Introduction

A Reliable Narrator within the context of a movie or book is someone who tells us the truth about what’s going on. They’re not trying to trick the audience, and while they may withhold some facts, they will eventually reveal them in an honest manner. Often the withholding of facts is for dramatic purpose, not because they’re trying to sway our opinion or understanding.

Reliable Narrators can be stand up decent guys, or bad guys. Often within Film Noir the reliable narrator is a fallen detective. Maybe someone who meant well but made a mess of things after falling for the wrong Femme Fatale (is there a right femme fatale?) He’s not looking for sympathy, or making excuses, he just wants to recount his tale.

The Reliable Narrator could be a criminal like in Casino or Goodfella’s. We’re not lied to at any point in those movies, in fact, their honesty about their criminal undertakings is almost humorous. They tell us what nasty shit they’re going to do, and then they do it. Whether we agree with their actions or not (largely not) at least they’re honest.

Which, neatly brings me onto a similar line of thought about Renton in Trainspotting.

Renton is reliable. He is telling us the truth. But… it’s his version of the truth. We believe what he’s saying because he’s self deprecating, admits he’s a fuckup, and is charming. He believes what he is telling us, so we believe him.

But, does his vulnerability sway our judgement of him? He’s not the good guy, but we kind of want him to be okay by the end. We’re sort of willing to overlook his actions.

If he wasn’t telling us the story would we think the same about him?

If Sick Boy narrated the film instead, with all things being equal and Sick Boy being as honest as Renton, would our opinion of him change?

Ultimately, I guess the question becomes… Can a heroin addict really be considered a reliable narrator, even when he believes he’s being honest to us?

There will be heavy spoilers from here on out…

A Reliable Narrator

How Renton Gets Us On His Side

Renton starts the movie with a monologue about choosing life. About how he doesn’t want a nine-to-five, and how heroin is better than sex. He’s very convincing in his rant about how arduous modern life can be, and how he’s living in the moment more than we all are.

It’s an honest, charming, and humorous monologue, which gets us on his side despite watching him steal shit and take drugs. He’s already got a power over us, even though few of us would approve of his actions or lifestyle.

His self-awareness and self-deprecation of his addiction also helps shape us into believing he’s an honest, reliable, narrator. It feels like he has nothing to hide. When he tells us it’s his last time, “he’s off the skag,”we don’t believe him for a second. Yet, that false admission doesn’t cause us to loss faith in our narrator when the stories only just began.

It’s a prebuilt societal thing where we will always doubt an addict telling us it’s their last time. He’s being dishonest with himself, not us. He doesn’t (or rather does) disappoint when he’s back on the heroin by the end of the long and truly fantastic first act. But, we don’t hold it against his narrational reliability because we always knew he would be.

With that said, it does however feel like he is trying to overcome his addiction. This helps build up our sympathy towards him, especially as we don’t see any of the other characters trying (other than Sick Boy, but apparently it’s effortless to him, according to Renton).

When Renton’s parents help him finally break the cycle, supporting him as he leaves Edinburgh for London to try and make something of himself we’re proud of him. Maybe we even feel like he’ll stick with it this time.

There’s been growth in both his actions, and his appearance. He looks less strung out and gaunt. He starts wearing an ill-fitted suit. He has his own place that looks somewhat respectable (until Begbie turns up) We can see he’s trying, and that reinforces our trust in him.

When his friends barge back into his new life we feel sorry for Renton. He was doing so well, and we hope they won’t draw him back into the life he left behind. Be a bad influence. Because the life he left behind was full of chaos and destruction and he’s no long about that. (It doesn’t matter that he played no small part in that destruction) Again, we want our narrator to be okay.

He’s telling us he’s trying, and we can see he is.

Cracks Start to Appear in Narrators Point Of View

When Renton returns to Scotland it’s due to something he could well be massively blamed for, and this is maybe one of the things we don’t question him about as much as we should. Even a Reliable Narrator is still telling us his side of the story, rather than being completely objective (which is virtually impossible in first person)

Renton’s friend Tommy has died. He got hooked on drugs and it led to his eventual death. Renton is told of how Tommy died by a friend outside our main group and at no point is it mentioned Renton is the one who got Tommy hooked on drugs.

Conveniently, he lets someone else tell the story, someone who doesn’t know that fact. We’re told Tommy got hooked on drugs after Lizzy left him, which is true. But, the reason Lizzy left him was because of Renton stealing their homemade sex tape. Renton never reveals this to anyone, but we as the audience know. We also know Renton gave Tommy his first hit, and later gave him money for more. At no point does Renton offer Tommy any help, or try to talk him out of it the second money was mentioned.

The storyteller for this portion of the narrative doesn’t know any of this, and Renton doesn’t intervene to fill in the blanks (Therefore maintaining his honesty and ‘innocence’ because he’s not the one telling us the horrible deed)

Now, imagine if Sick Boy or Tommy (from beyond the grave) was telling us these events. Renton’s name would have come up a lot and our opinion of him would definitely have changed. Maybe we overlooked his role in Tommy’s death, or maybe we didn’t, but if someone else had told us the story it would have had a much greater impact on our feelings towards Renton.

The same could be said for earlier when Spud ended up in prison. Renton acted sympathetic but ultimately he avoided jail for exactly the same crime. He gave the judge some bullshit story about how with God’s help he can beat the addiction… before overdosing less than a day later.

He had to do everything within his power not to wink at the camera when he said that. Again, if Spud was narrating at this point I’m sure the point of view would be very different. Spud’s harmless and dimwitted, but he must have felt aggrieved.

Renton Vs Sick Boy

One of the more interesting aspects of Renton’s reliable narration is his opinion of Sick Boy. He describes Sick Boy as “lacking moral fibre,” and we take his word for it because Sick Boy is a drug addict and a bit of a wheeler and dealer. But, are Sick Boy’s actions throughout the movie any worse than Renton’s?

Should Renton judge Sick Boy when they’re both on similar paths? Renton isn’t lying to us, he believes what he said. But, objectively, we can see both their actions, and they’re not miles apart.

Sick Boy also repeatedly tires to get off the drugs, especially after the babies death (that scene is horrible, surely it put so many people of drugs?) He doesn’t exactly get honest work, but I wouldn’t say he’s putting in much less effort than Renton. And, Sick Boy is pretty charming himself.

If he was narrating the movie instead of Renton would we consider him just as reliable? I think there’s a chance we would. I don’t recall him lying at any point in the movie.

The ultimate test for this point of interest comes at the end of the film when the group makes money from a drug deal in the final act. Renton doesn’t hesitate to steal the money while the others are asleep. He then tells us how Sick Boy would’ve done the same, but Sick Boy didn’t. He justifies this by acting like he came up with the plan quicker than Sick Boy, but if Sick Boy was truly “lacking moral fibre,” wouldn’t he have already executed the plan?

He had the same opportunities Renton did. And, he’s the one who put up half the money, came across the opportunity in the first place, and arranged the deal. Really, Sick Boy cut his friends in on the deal. He needed Renton to help with half the cash but he didn’t need to invite Begbie and Spud along, yet he did.

Does Good or Bad equate to Reliable or Unreliable?

During Renton’s closing monologue he admits to being a bad person and fucking over his friends, which are both true. So, why are we still kind of happy for him? Why are we glad he got out of there and is going to make something of his life? Does he deserve it more than Sick Boy?

I think with that kind of cash Sick Boy would probably have set up some kind of business and tried to make something of himself. Obviously he deserved it more than Begbie, because Begbie is a fucking psychopath. And, unfortunately, I think Spud would have died from an overdose if he had that much money, so it was probably best he didn’t take it.

But, what makes Renton deserve it above anyone else?

I think the answer is because he was the one telling the story. That he told it as honestly as he could, but always with his own self in mind. He turned us against Sick Boy, who was no better than him, but no worse. He over looked the devastation he caused in Tommy’s life, not once narrating any part of that, either though shame or self preservation.

He made us sympathise with him by oversharing his struggles and being charming about it. When he tells you being a drug addict isn’t as easy as it looks, that it’s actually a lot of hard work, you sort of believe him, rather than thinking shut the fuck up and sort yourself out.

He has a charm and power over us. We forget who and what he really is at times because we want him to do better, which is not a bad thing. We should want him to be okay. But, I can’t help but think he manipulated us with his truth, and because of it he walked away at end of the movie like some kind of hero, when he was very, very, far from it.

History is told by the winners.

A Reliable Narrator is still only telling us events from their perspective. They may fully believe what they’re saying, and believe they’re being completely honest with us, but it’s rare one person can ever fully know the whole story and be entirely objective about it.

