outside Toronto. I had quickly made good friends with a group, for lack of a better word, nerds. And Myra was born.

It seemed like the most obvious choice in the world – like Myra had been waiting in the edge of my thoughts. When she stepped onto the stage – that was it – I was done. Bowled over.

For the next few years you could see me scribbling her story onto loose leaf pages in the halls. Over the years Myra had brothers and cousins join her. But nothing quiet touches the first character you play. I am her and she is me.

Photo by Min An from Pexels

The Pages Come Together

The disperate pages slowly came together to form a narrative. The first version of this tale was part of the whole it would become in Creative Writing – the elective I look in the last year of highschool.

Then I left Canada and started uni in Canberra. These tales were told and worked on throughout the following years but my focus had turned to the screen. I worked writing the words that others would say. I wrote the words that lead other directors down the garden path to show the audience waht I wanted them to see.

Short Film

The writing never stopped. From in class to out of class. From one festival to the next there was always more stories to be told.

I think that Myra et al. were lucky that I was working on a student budget. I’m sure I would have tried my had at writing or shooting them into being if it hadn’t been for the medieval setting.

Photo by Martin Lopez from Pexels

Feature Film Production

After uni I tried very hard to get a feature made. But I knew that it wasn’t going to happen after seeing the money required for even a ten minute short. So I turned to the stories. I spent the next few years focusing on trying to sell the features I had written or getting short stories published. I didn’t have much luck with either.

To be honest I feel that I really gave the film gig a proper go. I think that if I had really wanted to I could have got on a plane and gone to the US. That was the next step. That’s what was needed. But I had a cushy 9-5 and no reason to jump.

Getting Above the Slush

At this point I had a draft of The Gathering (Myra, Snorri and Tarion) that I was happy with. It was doing the rounds of all the slush piles I could find. Many many many rejection letters and perhaps five years later I gave up on this path.

I decided to try to get an agent. So I took a similar tack to the slush piles – sending it everywhere. This is how I met Sandy. Sandy liked the work but she knew that I didn’t need to hear that it was good or that she liked it.

When she told me she would take the work on I was elated. She almost immediatly took the kiddie gloves off. I distintly remember that first phone call. “Well you can clearly write. And this is a well polished piece.”

Photo by RF._.studio from Pexels

Kill Your Children

This is an adage from script writing. So I was ready. Sandy had me re-writing a piece that I was sure was finished.

But I had done what I could so I was ready to try anything. A few months later we were done. Very little of Snorri or Tarrion had changed but Myra was a new beast and she held those boys together.

Then Sandy brought her powers to bare and got me manuscript under the noses of the heads of speculative fiction at some of the biggest publication houses the world has to offer.

Better Luck Next Time

Publisher after publisher offer praise for the work but the wouldn’t publish. I was a new author and this is a glutted marketplace. Especially fantasy – I had no idea. Hit up Amazon or GoodReads next time you have a min. There is a ridiculous amount of scifi/fantasy.

So I got their drift. This probably wasn’t going to happen without something distinct to set me or the stories apart. This crystallised for me with the last rejection letter we got from Gollancz. We love the work but our books are full. I thanked Sandy for her time and went back to my 9-5.

9-5 Became Less Cushy

Me and my co-workers began to butt heads over more and more things. I stepped back and back until I had very little to defend. I gave in more and more and asked for one thing and my last ally took this from me. At this point a looked around at the position I had built from nothing over the ten years I had been in the role.

It was not what I remembered creating – not that change is bad – It’s that the reasons for the change need to still be present. The core needs to remain – the things that made it great. None of that remained so I promptly handed in my resignation and headed to a beach in Thailand.

Laying there reading some great books I decided I’d make a proper go of it. I was going to really hit the short story competitions. I was going to go for contract writer jobs.

Blogging

Blogging quickly became a source of income for me. I was able to pick up jobs here and there but even on an ongoing basis it was never going to be the level of income needed to support someone.

