2000AD: Proudly subverting expectations since 1977

The galaxy's greatest comic got a lot of coverage last week for a story that suggested iconic future lawman might be gay. Mostly it was spin, designed to get the weekly anthology comic some attention - and it worked. The irony is 2000AD [and, before that, the Judge Dredd Megazine] has featured a proudly gay character for 20+ years.

Invented by John Smith and Sean Phillips, freelance exorcist Devlin Waugh is a brilliant creation. Imagine the head of Terry Thomas grafted on the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger, and armed with the wit of Oscar Wilde. I'm happy to say I commissioned Devlin's first adventure, and he's been saving the day ever since. Zarjaz!

Kiwi music: 'Telegrams & Ashes', Rosy Tin Teacaddy

Saw Rosy Tin Teacaddy play live last time I was in New Zealand, and loved the show. Just booked tickets for a return trip to NZ for December this year, so here's a burst of Kiwi music to start the day. Kia ora! [No, not the drink - the Maori greeting.]

Praise the Lord, Father Brown gets a second series

Mark Williams as Father Brown, photo: Des Willie/BBC

Daytime drama on British TV doesn't get the respect it deserves, in my humble opinion. [Of course, I would say that, having written for BBC1 daytime stalwart Doctors.] But Father Brown [above], Land Girls and Moving On are all great examples of what can be made for a fraction of the budget spent on higher profile, post-watershed drama series.

Father Brown was developed by Rachel Flowerday and Tahsin Guner from G.K. Chesterton's short stories about a Catholic priest who solves mysteries. The series was a daytime gem, attracting no end of critical praise and crackerjack ratings. A second series has been commissioned and a repeat nearer prime-time is likely, I'd suggest.

Roland Moore's Land Girls was another daytime series that proved a smaller budget was no barrier to compelling drama. Jimmy McGovern's anthology series Moving On attracts major talent with the quality of its writing, often by new scribes working with McGovern. Many emerging writers learn their craft in daytime, especially at the BBC.

But some snobbery still lingers in the industry, perhaps leftover from lacklustre shows of the past like Crossroads. Daytime doesn't have the prestige, an executive once told me. The budget dissuades others from developing series for mid-afternoon. But the success of Father Brown puts the lie to that. Long may it continue. Onwards!

Mindbending: slo-mo Kate Bush Wuthering Heights

Photo-spread: an assortment of my Blipfoto leftovers

A few months back I gave myself a new creative challenge, utterly divorced from writing - shooting and uploading a new photo every day to my blipfoto account. I often take dozens of photos before choosing one, so a lot of pics don't make the cut. Here are five from last week I quite like...

 

 

 

One of my Nina and the Neurons was on today

I've written five of the 25 episodes in Go Engineering, the new series of preschooler science show Nina and the Neurons. The first of mine - Bin Lorry - made its debut on CBeebies at 4.30pm today [Thursday January 17]. It'll be on the BBC iPlayer for a while afterwards, and will pop up on CBeebies frequently thereafter. Here's the promo blurb:

Nina investigates how a bin lorry works - with the help of Ollie, her smell neuron. Engineers Heidi, Molly and Sam visit Nina in her workshop and discover that bin lorries use pistons to lift up the rubbish bins. 

Next they go to a recycling centre and find out that pistons are tubes connected with liquid. Lastly they visit the Thames Barrier which protects London from flooding. The Thames Barrier is really heavy and works using pistons too.

I've also written tomorrow's show, all about hovercrafts. Sadly, I didn't get to go along when they were filming the hovercraft sequences. On the plus side, I didn't go to the bin lorry filming either. Swings and roundabouts, I guess. Onwards!

Screenwriting eurekas can be a long time coming

Entry deadline for the Frank Deasy Award looms [Feb 1st]. Run by BBC Scotland Drama, Creative Scotland and the BBC writersroom, the contest honours the acclaimed TV dramatist who wrote Looking After Jojo, Real Men and the last Prime Suspect.

Whoever wins will be offered a residency at BBC Scotland for six months, developing original ideas for BBC1 with prospects for a script commission. Entrants must be Scottish or live in Scotland, with a professional credit in TV, theatre, radio or film.