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Alice On The Air Is Live

It’s been a while coming, but my new book is finally published. My first book under my Spilt Latte Press banner is out now, hopefully signifying a new beginning, as I have a lot more stories to tell. But that’s for the future. Right now, I want to focus on Alice On The Air.

Alice On The Air is a fair departure from my previous work. While still horror (the next couple are likely to be Sci-Fi), I’ve moved away from the Extreme Horror elements with this one being more on the Supernatural/Paranormal side of things with a more Thriller aspects than blood and gore. That’s not to say the red stuff doesn’t make an appearance, but my mum is a lot more likely to read this one than any of my previous work, which she’s never gone near.

I loved the challenge of dialling back the gore and telling a more suspenseful story. Spilt Latte is going to be about all genres, and it feels good to have that freedom. With Alice, I was able to concentrate on building the story differently, and I enjoyed the process a lot.

Please Buy My Book :)

My pitch for you buying all Alice On The Air is simply that I need the support. I have full faith in the story I’ve told and the professional approach I took to writing the book, but I know plenty of others can say that too. But I’m in this for the long haul and want a career in Self-Publishing. If everything goes to plan, I’m going to be writing books for the next twenty to thirty years (health permitting), and Alice On The Air is the new beginning to that.

The start of Spilt Latte Press.

Any sales of Alice will help towards editing the next book, and so on. I’m proud of the books I’ve written previously, but I’m very excited for what I can write in the future. The books which are currently in progress or teetering on the edge of my mind. Every sale helps towards those books becoming a reality.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d be writing them even if I sold no copies of any of my books because writing is what I do, but if I can build a readership, it means those books get a decent proofread and cover, and make it a lot further than my hard drive.

Beneath is the Synopsis, Cover, and Links for Alice On The Air. I truly am appreciative of any sales, Reviews, or even links to this post which may help towards future sales. Honestly, it’s been a pretty slow start, and I could do with a little pick-me-up; every sale will massively help.

Self Publishing is tough, but I know I can make this work. It will take time, and there will be a ton of down moments, but publishing a new book and holding it in my hands for the first time is never one of them. It feels good to have work out there again.

For anyone who buys the book, I hope you enjoy it; I certainly enjoyed writing it.

Cover

Synopsis

Alice entertains the growing audience of her late-night radio show, Alice on the Air, with local indie music and her dark sense of humour. But when one of her brazen jokes results in a caller brutally murdering her husband and taking her own life, Alice and her show come under increased scrutiny. Not only do the investigating officers want to know what happened, but so do the ghosts of the murdered husband and his killer wife, who now occupy Alice’s apartment...

Alice on the Air is a supernatural horror thriller where words have consequences, and responsibility is a matter of perspective.

Links:

UK: https://amzn.eu/d/00GI3aTA

US: https://a.co/d/00k2GeAY

My Digital Store: https://buymeacoffee.com/spiltlatte/e/569812

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Introduction

Sometimes I just want to enjoy an easy going movie and pick something interesting from it to write about. And, as there probably aren’t many essays about Blue Crush, let’s talk about John Stockwell’s sweet surfer flick.

Specifically, what I want to write about is Kate Bosworth’s lead character, Anne Marie.

I’m not going to pretend this movie is particular deep or ground breaking, but I do think it’s more than just a girls in bikini’s movie. John Stockwell, for me, is a way more interesting writer/director than that, with Crazy/Beautiful being one of my absolute favourite movies (and I will talk about it some point in the future)

And, the original article by Susan Orlean that Blue Crush is based on (Life’s Swell) is a great read as well. So while I wasn’t expecting anything Oscar worthy, my high hopes for the movie were rewarded back when I first watched it, and I still love it now. Mostly because of the films kind heart, and Anne Marie’s journey.

There will be heavy spoilers from here on out.

Temptation Vs Ambition

The Setup

What I particularly liked about the Anne Marie character is this idea of Temptation Vs Ambition that the character faces throughout the story. Anne Marie was a prodigy as a young surfer and was moving up in that world until an accident ruined her confidence and nerves.

Together with the accident, her mum bailed on her and her younger sister, leaving Anne Marie with responsibilities she never asked for. She works a shitty job cleaning rooms of people who, in her eyes, have a far easier life than her (although she’s not bitter) and this unfulfilling job not only cuts into her surfing time, but also barely helps towards paying the rent on her rundown apartment.

Basically, she’s trapped.

Surfing is a way out, but life isn’t going to wait around for her to get her big break.

But, as we learn at the beginning of the movie, a potential break is on its way. Her previous hard work has lead to her being a wild card entry in a big surf tournament in her home town. This is the moment she’s been waiting for, but she’s not ready.

She has the support of her friends, and even the community around her despite some of them mocking her at times, but her confidence really is shot. And, it’s that lack of confidence which makes the other part of her story so interesting.

Anne Marie meets an NFL player at the hotel where she works and he is quickly infatuated by her. She’s beautiful and feisty, and as we learn later in the movie, he has a thing for ‘slumming it.’ (That bathroom scene is so horrible, I love it)

Whatever the socialites think however, Matt is a decent guy and respects Anne Marie. He’s supportive of her, and clearly likes her. His surf lessons help with her rent, but money isn’t really an object to him, what he really wants is to spend time with her.

The more time the new couple spend together, the more their relationship grows. He is something positive in Anne Marie’s difficult life. Suddenly, while never said allowed (apart from the younger sister who refers to her as Baywatch Barbie) there is an alternative way out for Anne Marie. She could be the girlfriend of a rich NFL player and live off that for a while.

Maybe it wouldn’t be a long term solution, but the temptation is enough for her to take a little break from her normal life and enjoy the fancy hotel as a guest rather than a maid, and even dawn an expensive evening gown.

The film could at this point could take the easy way out and make Matt an asshole, but like I said, John Stockwell is a better writer/director than that. So often in these sort of movies the object of affection turns out not to be what we hoped, but Matt is a standup decent guy.

They tease him not being a decent guy the first time Anne Marie goes to his room and hears him talking to a girl on the phone, but they quickly reveal it’s his young niece who he thinks the world off. Instead of making him the cheating scumbag, they actually double down on his niceness, so making him a prick later in the movie wouldn’t make sense.

He’s a good guy, so the choice isn’t going to be made for Anne Marie. She has to make it herself.

The Decision

I love this sort of clever writing. Like I said, the movie isn’t particularly deep, but it’s not interested in taking shortcuts either. It has set up a potential choice, and the main character is going to have to make the decision herself.

She’s gone from being trapped, to stuck in-between two worlds, and they literally show this on screen by her wading into the water in her expensive evening gown before the surf tournament. She has a choice to make, and again, Matt believes in her. He’s supportive. So much so, he wins her friends over as well despite their reservation of him seemingly upending her life.

But while Matt wants her, he doesn’t want it to be at the expense of her losing herself. When she asks him what to do, he tells her to be herself… and that the girl he first met on the beach would never ask a guy how to live her life.

We can’t help but like this dude, and the script is doing everything possible to make sure, once again, the choice is firmly on Anne Marie’s shoulders.

Obviously when it really comes down to it there isn’t a choice. She has to go out there and compete for herself. She’s worked too hard to fail at the last hurdle, but I like that the film sets up a way out for her if she wants to take it.

Life is hard, and the temptation to take a shortcut or alternative route to make things easier isn’t something to be ignored. Anne Marie is competitive as we learn through-out the movie, but I’m sure the idea of being able to surf everyday with less worries and more time was very appealing.

She’d never be the trophy wife type, but could enjoy some of the benefits. Choosing a life with Matt and bailing from the competition wouldn’t have been a failure, even if some would try and frame it as so.

We’ve already witnessed the nasty accident she had, and the surf tournament is equally as dangerous as we see when the top surfer is hurt. She’s not bailing from grabbing a coffee with a friend, this could literally be life and death.

As in keeping with Matt’s supportiveness throughout the movie he turns up to cheer her on, along with his funny friends. He even gives her a pep talk about his own early failings and honestly, it’s a nice message.

This idea of only having one moment of success, but that being fulfilling and a catalyst for greater things isn’t something nearly mentioned enough in modern culture. Perfection is overrated and damn near impossible. But good moments, they’re achievable.