But as a side hustle it was a good start. And I was gathering a base of readers that would, perhaps follow me into the next venture.

There are a few things about blogging that are truly terrible. The first is writing about things that you couldn’t care less about. Often coupled with this is huge research time. These two things made me really dread writing, something which I have never encountered before.

Money for Nothing

Well – not for nothing. For no labour. This is what I really wanted to achieve. It’s kind of the same idea behind investments that generate income. That’s what I wanted and needed my writing to achieve. Otherwise I’d be stuck writing an IT Blog for a pittance and never been able to live off that income.

So I decided that if The Gathering was good enough for me to land an Agent like Sandy and get such praise from publishers around the world surely I could sell some myself.

So I spent the next few months learning about self publishing and deciding the best way to go about releasing this story that had been with me as long as I can remember to the world.

And that’s it it’s done now. Myra is out there – you can buy or download a copy wherever you are on the planet. I know one guy that would be pretty stoked if you did.

Buy A Copy of Myra on Amazon

The post A Story About A Girl – 10 Years In The Making appeared first on The Writer Muses.

How To Review A Story

Colin Parton — Mon, 17 Jun 2019 10:08:57 +0000

More specifically how do I review a story. First let’s talk about subjectivity. I think that when reviewing any piece of art your opinion, your likes and dislikes, all play a big role. But having said this when you are looking at narrative fiction or narrative non-fiction the way in which a story is told can be quantified and becomes much less subjective than you think.

A Word of Warning

When I first started the film writing section of my degree I was given a warning that I am going to repeat here. If you like to watch film just to get a feeling that you liked it or didn’t like it and don’t want to delve any deeper into that then you should stop reading.

There are a lot of answers that are going to be given about why you feel certain ways about what happens in narratives. It’s kind of a situation where you can’t unlearn what you have learnt. Once you know, you know and you won’t be able to stop yourself analysing your reaction to a narrative piece.

Ok, you’ve all been warned. Time to pull back the curtain.

Story Development

If you speak to writers they will all explain different processes that they follow when they write a story. This doesn’t mean that they ignore these key concepts that I am going to go through. It just means that they approach them in a variety of ways.

For the best writers all of these aspects will always be there. Irregardless of whether they focus on character or setting or story they will all have these key concepts and address them well.

The Big Five

The big five are five key questions that address protagonist, antagonist and the key story beats. I am going to use The Matrix as an example throughout the rest of this piece as I have watched it recently and it does all of these things fairly well.

Photo by Jack B on Unsplash

Whose story is it?

This is about who the protagonist is. Who are we going to follow through the story? Whose eyes are we going to see the events through? Who are we going to root for?

The Matrix – The story is Neo’s.

What is the story about?

This is a huge question. It addresses four main aspects. First, the unity of opposites – I’ll talk about this more in a moment. Second, the key story beats – Catalyst – Crisis – Climax. Essentially this question sets up the antagonist and the journey the protagonist is going to go on in their attempt to defeat them.

The Matrix -The story is about Neo fighting against the control that the robots have over humankind through the matrix. This is the unity of opposites. Neo takes the red pill to find out what the matrix really is (Catalyst). Neo loses his mentor, Morpheus, to the machines in what Neo believes is a false sacrifice because he is not The One (Crisis). Neo fights against the machines to realise his true power as The One (Climax).

The antagonist is Agent Smith. He personifies the machines and is their agent in the matrix and controls the machines outside the matrix that are set against Neo.

What is the central question?

This is the main thread that will carry the plot. It is important in every scene. It is raised at the start of the story (Catalyst) it is answered in the negative at the crisis and in the positive at the climax. It is what the story is about at its core – if a scene doesn’t relate to the central question in any way it probably can be cut without affecting the narrative at all.

The Matrix – Will Neo become The One.

Photo by Giancarlo Revolledo on Unsplash

Prize & Price

These two concepts and vital to a successful narrative. Not only are they vital they have to be in balance. If one outweighs the other it will lead to disastrous consequences to how a story is received.

