Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 210

Have I done this before?

I'm stuck at work -- snowed in. I could spend half an hour digging my car out from under all that white stuff, but instead I'm just spending the night at the office. I'm the only one here, this week, so it's not like I have to worry about offending anyone if my clothes are not fresh. I have access to a kitchenette and there's a 7/11 a couple blocks away...and I have a toothbrush...so why not?

The good thing is, I'm catching up on reading articles about writing that I'd saved. And they're kicking new ideas from the mess in my brain. Like finally seeing what The Alice 65 is really all about. Adam and Casey are trapped by things in their past -- her by Lando's infidelity, him by his father's death -- and how they help each other break free. Nothing overt, but I do want to add a line where Adam says something like, "Funny how you can be trapped by aspects of your past...things over which you have no control." I know exactly where to put it, too.

Of course it means, honing a couple of moments to link them into that...but again, nothing overt. Except...I can be unobtrusive to the point of obscurity, at times. For instance, in Blood Angel, I built Tristan as not only a tortured soul but one who was borderline suicidal. His step-mother, Anne-Marie, and his buddy, Baldo, notice and emphasize how many people he has who love him, but I never actually say that he'd like to die. It's all suggested until the end. And it's amazing how few people caught that. Well...actors tended to, but coverage creeps? Nah. Never.

I will say, the coverage I got on this script when I entered it into Slamdance made me realize just how awful  and sloppy it can be. Something that is made very clear in BA is, everyone thinks Tristan's mother died in Katrina. The person doing the coverage referred to her as a suicide and felt that was  cliched way to make Tristan sympathetic. There was so much wrongness in that person's comments, I complained about it. Slamdance's response? "But you still got a good grade on it. Almost made the next cut."

Talk about laughable. Nothing's changed, either. Recently I got coverage on a script where the person doing it complained about me putting a period after dashes and trashed my use of flashbacks...this on a script that's won awards. After a while you just have to laugh and realize it's nothing but the luck of the draw.

And I've never had the kind of luck that gets past that.

Another step...

OT is off to a new editor to see how it works. I doubt I'll hear anything for a few weeks, so I may shift myself to pushing the scripts I have or maybe even finishing a first draft of Underground Guy. I've got a stack of stories and projects I need to get to, so no telling.

OT took a lot of work, and I'm happy with how it's turned out. My only uncertainty, right now, is the opening three chapters. I think they draw the reader in but I honestly cannot tell. They've been a problem to some people and I could see why; I had way too much exposition in them, in the earlier drafts. So I got rid of 90% of it and focused on making this about Owen Taylor's disappearance.

I'm deliberately avoiding asking people who've already read the book or its predecessor so I can get a feel for how easy it is to follow. A lot of details are strung out across the entire story. I just hope they gel enough to explain why Jake and Tone are together.

I suppose I could work more on planning the books. That won't be easy. For the hard copies, I need to know how many pages it is in the correct format before I work up the covers. The e-copy isn't so difficult that way, but it does have its own demands.

It's not like I can do anything much, right now. I'm broke and my Visa and Mastercard are maxed out, thanks to entering screenplay competitions and buying seminars and posting scripts on InkTip. My Amex is being taken away from me, not due to anything I did but because Jet Blue wants to partner with Mastercard instead and I got the card when I joined their TruBlue program. This is going to be interesting. I'm being sent a card I don't want to replace one I do want, and being told the one I want I can't have.

That's American capitalism today.

Log-lining for beginners...

I have three of my scripts posted on InkTip. They get their log-lines read but very few times does that progress into anyone reading the synopsis or screenplay. So I've been playing with some new ones to see if that will help. They're below.

The Alice 65
A book archivist whose world is in perfect order is sent to pickup a very rare edition of Alice in Wonderland from the actress who inherited it...and who turns his world upside down.
This is a romantic comedy so I'm not sure exactly what to say in it. And it's really a rare copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...but that was kind of long and didactic.

Carli's Kills
When her daughter is driven to suicide, an ex-army sniper seeks a horrific revenge against the biker gang responsible for the girl's death...even though it may get a man she loves killed.
This is a revenge thriller written like a horror-romance. Should I emphasize that?