Having Your Cake… But Earning It

Maybe this Temptation Vs Ambition story does have its cake and eat it at the end as Anne Marie competes and eventually does well after a particularly rocky (no pun intended) start. She doesn’t come close to winning, but she has that one great moment which is enough to catapult her into the life she wanted. Then, we see see kissing Matt with the suggestion of happily ever after…

… But, I would argue, if she didn’t compete and choose to be by his side instead, she could have lost it all. That it did become an all or nothing scenario, and her bravery won out. As he said himself, he wanted the girl he saw on the beach, not the girl so derived of self worth she’d ask a guy how to live her own life.

She earned the whole cake by putting herself out there, and giving it her absolute best. It’s a nice message, and in my mind, a good ending to a sweet film.

Her character could be considered somewhat of a trope, the person who drops everything that makes them then when they fall for a more alluring option, but I don’t think Anne Marie ever reaches that territory. Yes, she missed a surfing session with Eden, but she hasn’t abandoned the board altogether. And yes, she dressed like Baywatch Barbie for one scene, but the rest of the time she looks and acts like herself.

When the locals give Matt shit about being in the secret spot she’s the one who puts herself in the middle of the two guys trying to calm the situation down, while also taking responsibility for them being there.

Her friends have to help her out out looking after her younger sister for a bit, but honestly, who could blame Anne Marie for wanting a little time to enjoy herself. It’s easy to judge, but we’d all make the same decision. She doesn’t lose her identity in my eyes, just day dreams a little before getting back on track.

As I mentioned at the beginning, this movie could have just been hot girls in bikinis. The marketing certainly leaned on that. But, they actually created an interesting and engaging lead character. She wasn’t obnoxious, nor was she infallible. She wasn’t full of rage and bitterness, but did have a point to prove to her friends and herself. She didn’t want to stick it to the world, but instead wanted to become part of it, while also being a good role model for her younger sister.

Final Message

Temptation stories are alway interesting in my mind, especially when the options seem real and reasonable. The choice she had to make wouldn’t make her a bad person, but it would go against who she is. Being Baywatch Barbie isn’t inherently bad, but you also know she deserved, and should, be standing on her own two feet and achieving the goals she’s clearly capable of.

Cutting out the choice being made for her makes the achievement more real and is good writing. In the end, she choose to back herself, and I always have time for that.

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A New Beginning

Finished Alice On The Air

Sitting here writing this I must admit I’m feeling a little bit emotional. I finished the final draft of my new novella Alice On The Air and have received it back from the Editor. I’ve gone through everything, formatted the book, and have just uploaded it to Amazon while ordering a proof copy so I can make sure everything is perfect. This will be the first book I’ve properly published in two and a half years, and it’s got me feeling very reflective.

Life has been extremely difficult these last six years. Between big health issues, deaths, and painful life stuff, there’s been a lot of downs. But there’s also been the ups of my creative work both in Writing and Photography. I’ve had some incredible moments and have enjoyed most of my time writing books. I’m proud of my past work but my focus is now on Spilt Latte Press and what I want to achieve with it over the next decades.

I’ve published a few Short Stories which have received some kind feedback but Alice On The Air is where it really starts. I think that’s where this emotion is coming from. The idea of a new beginning. Of somewhat putting myself out there again (something which doesn’t come easily to me) Of trying to rebuild my career and seeing where it takes me. Of regularly creating work I’m proud of once more.

When I publish Alice On The Air, Spilt Latte Press has truly began.

Expectations For Alice On The Air

I’m very proud of the novella. The cover looks strong (in my opinion) and is different from my previous work in order to help identify the new start and approach to genre. I really enjoyed formatting the book and feel that’s an area I’ve massively improved upon over the years. And it felt great adding Alice On The Air to my Amazon Bookshelf and getting it prepared. All that stuff makes me feel excited and happy.

But I know the anxiety of wondering whether anyone will give the book a chance is on the way. Will anyone even notice it exists? That’s the part keeping me up at night. That keeps playing on my mind. It comes with every book, but it feels even worse where this one is the start of a new Press.

I’m realistic and know it will be a slow start. There’s a lot of fantastic work out there and it’s difficult getting noticed. I’ve been through this before so I know things take time, but I’m also aware you can build a good following with consistently good work. That a career can happen. And maybe that’s what I’m most anxious about: Knowing it can be done, versus it actually happening. A lot of things have to go right, and a fair bit of that could be out of my hands.

I want a career in Self Publishing (it’s all I’ve wanted for a while now) I want to make an adequate amount of money from my Press while I work incredibly hard producing new books and stories. I want to treat my business professionally and slowly grow it without compromise. I’m ambitious, without being remotely greedy. I don’t need excess, just some loyal readers who believe in me and my work.

That’s what I’m aiming for, and my hope rather than expectation is Alice On The Air can be the first step towards having the career I want and am more than willing to work hard to get. So I guess what I ultimately want from this book is for it to really feel like a new beginning. A fresh start.

Trials Of Self Publishing

Self Publishing isn’t easy. So much goes into essentially running your own Press. Quality aside, the discipline of doing the actual writing is on me. However, while I do enjoy a lot of the business side of Self Publishing (branding, website building, synopsis, covers, blogging etc) I’m acutely aware of how much more of it is somewhat out of my control (marketing, word of mouth, the sea of books already out there waiting to be discovered or are lost in the void forever)

Whether people enjoy my writing or not is somewhat irrelevant, from a purely creative standpoint, if it’s to the standard I expect. If I’ve put everything into the book and am proud of the story I’ve told, and the way I’ve told it, then I know I’ve done my job. Readers will either enjoy it or they won’t, but they’ll know I gave it my all.

But the business side, most notably getting people to read the book in the first place, runs on an entirely different set of rules. There’s things you can do to improve your chances ranging from a social media presence (which I don’t have) to advertisement (which I can’t afford) to getting good reviews and word of mouth (fingers crossed) But ultimately the business is on an entirely different metric to the actual writing.

You can write a beautiful book absolutely no-one reads, and equally so you can write a shit book which you market fantastically well and it becomes a cult phenomenon and goes viral. Quality should matter, but anyone Self Publishing knows a lot of other things contribute too.

The Unknown Of Starting Over

I’m confident I’ve written a decent book, but I find myself staring into the unknown once again as I begin Spilt Latte Press. I have no clue whatsoever how this book will be received, or if anyone will even read Alice On The Air.

It’s a different genre to what I’ve written before, and it’s been two and a half years since I last published anything in this manner. The few readers I may still have are probably expecting something akin to my previous work, but Spilt Latte represents a shift in approach and genre. I want to write in all kinds of genres and subgenres, and that may not be conducive to growing a consistent readership.

I have no social media presence anymore outside of Substack, and I haven’t got the energy for YouTube, Podcasts, and all that stuff. My health simply isn’t good enough to commit to anything longterm like that at the moment as my energy levels tends to fluctuate too much. Plus, I don’t currently have any interesting in them anyway. YouTube is not what it used to be.

I’m not sure what exactly my marketing plan is at the moment outside of knowing I want to publish this book so that I have something new out there. Something I can start to build on. I want work I can show people again, and hopefully get them excited about what’s to come. I want this to be the start of Spilt Latte Press, so it is.

If you enjoyed this Article please consider making a small donation towards future Articles and Short Stories on my Buy Me A Coffee Account and Subscribing to my Substack.

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Memories of Movie Theatres in Movies and Books

I’ve always had a love of Movie Theatres in films and books. It’s probably one of my favourite tropes, or at least something which is always guaranteed to make me smile. I find them magical enough in the real world (modern multiplex’s aside) and often in movies and books that magic is amplified. Be it describing some grandiose beautiful Picture Palace from the silent era, or seeing some scuzzy grindhouse cinema showing midnight movies, I love them.

I adore Woody Allen’s Purple Rose of Cairo. Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. Frank Darabont’s The Majestic. Joe Dante’s Matinee. I love seeing the Gremlins watch Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, or Max Caddy laughing his ass off as he watches Problem Child. Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate watching herself on screen in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I’m a sucker for the whole movie within a movie thing, and films and books taken place or having scenes in a cinema falls under category.

But, while I could easily write a whole piece on the brilliance of Purple Rose of Cairo or Sherlock Jr. this article is about my experience within Movie Theatre Horror. Like most, I think the best example of the subgenre or trope is Lamberto Bava’s Demons. It’s a fantastic film, and one I’ve loved ever since I watched it. It’s one of those films you can tell inspired a whole generation who saw it in their formative years, myself probably included, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

Within my reading of Extreme Horror books over the last five years Demons was often an influence or starting point. Carver Pike’s Slaughterbox being one such example. Or Ryan Harding and Lucas Mangum’s wrestling horror Pandemonium, which substituted a cinema for a wrestling ring, but with the same Demons principle. Films like the amazing Planet Terror by Robert Rodriguez also has Demons written all over it.