Prize is exactly that. It is what the protagonist gets if they achieve their goal. The price is what they pay to achieve this. If the prize is too great and the price is too little you will finish the story thinking that the protagonist had it easy. They got what they wanted without having to struggle for it.

The opposite is also true. If the price is too high and the prize too low you will finish the story thinking that it was too hard for the protagonist. They had to work so hard to achieve very little.

The Matrix – The prize is become The One. The price is the death of Neo’s other life as Mr. Anderson as well as the deaths of his allies – Apoch, Switch, Mouse and Dozer.

Why should we care?

This is about whether we can relate to the protagonist and the story. The story can fulfil all of the other parts of the big five really well, but if your audience doesn’t care about your story, it’s for nothing. They need to care about the struggle that the protagonist is going through.

Good ways to achieve this is by having the central question tie to a universal concept. That is things that we can all relate to. This is one of the big reasons that Shakespeare is touted as being one of the best writers ever. Examples are: forbidden love; power corrupts; a hero with a noble goal against terrible odds – an underdog story.

The Matrix – Neo is a true underdog. He is literally fighting against reality for the sake of the entire human race.

The Unity of Opposites

There should be two equal and opposite forces in a story. Neither can achieve victory without destroying the other. These are represented by the protagonist and the antagonist.

Photo by Markus Spiske temporausch.com from Pexels

It is important to note the word destruction, not death, destruction. Destruction is important because the force can be destroyed and the character representing it can survive – although they will be forever changed.

It is also important to realise that the protagonist and antagonist only represent the forces. In some cases they may actually be the force but most of the time they are simply the forces’ proxy. Put another, way they are the personification of the forces.

Every Story has a Beginning a Middle and an End

It is important to note that we are still in the bare bones of the story development at this stage. Even though we are going to talk about beginning middle and end. This is so that when we are looking at a story we can see that it has all these important beats and is moving in the right direction.

Catalyst – This is the inciting moment where the central question is raised. The protagonist begins on their journey from which there can be no return, without succeeding or failing in their quest. Up until this point the hero may have known about the quest but they could still back out. Now they can’t. This has to happen early on in the story otherwise the story is really about something else.

Crisis – This is the part of the story where the protagonist is furthest from reaching their goal. You should either be able to answer the central question in the negative or close to it. All hope is lost. While this is the ‘middle’ it generally happens about two thirds through the running time of a film.

Climax – This is the final showdown between the two forces. The central question is answered – almost always in the positive.

So the hero goes on a quest, almost loses but then they win, boring huh? Then stop going to the movies because this sums up 95% of movies that you have ever seen.

Photo by Maria Jose Bueso from Pexels

The Matrix – Catalyst – Neo takes the red pill. There is no coming back to his previous world after that. The story truly begins. The central question that has been floating around is now raised ‘Will Neo become The One?’

The Matrix – Crisis – Morpheus is taken by the machines. Neo decides because of the prophecy that he isn’t the one and has to make the choice to sacrifice himself to save Morpheus. This will be the death of Neo – everyone agrees on this, even Neo. He couldn’t be further from becoming The One than when he is dead.

The Matrix – Climax – Neo becomes The One after his death at the hands of Agent Smith. Through this rebirth he becomes something else, something more.

Why isn't it Boring to see the Same Story a Thousand Times?

Let me answer that with a story. Think about the last time a friend was describing a story to you. Then you see the movie or read the book. Now compare the movie to the story your friend told. Which was better? If you said your friend you’re lying or you saw something truly awful.

The reason for this is because of the way the story is told. We are essentially having the same story told to us a thousand times. Because the story is told by different storytellers (directors, authors, screenwriters) and different characters (actors) it seems like a new story. But once you scrape all the meat away the bones are the same.

Let's Put Some Flesh on Those Bones

The next step is to go through the twelve stages of the heroes journey.