Marked For Death
When his family is killed by a bomb, a suicidal ex-soldier sets out to destroy the man he believes responsible…only to fall in love with the man's daughter.
Another revenge thriller about a man regaining his belief in life. This one's set in London, so that may be a hard sell.
I'd put more up, but it's $60 for 4 months -- $180 a year for each script -- while 90% of the people viewing the listings on InkTip are wannabes like me. So I'm not sure if getting to that 10% who actually are someone is worth the money. Next on the slate is synopses that kill it. But at least these are up...

If anyone has suggestions on how to intensify the log-lines, I am more than open to hearing them.

Taking stock, today...

I've been beating up on myself for not achieving more in my life, up to this point. So today I decided to work out exactly what I have done...just in the last 10 years. And once I started paying attention to reality instead of my misconceptions, I started seeing a lot of what I wasn't listening to.

To start -- I've published 7 books; 10 if you consider Bobby Carapisi started out as 3 volumes and Rape In Holding Cell 6 was 2 volumes, initially. I've written my 8th book -- The Vanishing of Owen Taylor -- and have three more well en route to being done -- Bugzters, Underground Guy and Place of Safety.

I've also been pretty damn brave about the books, considering the subject matter of my first three. Very confrontational...which got three of them got banned, twice, and I still cannot get Amazon or Kobo to carry two of them in e-book. But I did face Amazon down the first time they dropped How To Rape A Straight Guy. Got them to officially agree the book was not pornography, and I kept a copy of that e-mail, as proof.

On top of that, I've written several screenplays -- The Alice '65, Carli's Kills, Blood Angel, Dair's Window, 5 Dates, Marked for Death, and We-Come -- as well as rewritten a couple of my scripts into a leaner, cleaner style. And I've done well in screenplay competitions, with them and a few other scripts. Return To Darian's Point even won me some prizes.

Plus I moved cities twice...including to a place I'd never been to before...took care of my mother for 15 months while barely making a living, tried to start my own business, and managed to help keep my youngest brother off the street despite making 25% less in salary than I did in 2006. My sister and I even helped get him to a doctor and dentist to be taken care of, which wasn't easy since he has a morbid fear of them.

And then there are the seminars and classes and professionals I hired to help me get to be better in my writing and my pursuit of a career -- these are just some of positive things I've done. It's so easy to remember the negative crap and forget about or shrug off the good. I could be the poster child for that. Even now, I'm telling myself...but you still haven't achieved what you wanted.

Which is true...but I also have yet to give up trying.

Almost time...

I'm close to being ready to print out a new copy of OT to do my red pen thing...but I'm going to do it differently, this time. To keep myself from fine-tuning the story to the point of infinity, I'm going through it backwards, page by page. My goal is to find as many typos as I possible can, and then send it out for feedback.

Truthfully, the book is down to 490 pages, but once blank pages are put in to keep the numbering correct, it will probably be more like 515. Except that's double-spaced and in 12 inch Courier font. When I shift the book into something like 10 inch Palatino, single-spaced and squared off, it will probably be about 350 pages.

I am going to do a limited run of hardback copies with dust jackets. I'll number them and sign them and charge more for them than I normally would. I think if I want to offer the book in hardcover without the numbering, I need to set up a new file with its own ISBN. I bought 10 of them, so it's not like I couldn't, but the little bastards ain't cheap...and I'd have to get barcodes for each one.

Self-publishing is like ordering a la carte at a restaurant.

Who in the world was Arthur Batanides?

During my travels, this time, I happened upon a weird little DVD that has 4 cheesy creature-features on it -- The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues (1955), The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes (1958), War Gods of the Deep (1965), and At the Earth's Core (1976). I used to love this stuff, watching cut-down versions during Saturday afternoons and midnights, on my grandmother's old black and white console TV. Some of those Saturday matinees were actually quality films -- like The World, the Flesh and the Devil, (1959) which actually dealt with race relations and the suggestion of a black man being with a blond woman after the end of the world.