Outside of Demons, I really enjoyed Movie Theatre Horror movies like Popcorn, and books like Jonathan Janz Witching Hour Theatre, both of which I wrote about while covering the subgenre. These are the sort of stories that stick with me, and not necessarily because of characters (which is normally the most important for me) but because of the setting.

A Movie Theatre feels like an ideal setting for a horror story. There’s already a built in relationship and understanding of the setting for horror fans. We’ve all been to the cinema to watch a horror, and felt that different energy which exists within the Movie Theatre walls when watching a great horror film, or even a bad one (which can be an equally enjoyable experience) Horror belongs in the cinema, often best watched with a crowd. It’s natural that the worlds combine every now and then, and we get a Movie Theatre Horror.

Movie Theatre Horror Within My Own Work

Abby Vs The Splatploitation Brothers

One of the strangest experiences I’ve had watching a Movie Theatre Horror was watching Todd Strauss-Schulson’s 2015 movie The Final Girls. A few years prior I had written a short film script called Josie and the Splatter Brothers, which I then adapted into a T.V pilot of the same name and was pitching around.

A few weeks after I’d finished writing the pilot and had sent it to a few different people I was telling a colleague at work the synopsis and they told me how it sounded like that new movie which was coming out, The Final Girls. My heart sunk. I really thought I’d come up with something completely unique within that sphere. So, when I sat down to watch The Final Girls my only real thought was please don’t be anything like my idea. Selfish I know, but I’d been working on that idea in various incarnations for years.

Thankfully, the movie was about ninety-five percent different from what I’d written. There was a little overlap, but we’d both gone about the idea in completely different ways. Years later I adapted the unwanted pilot I’d written as the story for my first book, Abby Vs The Splatploitation Brothers: Hillbilly Film

Both Hillbilly Farm and the sequel Savage City feature plenty of Movie Theatre Horror scenes. Like I said, I am a massive fan of the trope, and was determined to find a space within my story for scenes featuring a cinema, and in the case of Savage City, a Drive-In too (which I also love and think should make a massive comeback)

It felt amazing getting to design both the Splatploitation Brothers cinema, and the various different cinemas in Savage City. To be able to try and capture that same vibe I got from Demons, Popcorn, and Purple Rose. Although, I think the movie theatre scenes in American Werewolf in London and Taxi Driver were equally as inspiring for the work I was writing.

I just love Movie Theatres as a setting. And, because the subgenre is so heavily connected to the first two books I wrote (wrote, not published, as I held Savage City back for a while) it’s always going to be a personal favourite.

Reel One

It was fun going back to the setting while writing Reel One. I tried something a little different with this story having a period setting and using a different sort of cinema to what I had before. Despite the changes however, I think it’s something that could still fit into the Abby/Splatploitation world. Maybe I’ll even make it canon one day, who knows.

I loved doing the research for this piece too as I tried to get it as authentic as possible while also giving it that nasty modern twist. I had considered writing something a little more Haunted House like at first as I do like the Movie Theatre setting being used in that way. But ultimately I couldn’t help myself and went for more of a movie within a movie type deal. It’s who I am.

Movie Theatre Horror is something I’ll always have an affinity for. Like I said, it’s a subgenre I feel closely connected to through both my own work, and my love of cinema. Writing Reel One was great, and I’m already considering ways to go back to that story or setting. I probably won’t write something right away, but I don’t think it’s the last I’ll write set inside Picture Palace.

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London, 1924

It had been a marvellous late-night showing of Buster Keaton’s The Navigator. The regal Picture Palace had been sold out as the elegant audience laughed and clapped along to Buster’s hilarious exploits and brave rescue of Kathryn McGuire’s Betsy aboard the wayward ocean liner. They’d been astonished by the incredible underwater sequence and stunts and had fallen from their seats with amusement during the faux haunting. They’d been glued to the exploits on the screen, especially when the beautiful pair battled for survival against the rampaging cannibals.

What a pleasure and absolute joy it had been to see such creativity on the screen, and such love from the adoring crowd watching the high-seas adventure unfold inside the majestic cinema. William had rarely heard the patrons in such fine voice. And the orchestra had played their part too, putting on another flawless performance. William was always in awe of them and the beauty of their music. He was already looking forward to reliving the whole experience again tomorrow when the next showing took place.

But first, the grand Picture Palace needed to be cleaned. The gorgeous building was kept to extremely high standards, and the Manager, Mr. Robinson, was someone who would never allow those standards to drop. He organised his team of ushers and cleaners with almost military precision, ensuring the crowd would always have the best experience possible. There were no excuses for dusty floors or seats. He didn’t expect to find any programmes lurking between showings. The Picture Palace was to be the epitome of glamour. Elegance for all.

William had been working as an usher for the Picture Palace for a little over three years. He wasn’t the fastest at the job, but he gave it his all and had a certain attention to detail that Mr. Robinson appreciated. He was a trusted member of the team, despite always being the last to finish.

Tonight was no different as William waved goodbye to the last of the other ushers and dedicated cleaners. He alone was yet to finish tidying his selected rows, but William didn’t mind. There was no place he’d rather be than the movie theatre. It may have been his job, but in William’s mind it was his home away from home. In fact, if they installed a bed out back for him, he would never leave.

He’d seen some incredible movies over the years. Just this year alone, he’d watched one of Buster’s most daring movies to date, Sherlock Jr. He’d witnessed John Ford’s epic western The Iron Horse. And he had watched in amazement with the rest of the transfixed audience as the depressing and, dare he say, violent end to Greed unfold. If there was one person in the building who cared about the Picture Palace as much as Mr. Robinson, it was William.

With the other ushers gone and the orchestra having already departed, William was left alone in the theatre to finish his work, which made it all the more surprising when the red curtains were suddenly drawn back and a new movie was projected onto the screen. He hadn’t been aware the projectionist was due to test any upcoming movies this evening and had been startled by the sudden, unexpected noise. Once the initial shock had passed, however, he couldn’t have felt happier.

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William had never been privy to any previews before, as they were often viewed in the morning before anyone else arrived. He felt giddy with excitement, wondering what magic he was about to glimpse as the numbers counted down on the projected reel. Looking up towards the projectionist booth, he couldn’t see Frank; otherwise, he would have given him a grateful wave.

As the countdown finished, the movie began. William continued to sweep the floors as the movie flickered into life. His attention became divided from the moment the title appeared: Deconstruction. William didn’t recognise the picture’s name, or the director and stars on the title card. He was mildly disappointed before deciding maybe he was going to be one of the first to catch sight of some new hotshot director or actor. Would the whole country be talking about Deconstruction in a few weeks’ time and he’d be able to say he was one of the first to catch a preview?

The movie began on a nondescript construction site as two men dressed in overalls spoke to one another in a small room. There was no title card to give any indication of what their conversation was about, nor was there any clue within the setting or their gestures. While William didn’t consider himself an expert in film, he’d seen enough to know that the opening was a little uninspiring.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t help but put the broom aside and take a seat as two more people entered the sparse room within the construction site. One of them was a big, burly guy twice as wide as the other two. With him was a beautiful woman in a dress who looked utterly petrified as she was dragged into the room. The burly brute threw her to the floor rather aggressively, in William’s opinion, but he had noticed movies were getting a little rougher recently.

As the frightened woman lay on the floor, the two construction workers ended their conversation. There was still no title card, and their gesturing still hadn’t given any clues as to what they’d been talking about. William could only guess it had something to do with the pretty woman on the floor, but it never became apparent.

The camera moved closer to the pair, and William noticed a metal table behind them for the first time. He couldn’t be certain if it had always been there, but it was there now. Sitting on the table was an assortment of rugged steel tools. All of them looked heavy and grimy. The taller of the two construction workers took an enormous saw the length of William’s arm from the table and weighed it in his hand. He turned and grinned at the helpless woman on the floor with malicious intent as he licked his lips.

What kind of movie was this?

William looked up disapprovingly at the projector, wondering what Frank thought of this new film. They had similar tastes, mostly enjoying comedies and westerns rather than anything too violent, so he was sure the old-timer would be feeling just as uneasy as he was. Neither had enjoyed Nosferatu despite its brilliant artistry. It wasn’t to their taste, and Deconstruction seemed to be taking a much darker turn.

The camera was then focused on the frightened young woman as the man with the saw leaned down towards her. William was appalled by what he witnessed next as the man began to saw through the young lady’s dress, cutting right through her clothes and discarding them to one side before the saw briefly bit into her thigh. The defenceless woman was left naked and completely exposed on the dirty stone floor, screaming in pain as she clutched her bloodied, shredded leg while the men laughed at her.