One - The Ordinary World

We meet the major characters and perhaps the antagonist. What is important here is to understand the ‘world’ the protagonist exists in. This should be a world of stable disharmony. That is, the world would continue as it is right now if the protagonist didn’t go on their quest. However, there is something wrong with the world.

The Matrix – Neo trying to find out what the matrix is – his first encounters with Trinity and the Agents as well as well as the surreal. We also meet the super-powerful Agents in the first scene and their adversary Trinity.

Two - Call To Adventure

The central question is raised. The quest is presented to the protagonist.

The Matrix – This is literally a call. Morpheus calls Neo explaining he can trust him or leave in the custody of the agents.

Photo by Xan Griffin on Unsplash

Three - Refusal of the Call

The hero refuses to begin the quest. It’s too hard or the protagonist won’t/can’t go on the journey.

The Matrix – Neo drops the phone while scaling the building to reach the scaffolding. He decides he will take his chances with the agents.

Four - Meeting the Mentor

The protagonist’s major ally or guiding force is introduced. Generally they are on the side of the protagonist but sometimes they are neutral. What is important is that they provide guidance to the protagonist throughout the journey. They often provide the hero with a gift.

The Matrix – This is split in two parts. First is the call from Morpheus the more important ‘Meeting the Mentor’ scene is when Neo arrives at the apartment and Morpheus gives him the pills. Morpheus is the mentor.

Five - Crossing the First Threshold - CATALST

The central question is raised again. This time the protagonist makes the decision to go on the journey. They cannot now return to the ordinary world in step one. They have to complete the quest or fail trying.

The Matrix – Taking the red pill as discussed in the Big 5.

Six - Tests/Allies/Enemies

This step takes up the majority of the story and most certainly is the main part of the second act.

Tests – these are exactly what it sounds like. Obstacles are placed in the hero’s path for the hero to overcome. They will generally gain a reward of some kind by overcoming these obstacles. The obstacles can be placed in the hero’s path by the antagonist or the opposing force but they do not have to be. A prime example of this is the changeling. This is an ally that starts as a test. After the hero overcomes the test, the test becomes an ally.

Photo by Duy Pham on Unsplash

Allies – Friends, big and small, are needed as part of a quest. The protagonist cannot succeed without them. They often become part of the price the hero must pay in order to succeed in their quest.

Enemies – Minor enemies or minor encounters with the major enemy. Testing of the hero’s strength allows us to see how they are growing throughout the journey.

The Matrix – Tests – Combat with Morpheus; the jump; the Oracle. Allies – Trinity; the rest of the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar. Enemies – Cypher; the agents.

Seven - Approach to the Inmost Cave

The protagonist arrives at the start of the journey towards the crisis. This looks like it is the beginning of the end. All could be lost.

The Matrix – Return from the Oracle. The team arrive at the house and the machines have locked down the building and they are all trapped. Morpheus is taken.

Eight - Trial on the Inmost Cave - CRISIS

The protagonist faces a great ordeal and is found wanting. This is the end. All is lost. The central question is answered in the negative.

The Matrix – The attack on the military HQ where they are holding Morpheus. This is doomed to fail. Everything leading up to this point has told us that Neo must fail. They are taking on Agents. Neo believes he is choosing death after what the Oracle told him.

Nine - Rebirth - Seizing the Sword

The protagonist has succeeded against all odds. They take control of a vital thing that they need to achieve their final goal – this is called the sword.

The Matrix – Neo begins to believe that he may be The One. He hasn’t died as he thought he was going to. This culminates when he turns to fight Agent Smith in the subway rather than running. Morpheus actually says “he is beginning to believe.”

Ten - The Road Back

The enemy is not fully defeated and the protagonist needs to race back and prepare for the final battle. They may need to fight to keep the sword and come to grips with its full power.

Photo by Ricardo Cruz on Unsplash

The Matrix – Neo manages to defeat Agent Smith but when the Agent reappears after stopping the train Neo realises that he has to get out of the Matrix. He needs to come to grips with his new power.