But this led me to remember one of those afternoon films that really creeped me out...and affected me in ways I wasn't expecting -- The Leech Woman (1960). About an aging woman whose husband is seeking the fountain of youth in Africa...but apparently the only way she can stay young is by draining men of their blood. And one man she chooses to kill is a shady character she picks up in a bar -- played by Arthur Batanides. Whose face I saw a lot on TV after that. Here's his imdb bio --

Stocky, general purpose actor, a prolific face on the small screen during the 1960's and 1970's. Became enamored with acting after performing stand-up routines in front of fellow GIs in Europe, during World War II. Educated in dramatic art at the Actors Lab in Los Angeles, followed by extensive stage experience. Recently noted as "Mr. Kirkland" in several installments of the "Police Academy" franchise. Remembered by older viewers, chiefly as the ill-fated U.S.S. Enterprise geologist, "Lieutenant D'Amato", who died badly (cellular disruption) in the Star Trek (1966) episode, Star Trek: That Which Survives(1969); one of dictator Clemente's (
The Leech Woman was actually almost good, and it had Grant Williams in it, the guy who wore some tight shorts in The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). But Arthur intrigued me most because he was a bastard who deserved his fate but at the same time I didn't want it to happen to him...because though I didn't know it at the time, I was crushing on him. And it seems like every guy I've gotten lost in, since, is a variation of him.
I was 13 years old...and it took me years to understand...but I already had my type worked out, and it's stuck with me, ever since.

Getting closer on the blurb...

Too zoned, yesterday, to do any thinking...but now I'm sitting at Fort Lauderdale's airport waiting on a plane and can sort of contemplate more than just my weariness. Both fairs are done and happy...well, as happy as book and map dealers can be. It also helped that I was in a decent Best Western, last night, with quiet neighbors, access to making some evening tea and breakfast. I don't usually eat breakfast; I just grab some rolls or a bagel to take with me for later...but it makes a difference.

I'm giving up on Motel 6. I don't mind getting cheap when paying cheap, but the room I had with them was $150 a night, with taxes, and I had to pay extra for Wifi that was crap. Now they're sorry for the situation, but I don't care. I'm tired of excuses and apologies that don't come till after the fact.

So I've been sitting here with decent wifi going over the book jacket blurb, and I reworked it to the following --

Jacob Blaine was no detective; he was a graphic artist working for an advertising agency in Denmark. But then he learned his uncle, Owen Taylor, had vanished and, even more unsettling, mailed two cryptic notes to his address in Copenhagen when the man knew perfectly well Jake had been living in Texas for the past year. It was like he wanted his nephew to do something but didn't bother to explain what.
Problem was, Jake didn't really know that much about his uncle; Owen had always carefully guarded his privacy. But that was never to complete exclusion, so it was a shock to learn the District Attorney's office had filed charges against him for molesting an underage boy, and that his friends blithely assumed he had fled to Mexico to avoid prosecution. Only, Jake knew his uncle was not the type to run from a fight, especially since anyone could see the accusation was politically motivated. No question, something weird was going on.
That's when Jake set up a quick trip to Palm Springs, thinking it would only take a few days to find out what was going on with his uncle. Instead, he found himself trapped in a vicious web of lies, fear, distrust, intimidation and manipulation woven by an anti-gay group named PSALMS, who would stop at nothing to rid the city of its gay population.
Not even murder.
Better, but I feel like I need something more. Something to pop and just don't have the full notion of what, yet. Maybe when my brain is back in my mind, again...or my mind in my brain...whichever.

These days I never know which is which.

Quick pass on a blurb...

I worked this up last night and polished it, this morning. It's not quite there but is going in the right direction --
---------
Jake Blaine was no detective; he was a graphic artist working for an advertising agency in Denmark. But Then his uncle, Owen Taylor, vanished. And he received two cryptic notes that made no sense. And those two notes were mailed to Jake's address in Copenhagen, even though he had been living in Texas for the past year, dealing with legal issues concerning his lover, Antony Lazarre. So no question, something was very wrong.

The thing is, no one had seen or heard anything from Owen for months. The man had always carefully guarded his personal space, so Jake was shocked to learn the District Attorney's office had filed charges against his uncle for molesting an underage boy. Now everyone was assuming Owen had jumped bail to avoid prosecution. But Jake knew his uncle would never back down from fighting the DA's claim; it was too obvious the accusation was politically motivated.

So Jake set up a quick trip to Palm Springs, thinking it would only take a few days to find out what was going on with his uncle. Instead, he uncovered a vicious conspiracy of lies, fear, distrust, intimidation and manipulation aimed at the gay community by people would stop at nothing to drive them from the city.

Not even murder.
---------------This would be on the inside dust jacket, if I do a hardcover, and on the back of the paperback. Doesn't quite pop, yet.

Adaptability...

My intention was to stay in, today, and work on the synopsis/blurb for the cover of OT, only going out to eat. Instead, my mind went into not-gonna-think mode and I wound up going to a Barnes & Noble to research what professional publishers do with the mystery books they put out. I checked paperbacks and hardcovers, including sizes and found that while I did pretty much the same stuff as them when I worked up my previous books, there were some differences.