William was in complete shock and struggled not to throw up on the seat next to him. He had seen more than enough and expected Frank to remove the reel immediately. He knew for sure that Mr. Robinson would not approve of such violent filth being shown in the Picture Palace. The beautiful establishment was a building for all the family. They showed cartoons on Saturday mornings. The last thing their audience would want was this type of barbaric smut. The woman was naked, for God’s sake! And that cut across her leg was the most graphic thing William had ever seen, on or off the screen.

But it got worse…

William watched in horror as the three men started beating the injured, naked girl. Kicking and punching the poor woman, who was clearly in enormous distress. Bloodying her face as she tried to protect her leg. Bruising her body as she covered her face. When one of them grabbed a hammer, William shouted for them to stop. He wasn’t someone who normally spoke to the screen like some of the audience occasionally did, but he’d felt compelled. He couldn’t watch anymore. What were they doing to that helpless woman?

But the men on the screen didn’t stop. They smashed her ribs with the hammer. Crushed her hands and feet with deliberate, sharp blows. Then the burly man who’d dragged the woman into this horrible situation to begin with suddenly dropped his overalls. For reasons William would never understand, the camera cut to a close-up of him as he forced the woman’s bloody face against him while the other two laughed at her humiliation.

Am I watching a damn stag film?

William was seething as the first spill of sickness spilled from his mouth. He could no longer hold it in. His eyes stung as they filled with tears. He stormed out of the auditorium door, promising himself he’d clean up the vomit soon, but more immediate matters were on his mind.

He marched through the lobby, wiping away the last of the drool and cursing under his breath. He tackled the stairs two at a time as he made his way towards the projectionist booth in a fit of rage. He had hoped to catch Mr. Robinson on the way but suspected the Manager must have already left the building, as there was no way he would allow this pornographic material to play in his cinema. William was shouting at Frank before he even reached the projection room, but when he furiously burst inside, Frank wasn’t there.

Had he left the projector unattended? It was the only reason Frank wouldn’t have immediately turned the disgusting reel off. William was relieved, despite still feeling irate at what was currently being shown on the silver screen. He could see through the gap in the booth that the men were now taking turns assaulting the bloodied woman, who looked like she’d passed out, or worse.

He could only hope this was all staged, as it looked sickeningly real… but what kind of perverted deviants would agree to film such violence and debauchery? The horrible feeling in his stomach suggested what he was watching was somehow real, but he’d been amazed by movie magic before, just never as repulsed by it.

William couldn’t allow any more of the disgraceful movie to grace the Picture Palace’s hallowed screen. He called out several times for Frank, but the projectionist was nowhere in sight. That left William with no choice. While he didn’t know how to use the projector, he was certain he would at least be able to figure out how to switch it off, even if he just yanked the reel. He was convinced neither Frank nor Mr. Robinson would be upset at him for touching the expensive equipment when he explained what was on the reel. How would I even begin to explain?

Having tried several levers and knobs to no avail, William decided a more drastic course of action was required, especially as the men on the screen continued their attack on the unconscious, bloody woman. Two of them were now inside her at the same time! While the third man was hammering nails into her hands. William couldn’t help but be sick on the projection room floor; he was surprised he had anything left.

If the scene was indeed fake, then the effects were absolutely remarkable, and the camera work was unlike anything William had ever seen before. But he was in no mood to give the disgusting monsters who made this vile film any credit. And, unfortunately, he didn’t believe any movie magic was involved. His next stop after removing the negative would be taking it straight to the police, even if it got the Picture Palace in trouble.

William wiped the remaining sick from his mouth and grabbed the reel, ready to tear it from the projector. But as he reached for the foul reel, an unnerving feeling shot through his arm and into his body. It was how he imagined being struck by lightning would feel.

It made him vomit once again, although this was an entirely different kind of sickness than when he’d witnessed the pornographic acts on screen. This sickness felt more debilitating and forced him to close his eyes as he lost his equilibrium. William heard a rapid flickering in the depths of his ears, which sounded like a negative being fed through a projector, but it was then replaced by a series of dull thuds and what could only be described as heavy grunts. He tried to shake away the disturbing combination of sounds, but they only grew clearer.

When William finally willed himself to open his eyes, he found himself lying on a stone floor next to the bloody dead girl from the movie. The three beastly, naked men were staring down at him, almost as shocked by his appearance as he was by theirs. William jumped to his feet and backed away from the twisted rapists.

Must have hit my head, he thought.

But whether that was true or not didn’t matter…

William turned his head away from the leering men and saw the empty seated area of the Picture Palace slightly beneath him, while the glare from the projector shone above. When did I walk onto the stage? he initially thought, before an even more unsettling, impossible truth revealed itself.

He wasn’t on stage.

Somehow, he was on screen!

“Who the hell are you?” the largest of the three naked, angry men asked.

William had never heard a character speak on screen before. He didn’t like it at all. It felt odd. Unnatural even. He tried to answer but had no idea what to say.

Instead, he turned and tried to jump out of the picture onto the Picture Palace floor. He didn’t make it far as his body crashed against what could only be described as an invisible barrier, or maybe even a camera lens. It would have made for quite the odd sight if anyone was watching from the other side, but then, so would the entire scene.

Whatever their thoughts would have been, however, they would have been left wondering about the resolution as Reel One came to an abrupt end and the picture flickered off…

With William forever trapped inside.

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*Will Contain Spoilers

Subgenre Of A Subgenre

Movie Theatre Horror, or just the Movie Theatre setting in general, has been home to a number of incredible ideas and scenes over the years. From the on screen fantasies of Keaton’s Sherlock Jr, to Tom Baxter stepping off the screen and shocking the audience in Woody Allen’s beautifully tragic love letter to cinema, The Purple Rose of Cairo. We’ve seen a kid entering the world of the Last Action Hero, and teens enjoying gimmick B-movies during the Cuban missile crisis in Joe Dante’s under appreciated Matinee. We’ve even had a Gremlins a sing-alongs, “They’re watching Snow White, and they love it.”

There’s a lot of room and manoeuvrability within the framework of a Movie Theatre setting, and telling a story within a story. It even opens up the possibility of a subgenre within a subgenre (Still following) From Silent Movie Detective Films to period Rom-Com’s. From zany Action Flicks to Italian Exploitation. There’s been an endless amount of creative ideas within the setting, and this includes the introduction of Slashers!

Both Jonathan Janz’s Witching Hour Theatre novella and Mark Herrier’s movie Popcorn focus on the idea of a Slasher within the hallowed cinematic walls. Not one who’s climbed down from the silver screen, or has been created through some mystic going-ons, but one who’s stalking and killing within the setting. Real life flesh and blood.

They may not necessarily have any relationship with the films playing on screen but the venue plays a vital role. It sets the tone. The atmosphere and familiarity give the story life. The cinema and the films showing can establish the lore of the Slasher without having to be directly related to them. The building offers plenty of dark corners for the killer to lurk too. Slashers and Movie Theatres feel like a perfect match.

Graphic Slashers

In Jonathan Janz’s novella Witching Hour Theatre the Slashers aren’t related to any of the three movies on screen, but the individual movies are used to establish the atmosphere and violence which will proceed. The first movie, a fictitious movie called Death Mountain, does however have a killer which somewhat resembles the Slasher’s in the cinema. They’re not the same, but they do share the same weapon of choice and fondness for violence.

The second movie is the classic, The Omen. One of the scenes highlighted is the decapitation scene which definitely plays a role in the story we’re reading, alongside the constant building of dread The Omen is famous for. Finally, there’s the other fictitious movie, Veil of the White Temptress. This film shocks Larry as it takes a cruder, more graphic turn, foreshadowing the tonal change in book we’re reading, and the night Larry is about to have. He wanted to enjoy a triple horror bill at his favourite cinema, but instead, became embroiled in his own real life Slasher flick, with extra blood and gore.

The commentary Larry gives us through-out the Horror marathon, together with his obvious love of cinema, informs us he knows the rules of horror. So, when the ‘real world’ Slasher plot is revealed, we know Larry has an understanding of what to do in the dire situation. However, that pre-emptied knowledge is thrown out the window when the life of his crush, Nichole, is at stake (isn’t that always the way) Larry goes from being someone trying to survive a Slasher, to being the hero of a Slasher flick. A stand-in for the final girl.