Eleven - The Final Test - CLIMAX

The protagonist and the antagonist meet for the final battle. The protagonist uses the sword. The central question is answered – generally in the positive.

The Matrix – Neo dies. Then he comes back to life as The One. He defeats Agent smith.

Twelve - Balance is Restored

The quest is finished and the world is returned to balance. The world is generally altered because of the quest and the hero brings with them some of their power due to completing the quest.

The Matrix – Everything is as it was. There is no conflict anymore. Neo is now The One. It is now up to the machines to make a move but as The One he can now remake the matrix as he sees fit. Given this he is now a god inside the matrix but outside he is still a man. The status quo is much as it was before the start of the story.

Does the Order Matter?

Not really. The major beats, that is, the catalyst, crisis and climax generally have to happen in that order but bits and pieces of the rest of the stages can happen in a different order. If they are too far out of order they lose their power.

For example, if the protagonist doesn’t meet their mentor until after the crisis the question arises as to whether they need the mentor at all. Another great film, Pulp Fiction, ticks all the boxes of the hero’s journey but it does them completely out of order. It’s still great though.

Photo by JJ Jordan on Unsplash

Bringing it all Together

So that’s it. We now have all the building blocks for a great story. What I generally do after watching a movie is to think about the big five and see how the story goes there. It has to fulfil here for it to score well in my book. If any of these things are missing the movie cannot score above five out of ten for me.

I then look at the twelve steps and see what decisions they made here. What they chose not to include, why they chose to do things out of order, and most importantly, was the film better or worse because of it. If everything is good here a movie can score seven out of ten for me.

Finally I look at subjective things. These can be anything and it depends on you. I really like great dialogue and the use of intertext, where appropriate. I hate inconsistencies – things that don’t make sense in the world of the story. These are the final three points for me taking a movie up to a possible ten out of ten.

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Can Women Be Heroes

Colin Parton — Sun, 02 Jun 2019 04:58:43 +0000

Now that you’ve all arrived following that awfully click-baity title I’ll outline what this article is about. Women can obviously be heroes. We all have women that are heroes in our lives. That is not what this article is about.

When I say women I mean specifically female characters in any medium. When I say heroes I mean The Hero in the traditional heroes journey sense.

Why do I want to talk about this?

I’ve written two films where the heroes are women. One of the main characters in my novel The Gathering is a women. With all three of these pieces me and my colleagues ran into some issues that we wouldn’t have come across if the hero was a man.

What does it mean to be a woman?

How can I answer this, I’m a man? So obviously I can’t answer what it means to be a woman. By “mean to be a woman” I am going look at is what are the things that we (an anglo-western culture in the twenty-first century) attribute to be exemplifiers of femininity.

To paraphrase Jessica Benjamin, women are dominated both individually and societally. This domination is anchored in the heart of the dominated and is bound by love to oppressive social relations. While boys seek liberation in the father girls connect their femininity to submission rather than agency. Femineity is developed in identification with nurturing and concession of autonomy.

So while there is a lot to unpack here the key in relation to the Hero is agency. The Hero in a narrative must take action to overcome an overwhelming force that is trying to stop them achieving their goal. Without agency the Hero cannot take any of the steps of the story.

How do we tie this theory into narrative?

How does this relate to the issues that I’ve faced when writing women as heroes? Essentially it has boiled down to, what me and the co-writers I’ve worked with have described as, the hero having to abandon their femineity in order to become the hero. That is they have to become a man, or take on masculinity.

Traditionally traits associated with femineity are: gentleness, empathy, sensitivity, caring, sweetness, compassion, tolerance, nurturance, deference, and succorance. While a hero can have most of these traits they cannot have deference. All of the other traits must be tempered for them to be able to undertake the journey that we need them to in order for the narrative to be successful.

Essentially what I have found this to mean is that the gentle, caring, nurturing character that I had originally developed has to become colder, harder, in order to achieve their goals. This is likely to be exactly the same process that would occur if the hero was male. But these changes do not move the male character away from their masculine base.