The main one was, they all put the Library of Congress designation on their copyright page, something I haven't done once. And at the top of each page is not only the page number, as opposed to the bottom, like I did; they also put the authors name alternating with the title. For example, all even pages have the name; all odd pages have the title. I had seen it both ways, before, and always liked the number at the bottom...but I didn't find one book that did it that way, now.

So I took photos of them and will use these as my template. I also bought a copy of Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler. The only one I've read of his is The Big Sleep, and that was years ago. He and Dashiell Hammett pretty much founded the hard-boiled detective genre, almost as a counterpoint to Agatha Christie's genteel sleuths.

That's not to say Jake's a tougher-than-thou detective. However...he does get in the face of a few people and is willing to do what he must to put an end to any situation. And he does have a temper. Sometimes he comes across as more New York than Texas...but considering how international his makeup is, that's not a bad thing.
So with that done, I took a trip to Half Moon Bay, which is not a pretty town...but the beach is fabulous. I took off my shoes and walked in the sand. Got myself splashed by the sea. Sat and thought for a while. And it helped to clear my brain of a few things. I've started up the blurb and decided to do whatever I must  for the cover to make it appear more professional. I want this to kick butt, and to be honest many of the ones I read in B&N did not. So the only standards I have to meet are my own high ones.

Ah...I have neighbors to my motel room...and they are loud and obnoxious...what fun...

The Skimmable Screenplay...

Voyage | Feb 4, 2016 (I happily stole this from their blog, and was written by Tom Carter)
Writers create screenplays to be viewed.

At least theoretically, no movie script was ever written for the purpose of being ‘read’ by an audience.

Actors, producers and directors, of course, read scripts all the time, and they are a key audience for young, up-and-coming screenwriters, but these professionals are also viewers too, right?

They, like general audiences, want to see, view or watch a script, not be forced to read it. We all want it visualized for us, largely, because it’s just easier.

There’s less work involved. It takes time, concentration and energy to read a screenplay, but anyone can collapse on a sofa, turn on a movie and watch it… just kind of skim through it.

So doesn’t it make sense that a script should share that essence and be designed for skimming, and not reading?

I think so.

Especially since we’re talking about an industry that’s famous for not always reading material cover-to-cover.

When any written document makes for a skimmable read, it rolls off the page. It’s digestible. You see it in your mind and understand it immediately.

Ironically, it’s kind of like watching a movie. Yet a large majority of scripts, even those by working professionals, are constructed in a way that hinders the visual flow of the story, and I’m not just talking about using more active, visually potent language.

Although it’s rarely written about in the best screenwriting books, avoidable words, grammar and even punctuation often obstruct both clarity and dramatic impact, yet screenwriters go back to them time and again because that’s the tradition.

Why?

Why create a screenplay using the tools of the novel? Why write a cinematic document, one whose sole purpose is visualization, without a clear design scheme in mind?

Take, for instance, a page from Tony Gilroy’s critical and commercial success, The Bourne Identity. Notice his use of double hyphens in place of extra words. He capitalizes or underlines key words for dramatic emphasis, making them both more graphic and more memorable for the reader. At the same time, while adding all of these elements, he’s still eliminating excess verbiage, everything except the core storytelling words, keeping the page white but not bare.

He avoids big blocks of description and long speeches. And last but not least, he underlines the slug lines to visually approximate the actual cut between scenes. These may seem like small details, but when added up, with a great story, they make for a very fast read.

You’ll be at page 80 without blinking an eye if you decide to read this entire script and I highly recommend it.

Weird metaphor here, but I think any given page of screenplay should look like a children’s rock-climbing wall. The textual elements (i.e. the words and punctuation) are like hand holds, in that they’re generally big, graphic and expertly spaced out in an elegant manner.

There’s variety across the page, between the action descriptions, names, dialogue and scene headings. To follow the comparison through, all of the script’s information comes together so that the eye can easily climb down each page.

Although no design scheme will ever replace a fantastic story well told, a writer should always be thinking about their script’s layout in the effort to layer the dramatic effect and, hopefully, in the process, make their tale all the more readable.

(What Voyage doesn't note is, most readers are living in a world of Save The Cat, and if you do this stuff, they can't figure out if they like it or not.)