The Movie Theatre setting is put to use straight away in the Novella. Larry’s journey from marquee to confectionary stand to seat introduces us to the geography of the location, which all becomes significant later. We also learn important details, like why the emergency exits are locked, and that there’s two screens. Larry observation of the other patrons, and his own flirtatious encounters with Nichole, also allow us to learn about the other characters within the story too.

With the Movie Theatre’s details established, the eeriness of the setting is then accentuated by the mysterious man at the screening who always appears shrouded in darkness, rather from any aspect of the building itself. Once the rest of the audience has bailed on the late night marathon and just the mysterious figure and Larry remain, we then find out just how creepy and sadistic he is.

All the things which could/would normally happen in a dark woods or raunchy campsite by a lake are easily replicated in the cinema, with the added bonus of similar action taking place on the screen at the same time. We read about Larry fumbling around in the darkness, unable to get through the locked doors. He goes the wrong way. Is mercilessly stalked. Instead of discovering the bodies in a ditch, or some abandoned cabin, the bloody pile of mangled headless corpses are discovered in the hallway of the other screen. All the classic and wonderful Slasher tropes are played out in a location which feels tailor made for them. Really is a great match.

And it’s not just the victim who gets to relive the greatest hits Slasher tropes in the cinema, the killer does to. The Slasher can hide in the darkened corners under the silver screen rather than silver moon. They chase their victims over seats instead of something more woody. They can still sneak up on them as the hallways replace the entanglement of trees.

Rather than spikes or tree stumps decapitated heads are stuck on popcorn tubs in the front row, left watching The Omen rather than being observed by any lingering wildlife. The Slasher remains master of their environment, but with the added symbolism as the movies are where Slashers really come to life.

When Larry finally escapes he’s forced to go back inside and take part in the final fight. A change of settings doesn’t mean a change in the Slasher rules. It’s something our Final Girl normally has to come to terms with, but tonights it’s Larry’s turn.

And thanks to those subgenre rules Larry narrowly avoids death repeatedly, beating the odds time after time just like the survivor in any slasher would. It could be seen as repetitive, or even seen as lazy writing, but this isn’t a Crime Thriller or Noir, it’s a Slasher! This is what must happen. I don’t make the subgenre rules, but I do absolutely love them, and fully endorse them. Jonathan Janz’s understands that while the location may have changed, the subgenre hasn’t.

Gimmick Slasher

In Mark Herrier’s movie Popcorn a similar approach is taken using three movies within the story, but this time round they’re gimmick movies. Rather than using the films to create a tense vibe or atmosphere like in Witching Hour Theatre, the films foreshadow certain deaths are teen heroes will suffer when they’re killed off one-by-one during the horror festival.

The first movie is Mosquito! A 3D film featuring a giant mosquito our heroes have recreated in the cinema. The model mosquito is used by the mysterious would be killer Lanyard Gates to kill the teens Professor. The on-screen action mimicked in the ‘real world,’ and complimented with laughs and cheers from the watching audience who are having a whale of a time.

As a quick side note this audience interaction brings up one of the more interesting key points about Popcorn: unlike Witching Hour Theatre or most other Movie Theatre Horrors the watching audience within the cinema aren’t in any immediate danger. They’re not the target of the crazed Slasher. In fact, they more closely resemble an instrument for the killer to use, rather than victims for them to dispatch.

The second movie is The Attack of the Amazing Electrified Man. The gimmick for this fictional B-Movie is shocking the audience with buzzers placed under their seats. (Getting massive Matinee flashbacks with John Goodman’s wonderful character)

Naturally, the next teen’s death is through electrocution. As he dies the gimmick shocks within the audience feel more dangerous because of what’s happening to him, but again, they’re oddly not in any danger, even if it feels like they are. This is the power of the setting. The relationship between what they’re watching on screen, and what we are witnessing in their real world. The Movie Theatre setting blurs the lines in a way other settings can’t.

It’s interesting to see this brief foreshadowing of each teens death. The setup and pay off are never to far apart in Popcorn. Normally, this is a bad thing in my opinion, the two should have room to breath. Build anticipation. But this movie handles it well. I think, in part, it’s because the audience within the film are having so much fun. It keeps an energy going throughout, and gives each gimmick death more relevance and power.

It’s a similar structure to something like Final Destination, but without any twist in the death. In Popcorn they are going to die exactly how their death has been setup. And it’s going to happen immediately after that setup. Yet, in spite of its obviousness, it’s going to be enjoyable. This structure is also what’s largely happens in the gimmick movies they’re watching, which only adds to the Movie Theatre Horror trope and fun of the film.

The final movie which is unrelated to the killer, but will show how he’s going to kill next, is The Stench. And you guessed it, Aroma-Rama. The latest victim is killed by gas, while the audience watching laughs at the horrible smells whiffing through the cinema related to the movie.

The Slasher at this point becomes known to our final girl, and his motives become somewhat clearer. The make believe world set up though the gimmick movies has somewhat ended, despite the Stench still playing. With no more gimmick movies, we don’t know how the next kill will come.

It gets a little convoluted and silly towards the end, but within keeping of the movie, and probably even more in keeping with the B-Movie gimmick films they’ve been watching. Plus, all the Phantom of the Opera stuff works within the Movie Theatre setting.

It’s a lighter movie than the previous novella, but Popcorn shows a different approach to the Slasher within the Movie Theatre idea. The killer mimicking the kills they’re seeing onscreen is a lot of fun, and fits the subgenre beautifully.

Made For Each Other

Slashers are made for the cinema. It’s one of my favourite subgenres, and one that I’ll cover multiple times over the next few years in as many ways as I can think of. But, with these two examples, we get to see how creative the Movie Theatre Horror space can be for the killing machines. How the films on screen within Movie Theatre Horror can be used to either aid the Slashers murders, or set the tone of the story. How they can use the dark space and shadows of a cinema to stalk their prey, or hide the bodies once they start to pile up.

Given the rise and rich history of Slashers, by their very nature Movie Theatres and Slashers have a symbiotic relationship. They’re not dependant on each other, but they sure do thrive when they’re together. So it’s no surprise that Slashers fit perfectly within Movie Theatre Horror

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What Inspired Me To Become An Author?

It Began With Film

I’ve always had a need to tell stories. Not in that way where i’m the centre of attention and entertaining a room (far from it) but in the way where I have endless narratives whirling around in my head and need a way to express them. Characters I need to explore and develop. Locations I want to describe and bring to life. Worlds I want to build.

It’s always been that way. I didn’t discover at forty that I suddenly harboured a need to write something, it’s been my life from my early teens. Rarely a day goes by when I’m not writing or working on some story.

To begin with these stories came in the format of scriptwriting, and remained so until around six years back when the world came to a standstill during covid. That’s when I finally, painstakingly, wrote my first book.

I’d been encouraged plenty beforehand by an Ex to give it a go. She was an avid reader and used to proofread my screenplays. She kept telling me my style of writing would work well in a novel, but I never gave it much thought at the time.

Film was my life, and I still harboured ambitions of being a Hollywood scriptwriter. Or at least a no budget Indie film maker. But as I slowly started to fall out of love with modern western cinema, and read more books, writing a novel sounded a lot more appealing.

Having Time To Write a Book (A Quick Recap of a Previous Post)

It always took me a lot of time to write a screenplay, but over the years that somewhat changed. I’d spend months (if not years) writing notes on an idea before I committed to a first draft. Sometimes, I would have hundreds of pages of notes.

The problem came when it was time to write the first draft. Despite the detailed notes, and everything normally going extremely well with the writing (except that one script) my mind simply wouldn’t switch off while I wrote. I’d get practically no sleep during the draft. It wasn’t healthy.

That was kind of okay when I was eighteen and working part-time, but not in my mid-twenties managing a shop and a relationship. And definitely not now in my forties with a growing number of health issues. I used to give myself ten days to write the first draft. Ten pages a day for a hundred page script. It worked like that for years, but was never going to be sustainable.

I got a little better as time went on. I wasn’t as intense with the process after the first few scripts, so I gave myself a month instead. Thirty days writing three to four pages a day. I managed to get some sleep during those months, but it still wasn’t ideal.

Writing a book that way back then would have been impossible.

Many years on from that, Covid happened. The world shut down and sleep no longer mattered. There was no work. I was single. And there was only so much Animal Crossing I could play (around two-hundred and fifty hours apparently) So, I had a choice… start a new screenplay (which I did have one ready to go) or, use this time no-one asked for to finally write my first book.