What are masculine traits?

Contrarily the stereotypical masculine traits are strength, courage, independence, leadership, violence, and assertiveness.

It can be a real balancing act and I often found that we were asking ourselves “Can we have her do this action (that is necessary) and remain a woman (or the person we had created).” I realise that every hero has to change during their story or they will be doomed to repeat it but rarely do we see male characters loose so much of themselves as compared to their female counterparts.

I keep trying to think of examples and having just re-watched a number of seasons of Game of Thrones I thought this might be a good place to start. I think that this is a good example as none of the leading characters (male or female) show an abundance of any of the feminine traits. Having said that it feels a bit off with all the female characters.

Just think about how it feels when we see Cersei, Arya, Sansa and Daenerys. They are all powerful women. They are all heroes of the story, with their own arcs and journeys. And they all feel a bit inhuman. I mean we can all understand why they have done the things they have done. When we compare them to the people that they were before they went through their journey: they were more human, more feminine.

What can the men from Game of Thrones tell us?

Now look at the male characters: Jon, Tyrion, Jaime and Jorah. They are all power men. They are all heroes of the story, with their own arcs and journeys. And they all feel completely human. We can all understand why they have done the things they have done. In some cases here much more dehumanising actions than the women. When we compare them to the people that they were before they went through their journey – they are just as human now just more masculine.

All this leads me to believe that from an anglo-western view women cannot be heroes and retain their femininity. They must sacrifice it to achieve their goals. As sacrifice is a key part of any hero’s journey perhaps women make better heroes than men we, as writers, just have to be able to use this sacrifice well.

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Magic In The Middle Ages

Colin Parton — Thu, 23 May 2019 09:52:47 +0000

Introductory Course run by the University of Barcelona on Coursera

The course begun with an overview of ancient beliefs relating to magic and magic’s connection to religion. Then there was an overview of magic throughout the middle ages.

This began with the rise of magic and superstition following the fall of the roman empire. This was followed by an explanation of the different schools of magic identified by Christian schools of thought during the early middle ages. The early part of the course then mapped the decline of belief in magic and the reasons around it.

After the overview we moved into a more detailed analysis of the key time periods and what was going on in regards to magic. The course looked in detail at the rise and fall of different types of magic. The focus was on: natural magic; necromancy; witchcraft.

The truth of the Inquisition

We looked in detail at an inquisitorial trial and the inquisitorial movement as a whole. We then moved on to looking at the medieval witchcraft trials. There was a good portion of the course looking at primary sources, both pagan and Christian, discussing magic and witchcraft.

The course then looked at Islamic magic, including its role and reception in society. I found it really interesting to see the different views here when paralleled with what was happening in Europe at the same time. The key aspects of Islamic magic that the course explored were: the science of letters; alchemy; astrology; and geomancy.

The final section of the course on world cycles was also very interesting.

Why would you take this course?

The reason I did this course, is the same reason that I do any course, it looked interesting. It was also a topic which I knew very little apart from popular culture references to the witch trials and the inquisition.

In regards to these things I found the course very informative. We were able to learn about what was actually happening at the time when the ideas of magic were a much bigger part of our collective consciousness. It was also great to have access to primary sources looking at the threats that they saw as very real to their religion. There is now no doubt in my mind that the writers and inquisitors of the middle ages believed in the power of magic 100%.

It was also very interesting to see which parts of magic were cherry picked, as it were, by both Christian and Islamic authorities as acceptable and venerated forms of magic. These included things such as astrology.

I would highly recommend this course to anyone who would like to know the truth, as far as we know it, about what was happening at this time in Europe and the near east. The perspective of someone who was there is always valuable.

This course is available on Coursera

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Romeo, Juliet And A Drug War.

Colin Parton — Sun, 19 May 2019 09:35:01 +0000

Christina

I’ve always been obsessed with the Romeo and Juliet story. Perhaps it the Baz Luhrmann film that came out when I was in school. More likely it was the girl I was in love with at the time. I doubt I would have seen the film if it wasn’t for her.

