Kyle Michel Sullivan's Blog: https://www.myirishnovel.com/, page 256

Harry Potter Marathon...

I had the day off so finished up the Harry Potter series of DVDs...and ...The Deathly Hallows duo caught me up almost as much as The Prisoner of Azkaban. Not so much because of the director but because the producers were wise enough to break the last book into 2 parts -- I know, they only did it to make more money, but it was a smart decision for the story, too. It gave the characters time to breathe and grow and feel...and to me, that made the final hour of the series breathtakingly heartbreaking instead of rushed through.

I worked out most of the plot twists without having read the books or knowing all that much about them, but one took me completely by surprise and I wonder if it was intended. It comes in a throwaway line that goes by so quickly, I wasn't sure I heard it right. But then events strongly suggested I'm right. I may be the only person reading anything into that line...but it worked so perfectly for me, I just know it's right.

It was fascinating watching the growth of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Gint as actors, too. Emma Watson started out as the best of the group, but she got equalled by Rupert and surpassed by Daniel, to my surprise. No, I shouldn't say that; I saw Daniel in The Woman in Black, and he was good in that. Plus anyone who takes on Alan Strang in Equus, on-stage no less, deserves respect. I saw a road show of the play in San Antonio and it was intense.

So in order of like --
HP3
HP8
HP7
HP6
HP4
HP5
HP2
HP1
And a special hat-tip to Matthew Lewis (AKA: Neville Longbottom) for winding up so dashing.

As the saying goes -- some people hit puberty, this guy beat the hell out of it.

Too funny...

So...I've entered Return to Darian's Point into a number of screenplay competitions. I like the script and think it's ready to go into production. The last pass I did through it was trimming back a bit more description and removing directions to actors. That's it. No dialogue reworked or scenes rearranged.

It's a simple story: A suicidal young man who's just lost everything returns to Ireland to sign away the last piece of property he owns -- a small island off the Cliffs of Moher where his younger brother died, 16 years earlier -- then kill himself. Only he winds up caught in his family's ancient curse, and he is forced to face not only the demons of his past, but a creature of absolute evil that needs his death to set it free.

The script's already been a finalist in last year's Shriekfest and was a semi-finalist in Writers on the Storm, so I know it's good. And it's unusual. More gothic in horror than slasher-gasher crap.

Well...the first notification I get is from Script Pipeline; RDP didn't even make the first cut. Okay, that's that. No big deal...but not an auspicious start to this round of competition pushing.

Then I get notification from The Indie Gathering that Return to Darian's Point won Best Horror Script. Cool. Very happy about that. In fact, I'm planning to attend. I have enough points for a couple nights at a La Quinta near there, and points enough to rent a car from Enterprise so my little old Honda doesn't have to push it in the August heat.

Only what happens next? A possible packing job in LA pops up...which might entail me flying there in the middle of the festival. It's like the fates are toying with me to see just how much fun they can have.

But what's really funny about this to me is how one competition says my scripts not as good as hundreds and hundreds of others while another competition says it's the best in its genre. Hardly a consistent pattern as regards judging the quality of screenwriting. But I will say, what I've found is I do poorly in competitions that have "coverage services" or follow the current books about writing for film, and better in competitions where they judge a script on its own merits and not against a checklist.

That helps, immeasurably, to make me proud of my work.

Other mysteries...

I'm reading Patricia Cromwell's Scarpetta, about a medical examiner in Boston called in on a murder investigation because the chief suspect asked for her, and I'm put off by it. Cromwell's style keeps reminding me of some fake hard-ass thinking he's being honest because he rubs your nose in filth and confusion. I didn't like that kind of style with Russell Banks, didn't like it when I read some Dean Koontz, and Steven King heading that way finally turned me off on him.

It's the same with movies. The original Kiss of Death, made in 1947 with Victor Mature, was a hundred times more hard-assed than the remake with twinkly David Caruso. It was honest to its characters and let Victor Mature be a crook who got into another heist and went to jail to protect his comrades. The remake, had to make him a nice guy who was forced into a heist gone wrong, and they made up for the weakness by tossing in a couple hundred "fucks". And the remake of that near-perfect noir film, Out of the Past -- retitled Against All Odds -- was like weak tea because they ignored Mitchum's casual corruption and made Jeff Bridges a nice guy who goes looking for a buddy's girlfriend then tried to tough it up with lots of sex and a drag race and angry actors.

I keep having that feeling with Scarpetta -- like I'm being told "This is life, and it's messy and cruel and people are mean and hateful, sometimes, and even if you love someone that's no guarantee against the odds." It's all "drama" and no honest conflict. It's faked up nonsense and gilded to look pretty.