I'm using the Feb 1st deadline as motivation for a much-delayed project. Years ago I write the pilot for a hour-long new weekly continuing drama, Families At War. It was the major project for my screenwriting MA, and helped get me a trial at Doctors on BBC1.

The script shrank to 28 pages, then expanded back to 48 pages. That version was a Red Planet Prize finalist in 2009 and still serves as a calling card sometimes, but it's deeply flawed. For a start, there are eight competing storylines, instead of two or three.

As a consequence none of the characters get enough room to reveal who they really are. [It's a bad habit I sometimes have - clogging plot with complications, instead of exploring the complexities of a few core characters, their wants, needs and flaws.]

Even my A story is problematic, with incident after incident happening to the central character, rather than focusing on his actions, reactions and decisions to those incidents. Thinking about that last week, I had a belated realisation after my script's structure.

Every version of the script to date ends on a double-whammy - when rioters attack the protagonist's livelihood, he chooses to stand and fight [a rare case of him being active]. But next day police arrest the protagonist instead of the rioters - the end.

Last weekend I finally realised the next day coda doesn't belong in the pilot. Why? Each ep has a different family member as protagonist. Episode two will now open with the husband being arrested and focus on how the family matriarch responds.

Having changed my structure, I'm replotting the pilot to ensure each beat of the A story is driven by my protagonist's action, reactions and decisions. Because it's a factually-inspired historical drama, there are events that must happen at fixed moments.

The underlying problem with all my previous versions was that I let historical fact dictate structure. I fell in love with the events I'd found through research, rather than keeping my focus on how those events challenged my characters' inherent flaws.

The next day coda felt like a fabulous ending for my pilot. But it belongs at the start of episode two, propelling the drama in a fresh direction, providing an engine that will help drive the plot. Good to finally have that eureka. Shame it took so long. Onwards!

My PLR Top Ten, July 2011 - June 2012

Every year the Public Lending Right sends registered authors a statement estimating how many times their books were borrowed from UK libraries. To compensate for lost sales, the PLR pays about six pence per loan. There's a maximum payment threshold [£6600] to prevent bestselling authors from draining the PLR's precious coffers of cash.

More than 23,000 authors will get payments for the most recent PLR period [July 2011-June 2012], with just over 200 on the maximum amount. The fate of the PLR is in flux, as traditional publishing transitions to eBooks and cash-strapped councils close libraries. In the meantime, authors welcome this new year bonus.

I’m a minnow when it comes to PLR payments, never getting more than £500 in any given year. But I've been concentrating on screenwriting since 2007 and haven't written a new novel for five years, so the size of my payment has been tumbling. That trend continues as my dog-eared tomes disappear from libraries.

This time my most borrowed book was my last published novel - A Massacre in Marienburg, a Warhammer tome for Games Workshop's Black Library that is currently out of print. In fact all my novels on this list are out of print, although some are available as eBooks. Happily, the two graphic novels on the list are still in print.

My Fiends of the Eastern Front novels, plus the Rising Sun spin-off and comic serial compilation Stalingrad, continue to dominate even though they date back to 2005-2007. Horror also features in my Nightmare on Elm Street novel Suffer the Children, which appears as a standalone and in an omnibus edition.

Conspicuous by his absence is Russian rogue Nikolai Dante. I wrote three novels based on the 2000AD character. None of the books sold well [or at all, according to my publisher at the time] but all three and the omnibus collection were consistent favourites on my PLR list. This year all four are conspicuous by their absence.

This could be due to sampling error - the PLR results are estimates, based on indicative results from a fluctuating list of libraries. It could be the Dante books have finally fallen apart after years of use, or for some other reason. Anyway, here are my top ten tomes for July 2011 - June 2012 (with previous year's placing in brackets):-

1. (4) A Massacre in Marienburg (published Dec 08)
2. (2) Fiends of the Rising Sun (Jul 07)
3. (1) Heavy Metal Dredd (graphic novel, Apr 09)
4. (3) Fiends of the Eastern Front: Stalingrad (graphic novel, Oct 10)
5. (-) Fiends of the Eastern Front omnibus (Feb 07)
6. (5) Fiends of the Eastern Front: The Blood Red Army (Apr 06)
7. (-) Fiends of the Eastern Front: Twilight of the dead (Jul 06)
8. (8) Fiends of the Eastern Front: Operation Vampyr (Oct 05)
9. (-) A Nightmare on Elm Street: Suffer the Children (May 05)
10. (-) Ripped From a Dream: A Nightmare on Elm Street omnibus (Oct 06)

Bubbling under - Doctor Who: Amorality Tale; two different editions of The Complete Inspector Morse; and Starring Michael Caine.