Whatever the reason I loved the film and have been really interested in two things that it did. One, setting Shakespeare in a modern setting. Huge fan, and Luhrmann handled it brilliantly. Second, the star-crossed lovers bit really did a number on me.

So at uni, after I’d been writing for film for a few years and had a couple of shorts under my belt I decided to have a crack myself. Two waring families, two lovers, who don’t know each other, get caught up in their families shit and bad things happen.

Time to stop thinking about it and just do it.

So I mapped it out. Normal film development stuff, the big 5 etc. Got to plot points about twelve months later. It was my final year and I was busy working on our Feature Film – Icebound. I finally got there. All the major beats were in place, everything was flowing as it should. The pacing seemed good. I really liked it.

Then I started on the treatment (script minus dialogue). As I was going through this I started jumping around and writing out the action for the scenes I was really pumped for. I often do this, mainly because I can’t wait to get these visuals that have been in my head for years down on paper. I think it helps interrogate scenes on their own merit as well.

There are two things that writing the treatment like this help with: first, entry and exit of the scene – you want to get in and get out as soon as possible. Everything in the scene has to be important. Second – as you write a few of the scenes out you begin to see them as the vignettes they are supposed to be.

The film wasn't a short and it wasn't a feature

Is was at this point I began to realise two things. Well that’s not entirely true. One thing that was confirmed for me here was that the film was too long. I had know that for a while. There’s a formula to it. Finished script is about a minute a page. Treatments and plot points sort of work in a similar way. There are obvious excemptions to this – for example if you have a lot of talking then your plot points and treatment aren’t going to give you the best idea of the length of the piece.

I now realised that I was looking at about a forty minute film. This wasn’t a length that I could do anything with. I’d been working on short films of around five minutes, ten and fifteen been the absolute longest. I was aware of the time and cost that a forty minute film would take to make and none of my production group would be interested in that – I sure as hell wasn’t.

Don't make characters that you don't like

The second issue that I found is that I had, in me two leading roles, created two completely unlikable characters. Alex (Romeo) was rough and a bit bloodthirsty. I could work with that. Loved his friends would do anything for them and the woman he loved. Yep this could work. But Christina (Juliet – And the name of the script) well she had fallen into the exact hole we had dug for our female protagonist in Icebound – she had lost her femininity (I’ll do another article on this as I fell it warrants further discussion – https://www.writermuses.com/can-women-be-heroes/).

The problem was that I had created a character that had to sacrifice their humanity to get where they were. They weren’t likable – I didn’t like her and I’m not sure Alex did either. How could my heroine have turned from the great love interest into this thing. So I made some notes and continued with the treatment.

By the end of this process I was certain that I had turned Juliet into Brunhilde – not exactly unlikable but certainly not what this film called for. I also realised that with all the gun fights and car chases there was no way that me and my team could make this film – it would be too expensive.

What can you do with a film of this length?

What made this all worse was the length. There isn’t much that you can do with a forty minute film. No major company is going to want it because it cannot get a theatrical release and no smaller company will want it either. For similar reasons as well as a film of this length couldn’t be part of entry for the short film circuit – at least as far as I am aware.

But I wasn’t going to let that stop me. There were some awesome scenes and I could see the trailer already. So, after uni I took a year off. I was working on a lot of projects, this just been one of them. I finished the first draft and a slightly more polished second draft. I let it sit and revisited it later.

I had made a really bad film

I realised at this point what I had since the plot points had first been written. This was a bad film. The lead character was unlikable. You cared for her struggle but if you didn’t care for her it was for nothing. All the narrative elements were pretty spot on and the pacing was good. The film would be great if there was a market for a forty minute short – and if my hero wasn’t the worst.

Having said all this I don’t think it was a waste of time. It gave me some good experience and I think that been able to see what is wrong with a piece of work you have created is important. Unfortunately with this one it isn’t fixable, even though there are now plenty of markets for this length of piece now.

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