Being In Control Of Telling My Own Story

Time wasn’t the only factor in writing my first book, but it was the thing which gave me the opportunity. The bigger reason from a creative standpoint was most of what I was writing would never make it to film, at least not in the way I would want it too. If by some miracle I sold a screenplay (I did sell one but that was a cheap TV show) the time had passed where what ended up on screen would remotely represent my work (which is what happened with the cheap TV show)

I’d made my peace long ago with the screenplay being my final interpretation of the story, and whatever happened afterwards was out of my hands, but it finally began to sink in that it didn’t need to be that way. If I wrote a book, then learnt how to self-published it, the story (for better or worse) would be entirely mine.

Any compromises I had made, consciously or subconsciously, didn’t need to happen. I’d still need to obviously edit the book, consider pacing and structure, and all the rest, but things like violence, language, style, character decisions, and the ending could all be exactly what I wanted them to be.

Having written a few things I considered probably un-filmable at the time, this became an intriguing option. One which made me seriously think about taking the self publishing author route.

Deeper Into Everything

Reading a lot more also reaffirmed how much deeper I could go into everything within the format. From background details and character thoughts, to random side quests. These were things you can’t really do in a screenplay. Structurally, it didn’t work to go off on some character tangent mid-movies… unless you were Ang Lee.

In my screenplay notes I always wrote a ton of extra details and little antidotes about characters, places, and things in and around the story. They were there to make the story richer and give my characters more depth, but they would rarely be directly told within the screenplay. They’d be notes only I knew. My little secret.

In a book, if it made sense, I could share those details. Introduce the reader to a character and tell them a little something about them. Recall a situation and go into detail about what happened, rather than just mentioning it in passing dialogue. Hell, I could write a whole chapter completely unrelated to the main story as long as it was entertaining or informative. Doing that in a movie would often kill the pacing of the film and remove the audience from the experience.

So, with more time on my hands, a renewed love for books, and the creative freedom the format allowed, I was feeling a lot more inspired to chance my hand at becoming an author.

What Works Best

What it really came down to at the end of the day was a simple question: ‘What format works best for me and what I want to achieve?’

Telling stories is my priority. While I loved the idea of being able to do it within film, the truth of the matter was i’d be able to tell better stories, and actually have a chance for people to see them, if I told them in book format.

Looking back now with the power of hindsight it’s really something which should have happened long before it eventually did. The moment I put that first book together, which took nearly a year as I didn’t know what I was doing, and another further year to publish it, it felt right.

I knew this is what I should have been doing all along. Others had told me so, but i’d been to stubborn to listen… although, I’ll never regret my attempts at becoming a scriptwriter. It made me a better story teller and gave me a lot of discipline.

But, I’m able to express myself more in writing books than I ever was in writing screenplays. A lot more. A lot lot more. Reading books had always inspired me to write, but for whatever reason (my love of cinema) it never translated to me wanting to write an actual book… until I did.

Now that I’ve written a dozen books (within Extreme Horror) I haven’t written any screenplays. I started too, but then I thought, “you know what, this would make a better book.” Funny how these things work.

My days of writing Extreme Horror are over, but my days as an author have only really just began. I intend to do this for a long time, covering multiple genres, and telling the stories I’ve always wanted to tell.

Writing Over This Last Week

I finished another draft of Alice on the Air and think I’m getting closer to the book being ready now. I want to go through it one last time before I send it to the editor but it feels like everything is in place and I’m happy with how the story has developed.

Not a lot has changed from my initial notes but a few details have definitely expanded and enriched the story (in my opinion) while I’m also a lot happier with the ending. It’s the same ending, but with a stronger build than beforehand in order to get the maximum impact.

It’s been a lot of fun working on the Supernatural horror. It’s the first long-form horror book I’ve written which hasn’t been an Extreme Horror, or within that area (The Abby books are debatable) I’ve written a couple of science fiction books which aren’t quite ready yet, but this is my first horror without going into gory details.

That’s not to say it’s watered-down, it’s just I didn’t need to worry about the buckets of blood and gore, I could go about the story in a slightly quieter manner. At times it felt like an exercise in restraint, making me think how to write horror scenes without relying on aggressive writing.

I’ve also began the second draft of my Supernatural Western novelette (a different type of supernatural than Alice on the Air) This draft has been a little slow going but I’m building the story out well and again feel very happy with how it’s going.

It’s probably a good sign that I feel happy with both projects. I’ll never be the sort of person to believe my writing is anything special, or even above average (as that’s not how my brain works) but I am happy that I know my writing is getting better. That from a personal standpoint whatever anyone else thinks about the stories I’m happy to be improving at my craft.

I hope to finish the second draft this week and I think after that it will only need one more. I wrote a short story version of this novelette years ago so most of the story was already in place, it has just been a case of making it all it can be. It was never meant for four-thousand words, and suits a longer form much better.

I won’t bother going into detail about what else I’ve been up to this week as it’s been a quiet one (they usually are) but I have finished reading Cloud Atlas now and enjoyed it. At the opposite end of the artistic scale I’m off to watch Super Troopers 3 tonight. I like liking all kinds of genres.

Stephen

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*Will contain Spoilers

Introducing Lamberto Bava’s Demons

Lamberto Bava’s Demons is the quintessential Movie Theatre Horror film, and one that made use of both the literal and figurative Cinematic Space as movie goers battled demons under the watchful eye of the silver screen. Putting to one side the great camera work, grindhouse cinematography, and killer soundtrack, it’s a movie set in a cinema, which used every inch of the fantastic building.

It also used the familiar setting to take any narrative shortcuts the setting provided, making sure the flick moved along at a good pace. Explanations for certain things weren’t needed because it’s a film, almost within a film, set in a movie theatre. Anything was possible.

This version of Meta-Horror worked incredibly well within the confines of Demons, and enabled the more surreal aspects of Italian Exploitation to shine. They could concentrate on the next scare or gross-out gory effect rather than being caught up in numbing exposition. We don’t need to know the complete history of the mask, the Demons, or why any of this is taking place, just get to the gore… and they did. That’s not to say there wasn’t some resemblance of a story somewhere, but, you know, it’s a cult classic Italian exploitation flick, you ain’t getting Shakespeare.

Demons unintentionally carved out the rules for Movie Theatre Horror. It’s hard to argue against the films lasting influence as it inspired any Movie Theatre Horror that came after. I’ve seen and read countless Demons clones or homages over the years, and enjoyed most of them, but it’s clear were their influences originated. So, it’s time to examine that original, and take a look at how Demons fully utilises the Cinematic Space within the subgenre.

The Movie Theatre Setting

Setting Up The Haunted House

Movie Theatre Horror is at its best when the cinema becomes a character within the narrative. As a setting it’s a very fun location, but that fun can exponentially rise when we feel the danger within the walls, and wonder if the building has a sinister mind of its own. Then we start to examine everything about the theatre. Survey the exterior. Does it look like a death trap? Is there something unnerving about the marquee? Is the shape of the building peculiar? What about the position of the windows? Are we getting a haunted house vibe?

What about the staff inside the potentially magical and dangerous building? Do they look suspicious? (Like the female usher in Demons who turned out to be an innocent victim but you suspect her the whole time) Could one of them be a killer? Or responsible for what’s about to happen? We examine the movie posters along the wall with a keen eye. Are they giving us any clues? Or simply telling us about other fantastic films we should check out? Easter egg or plot point?

And the layout of the auditorium itself. Is it conducive to horror? Are there shadows lurking in every corners? Do those thick red curtains feel like they’ve seen things? Are the exits clearly marked, or even unlocked? You know damn well they’re going to be locked.

The audience also often offers its own clue. The Movie Theatre in Demons feels sinister enough before you begin to examine the audience as they wander through the lobby. The overly obnoxious Pimp, and his whores. The blind man (never trust a blind man in a horror movie, although this one is actually okay) The arguing couples. Punks. Horny teens. It all spells horror. It all adds to that haunted house atmosphere, and the vibe a cinema within a horror movie can give.

Haunted Houses have been a part of Horror forever, and combining/morphing them with a Movie Theatre feels right. Outside of the bland clean modern multiplex’s cinema’s are often old buildings with crumblings features, stuck in a strange part of town. The buildings tend to naturally have history, often repurposed or multi-owned down the years. That history fits into the Haunted House playbook, but Movie Theatres don’t have to apply the same origin logic.

You can’t have a Haunted House that’s a modern build with no previous drama. It has to be a murder home, or have been built on an Indian burial ground or some other bullshit. But no such location devices are needed within Movie Theatre Horror because the danger can come from any prop, audience member, or mysterious film reel. But then combined with an old building or dodgy area, that’s when you give the Movie Theatre the complete Haunted House experience without the need of the Haunted House origin tropes. It’s a potent mixture.