New series of Nina & the Neurons starts today

Cbeebies launches a new series of pre-schooler science show Nina and the Neurons today at 4.30pm, called Go Engineering. In the clip above, lovely assistant producer Val Mellon explains how experiments in the show are developed.

I've written five of the 25 episodes in this series, tackling tricky questions about bin lorries, hovercraft, tunnels, diving and luggage. Not sure when my eps are due on, but once they are I'll post a link on the right hand side of this blog.

This ever-popular post describes the experience of writing for Nina and the Neurons.

2013 Academy Awards - honest posters edition

Those scamps at College Humor have created a set of honest posters for the nine Best Picture nominees at this year's Oscars. See the other seven here. Enjoy!

"Just walking the dead": that new Bowie video

So, what's with the woman beside Bowie? Kept expecting her to start singing. Or humming. Or anything, really. Distinct absence of angry Trevor Eve too, despite the recurring lyrical reference. That's probably a good thing, now I think about it...

Momus covers the new David Bowie single

How to beat the rush. David Bowie revealed his first new single this morning, a Momus-esque track called Where Are We Now? This afternoon Momus uploads a cover...

David Bowie's pointy space nipples

In honour of David Bowie's new single, the announcement of a new album and his 66th birthday today, enjoy this reprise of the Bowie song by Flight of the Conchords. Classic!

My writing goal for 2013: tell six stories

Most years I set a list of diverse goals and ambitions for myself - and most years I'm likely to achieve half that list. Sof ro 2013, I'm taking a different approach. Rather than spread myself too thin, trying to do too many different things, I'm going to tell six stories.

I'm not going to stipulate if the stories are film, TV or radio drama ideas. They might be written as scripts or in prose. They might be optioned or commissioned or simply get read. But in 2013 I'll develop and write a polished draft of six different stories.

I'm going to name three of them now, and leave the other three unnamed. Why? I'm giving myself room to come up with better ideas than the six I'm currently nurturing. Actually, I've far too many ideas, but that doesn't mean they're all worth writing.

In no particular order, three of my six stories for 2013 will be: Tealeaf, currently a children's TV drama idea; Better Angels, a feature film or TV drama series idea; and Families At War, a page 1 rewrite of my first calling card - to see if I can get it right.

I reserve the right to substitute these three with other stories if required. Why? Because I'll be devoting at least a month of my writing time to each project and I want to use those hours, days and weeks fruitfully. Most of all, I want to be writing - not just talking about it.

So that's my year ahead sorted - what's your writing goal for 2013?

Everybody eats at the Quality Cafe! [NSFW]

Led Zep vs Beatles: Lotta Helter Skelter mashup

Via Endeavour and Doctor Who director Colm McCarthy.

Photos from a research daytrip to Arborath Abbey

 

I'm writing a feature for Historic Scotland and went on a Tayside daytrip last week to visit a quartet of sites. First stop was Arbroath Abbey, a rather magnificent mixture of buildings and ruins. Here's a selection of snaps from my wander round the grounds...

NSFW: Every Tarantino pop culture ref [ever?]

CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

Someone's spent a lot of time splicing together all of Quentin Tarantino's cinematic pop culture references in chronological order of the relevant cultural icon's first appearance. Having recently rewatched Crimson Tide, on which QT did a pop cultural-laden script polish, I think there's several things missing from this Not Suitable For Work compilation - but it's still an amazing effort. Enjoy!

A Capella Drollness: Walk Off the Earth

Warm Bodies: trailer and first four minutes

Liking the look of new zom-rom-com, Warm Bodies - trailer above, first four minutes below. Enjoy!