I'm reminded of a story Kirk Douglas told, about when his father gave up cigarettes. The man quit cold turkey, but always carried one cigarette with him. And when he felt the nicotine scream, he'd pull out that cigarette and say, "Who is stronger? You or me? I am stronger." And he'd put the cigarette back in his pocket. To me that's a nice distilled illustration of the truth of human drama. It's not who can cuss loudest or beat the hell out of you best. It's how strong you are in your quiet moments, because those explain the strength needed in your harsh moments.

I guess this is a cautionary tale in what not to do with The Vanishing of Owen Taylor or Carli's Kills.

Role reversals

Well, Zeke's in trouble and Carli's got to rescue him. Sort of a flip on the girl being the one caught by the bad guys, making the hero do heroic things to save her...but Carli's more like a guy in so many ways. No, that's wrong -- she's a woman capable of handling herself and smart enough to understand what's going on.

That was something I hated about Kill Bill -- how Uma Thurman's character kept doing things that were stupid in order to keep the plot going or provide a shocking turn of events, even as reality was consistently ignored. That's lazy screenwriting.

CK's becoming a pretty tight script. I may be able to clock it in at just over 90 pages. We'll see. The first act is 26 pages long, so that normally works out to 104 pages, for me.

I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and it was almost a Chris Columbus movie, it was so shallow and quick to ignore what was complicated in any way or might gum up the works if they paid it any mind.

I will say, I do like how Neville's become a solid part of the pack. But the twist about Harry's father and Snape was tossed aside so contemptuously, it made me angry. This was a hugely important moment and deserved more than two minutes of film time, way more. So far #3 is the best with #4 a decent followup. #5 is a distant third, and then come the first two.

I can only hope for the best with the next three.

Our Catholic Supremes establish a State Religion...

The Supreme Court's white conservative Catholic older males have determined that the only exemption a "christian entity" may use to not follow the law, as laid down in the ACA, is over contraception. The justices were very clear -- Hobby Lobby's nearly 600 stores are all extensions of a closely-held company that is considered to be a religious entity, so need not provide insurance coverage for birth control. Joy to the world, slut-shaming is back with a vengeance. Break out them scarlet letters.

But no other exemption is allowed, according to Justice Alito. Only the conservative christianists are allowed to exempt themselves from the law because they don't want to seen as supporting women having sex without the possibility of pregnancy. Never mind contraceptives are used for hundreds of health reasons beyond birth control. If you screw, you gotta be ready to give birth like some breed mare.

This is rich. Jehovah's Witnesses don't believe in blood transfusions, but they will be required to provide coverage for that in any policies they have to offer their workers. Christian Scientists limit medical care even more, but if one owns a business and must provide coverage under the ACA, he or she cannot use their faith to refuse to pay for full coverage.

But Catholics get a pass on this part. Protestants. Evangelicals. You name it, so long as they're mainstream christianist faiths. And don't think it'll stop here. The door's been opened for the government to determine what any faith may or may not practice, now. They have determined one sort of religion is better than the others. Christians should not be rejoicing; she should be scared silly. They just gave their religious freedom away, in the name of religious freedom.

Man...you couldn't make this crap up, and if you did, nobody'd believe it.

Preparatory preparation...

Today was reworking the outline for Carli's Kills to see what's left to do. I'm about 2/3 done with the script and know what scenes need to be written, now. I broke one scene in half and may do the same with another. It depends on how things play once I'm done. Then comes the finessing of the characters and storyline.

What's nice about having a somewhat detailed outline is, it gives me a place to hang whatever ideas come to me instead of just writing them on slips of paper and hoping I remember them. I'm bad about filling a folder with them and then having to go through and try to figure out what goes where, according to what I was thinking when I wrote it.

I dumped a bit where Carli fixes a bug to Zeke's belt buckle. Wasn't needed and felt too wrong, once I had the rest of the scene worked out.  And added a bit of humor through Zeke's dog, Loki (no longer Thor). Now comes the fun part, seeing if I can get this done anytime soon.

I'm pretty much back on my body clock schedule, so only worked on this till 6. Then I watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It's a dark movie but without Alfonso Cuaron's poetry it wasn't as interesting as The Prisoner of Azkaban. Mike Newell's not quite the hack that Chris Columbus is -- he did do Into the West and Donnie Brasco -- but he's no magician, either. However, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Gint and Emma Watson keep improving...while Robert Pattinson proved, yet again, he has the screen presence of a twig. He is one of those actors whose success eludes me.

Not that I have much to say about success.

I take it back...

In an earlier post about needing poetry and madness to make magic on film, I mentioned Alfonso Cuaron as almost having it. I was wrong; he does. I just watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and it hooked me, completely. I think the only thing that I'd have wanted explored more deeply is near the end...when Harry believes his father has come to save him. The idea was unexplored in the least and given an easy out...but that's a minor quibble.

Daniel Radcliffe is improving as an actor. He's still not that commanding, yet, but he's not as amateurish or unfocused as he was in HP1&2. And I prefer Michael Gambon to Richard Harris as Dumbledore. I know Harris died before the making of #3 and had to be replaced, but it turned out for the better.

Getting in so late and not getting to bed till after 4am screwed up my cycles. I slept till 1pm. NOT cool. I'm setting my alarm for tomorrow, even though it's Sunday.

It made me rather lost, today, so no writing done. Dammit. I want to be done with CK. It's ready. I just need to sit down and do it. That's the hard part, for any writer.

What's hard for anybody who's not a writer is listening to us whine about it.

Just got in...

It's 3am...and I'm close to toasted....but other than being hours late the train ride was worth it. I got a lot of writing done because Amtrak does, at least, provide you with power so you can keep your laptop going. Few airlines do.

I couldn't even begin to think of anything to add to CK on the trip back to Buffalo, so I worked more on UG and found out why Dev and Reg were knocking at my door. For the first time Dev realizes he did something wrong, evil, without justification to Reg, and it's tearing at him. For the first time in his escapades, he feels guilt...and this guilt becomes the driving force behind the rest of the story. He's subconsciously trying to make up for his past deeds by helping find a serial killer.
Shit -- another story about redemption. Am I getting caught in some stupid loop, again? Working something out in my own scrambled brain? Dunno.
But I do find it interesting that I'm distilling stories down to a single word. Like OT is about abandonment. LD is really about renewal. BC is about acceptance. A65 is about closure. Hmm...does that work as a single word distillation?
Anyway, the reason I find it interesting is how much I like long explanations of my stories. I've gotten better at working the synopses down to something tight and manageable. But a single word? That's not my style. It's movie-ish. But...it may also be me finally getting an idea of how to hang my stories together better.

Or make them too simple...it can work both ways.

Laughable...

I just spent 25 minutes dealing with Bloomingdales trying to get in contact with someone at a particular part of the store so I could go look at a show trunk we need to collect and ship to London...and I got misdirected and ignored and told "We don't have that information" and asked what it's all about and had to repeat myself so many time, I started laughing. I got sent to furniture...and then china...and then shipping...and public relations (who didn't want to talk to me, at all)...before I finally got hold of a sales clerk who knew something and gave me over to the manager who said the person I needed to speak with wasn't in, today. I still managed to get to come look at the trunk, but if this is a premier clothing operation, we are in deep doo-doo.

It's not just Bloomies, though. I went to the Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue to see about getting either the next Harry Potter or the next McKinty mystery to read on the train because there will be no wifi and it's going to be packed. Ain't got 'em. I can order them...but nothing of McKinty's was in the store and they only had Harry Potter 2 in hardcover. I was too wiped out to shop for another book, so I left.

Last night I couldn't formulate a complete sentence, let alone any thoughts. My brain was buzzing with Underground Guy all day, and seven of the books I packed were elephant folios that were too heavy to put more than two in a box, so I just had a burger at 5 Guys, came back to the hotel and sat in a nice hot bath for nearly an hour...as Reg kept tapping on my thick skull. He and Dev want to get done while Tawfi's casual about it, in his rich and easy way.

I should never have 4 writing projects going at one time; they keep trying to interrupt each other, and I'm way too easily distracted.

Busy little beaver...

I've read three books in the last two weeks. I haven't done that in years. First, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, then Bruno, Chief of Police, and now The Cold, Cold Ground. It's interesting to compare the different styles of writing.
J K Rowling has a simple, straightforward style that's accessible to any age from about the third or fourth grade. It's a bit lumpy but moves forward.
Martin Walker's style is more lyrical and soothing, even when dealing with a vicious murder. It meanders a bit, much as life does in the South of France, but carries you along.
Adrian McKinty's style is harsh and cold. Clipped as tight as possible to avoid anything in the way of honest comfort. It's a murder mystery set during the hunger strikes in Northern Ireland, dealing with a series of murders amidst riots and politics and territorial hate spiced with sectarian violence. It's told in a first person style that even Raymond Chandler would think is bleak.
I brought it with me on the train, since I didn't have WiFi to keep me busy, and finished it just shy of  Poughkeepsie. It also helped distract me from the Dutch woman behind me, who seems to have either pneumonia or bronchitis or both. If I get sick, I will be pissed.
Again, reading a book's helped me see how I should change something in CK. Nothing major, just a small shift in the final bit at the end that makes a lot more sense. And a willingness to back away from the conspiracy theories I like to go for.  That won't work for CK. They've become so prevalent, people expect them so should not be indulged.

Of course, with The Vanishing of Owen Taylor, all bets are off.