The Theatre Is The Prime Suspect

When the shit hits the fan in Demons and the audience begin to turn after the first bloodthirsty bite the Movie Theatre itself is instantly a suspect, and the buildings doesn’t try to hide its malevolent involvement. The breakout may have occurred due to a cut from an ancient super cool looking bullshit Nostradamus demon mask, but the building is undoubtably haunted, and probably responsible for the whole mess.

The entrance and exits no longer exist as the audience tries to escape, no doubt walled up by the Movie Theatre the moment the film started. The supernatural within Demons doesn’t just extend to the curse of the demon mask and Nostradamus onscreen resting place, its also within the brick and mortar of building itself. Whether the Movie Theatre set this whole thing up, or if alternatively there’s some mastermind behind the outbreak doesn’t matter, the cinema is claiming its victims no matter who’s to blame.

Because of their conscious (or unconscious) suspicion of the building, the Movie Theatre is the first thing the audience fights back against. They attack the walls trying to find a way out. Rip up the seats for protection. Raid the projection room in the hope that shutting off the movie will stop whatever the fuck is happening (when really as the onscreen movie was mimicking what was occurring in the cinema they might have been better off letting it play and watching for clues)

Everything within the Movie Theatre becomes a battlefield or a flashpoint. The demonic silver mask in the lobby holds the key to unleashing the power of the Demons. The woman’s toilet is where the hooker’s face starts to burst and she re-emerges as a Demon. The back row isn’t just for making out, it’s also an early kill spot thanks to its inconspicuous position. As is the doorway. The teens creep through the lobby trying to avoid the Demons. They find other rooms within the buildings walls during their attempted escape too, which only succeeds in making the cinema feel even more disturbing.

Behind and in front of the screen is as dangerous as what’s onscreen. When the other hooker collapses in front of the cinema screen it’s like the story has literally burst from the silver screen and onto the sticky floor. The initial big encounter erupts in the auditorium. The cinema is used both as a weapon, and for protection. Seats are ripped from the floor and used against the attacking Demons. The bottom floor becomes a pit. The upper seating area a temporary sanctuary. The Movie Theatre is a war zone, and I can’t help but think the building is enjoying the death and chaos.

The Cinematic Space

The other side of Demons fantastic use of Cinematic Space is what’s happening on the screen within the screen. The film playing onscreen within the cinema is always a big part of the Movie Theatre Horror trope. Some use the film within a film to set the tone, give a sense of foreboding danger. Others use the movie within the movie as an integral part of the complete story. Demons falls someone in the middle.

In Demons, the film playing on screen sets up what’s about to happen to the cinema audience watching it. The onlooking crowd watches as a bunch of teens explore a cemetery and eventually come across the grave of Nostradamus. Near his grave is a warning, and a mask… the same mask that was in the Movie Theatre lobby, and which cut the hooker.

When one of the characters within the movie they’re watching also cuts himself on the onscreen version of the mask (which in all likelihood is the same mask, but its never explicitly said because it’s Italian Exploitation and Movie Theatre Horror) it’s like an invisible connection has been made between the film world and the ‘real world.’ The mask in the movie theatre lobby now has full permission to act.

The events on screen now match those that are taking place in the cinema as the teens within the film are attacked by Demons that used to be their friends, much like the ones killing the audience. I personally love this sort of mirroring. It’s a fantastic use of the film within the film idea.

The interesting thing that Demons does which makes it so different to others of its kind is it doesn’t continue with the mirroring trope once everything is set in motion. It kills the movie within a movie off, rather than using it to further the ‘real world’ plot. The audience acts like a rampaging mob and attacks the rather futuristic looking projection before the movie has been able to give them any more insight into what the hell is happening, or how to stop it. Could breaking the mask have ended the curse? We’ll never know, the mirror has been shattered.

This is especially clever in terms of writing for several reasons:

We, as the audience, are no longer privy to what might happen next. Our guide has been removed, and all bets are now off. Alongside the same lines, as mentioned, the characters within the real world have destroyed their only exposition. The film may have been able to explain more about who and what the Demons are. Where they came from. And most importantly, how to stop the hideous fuckers. The audiences rash decision could have cost them dearly.

Interestingly, now that the film within the film is no longer helping the cinema goers the movie decides that no one deserves to know anymore about the Demons. If the characters within the film are no longer getting any exposition due to their behaviour, nor are the we as the audience. It’s a very clever version of Meta-Cinema that I will give them credit for purposefully doing, even if I’m never quite sure with Italian Exploitation flicks.

There’s always a lot of fun to be had when the onscreen movie echoes the movie we as the audience are watching. We can see if the heroes of the film make the same mistakes as what they’ve been watching. Whether the exact same events occur. I can’t help but wonder how much of what took place in the Movie Theatre after the projector was destroyed echoed what took place in the movie the audience was watching.

Did the heroes in that movie end up on the back of a motor bike with a sword? Is that why those particular props were in the lobby to begin with? Or, did the audience within Demons branch off in a completely different direction to the film they’d been watching. Left to their own devices, did they take a completely different route? Did the movie within a movie have a happy or better ending than the nightmare the audience was left with?

They’ll never know, and nor we will, because that’s the beauty of fully utilising the Creative Space with Movie Theatre Horror. Ironically, when you set your horror story in a Movie Theatre, movie logic can be damned.

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Reading Habits

Recent History Of Reading

About three-four years ago I was easily reading a couple of hundred books a year, but then my life took a nasty turn and I lost my enthusiasm for a lot of things, including picking up a book. It’s only recently in the last eighteen months my appetite for reading has returned, and I have to say, i’ve truly missed it. Few things in life offer me more comfort, especially as I get older.

Reading and writing have often been intricately linked for me. When i’m writing plenty, i’m reading often. When i’m typing my best work, i’m devouring books. It has always been that way, even back in my scriptwriting day. I’d write for a few hours, and then read a couple of screenplays. It was how I worked for years, and it felt like one of the reasons I was always improving at my craft.

Then, when I made the change from scriptwriter to being author the same happened with books. The more I wrote, the more I read, and the better I believe I became as a writer and storyteller.

My Relationship With Books

Books inspire me, as well as relax me. I can disappear into their world with ease and often don’t find myself distracted when i’m buried in a book the same way I might other things in my life. I’ve alway read (baring this last gap) but have found myself wanting to read more than ever now the need to pick up a book most days has returned.

Maybe it’s purely the escapist side of reading I’ve missed most, but I also think it’s linked to my desire to be writing more as well. Like I mentioned, I’ve always connected the two.

I’ve started alternating between reading and writing throughout the day rather than them being separate things (Even more so than when I wrote and read screenplays) Often, I’ll read for a while, then type for a bit, before returning to the book, and then finish the day editing a chapter. The two disciplines are becoming more intwined than ever, so it’s a good thing i’m enjoying both.

This routine seems to have given me more confidence as an author, and has encouraged me to take more chances within my work as I read some of the greats and take in different genres.

The Absence Of Books

It’s difficult losing a passion or hobby in life. It sounds a little silly saying that, but story telling really has been my whole world. Predominantly, its always been through cinema, and largely still is, but books have been a part of that too from the sci-fi and adventure/fantasy books I read as a child, to the YA novels and horror as I grew older, and now a mixture of all genres.

Losing the desire to read a few years back really hurt. It felt like something important had been taken from me. A creative part of me was missing. I would go as far as to say it left a void in my soul but I don’t quite want to be that dramatic… whether it’s true or not. So, i’m relieved to be able to pick up a book and read again. I truly need it in my life, more than I realised.

Of course I could have continued to read. It was my decision to mostly stop when things turned to shit, but something prevented me from the simple act. The enjoyment had been sucked from it. I felt like I couldn’t escape into those worlds anymore, at the time when I wanted to the most. I couldn’t lose myself in fantastical settings, intriguing characters, and wild stories, so… what was the point? (Although I did read a few autobiographies)

The same could be said for movies. I think during that period I watched less films than at any other years of my life. The days of a thousand plus films a year might be long gone, but I at least used to comfortably watch a few of hundred. However, during that period I barely watched a couple a month. Fortunately I’m back to watching a few more now.

Grateful To Be Reading Again

I think at times we believe our hobbies are almost time wasting. We could be doing something more productive rather than reading, watching, listening to music, painting, playing a game. It’s only when they’re taken away from us (which they never should be) that we truly recognise their real value and importance to our sanity.

For most our hobbies are simply something to relax us, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I one-hundred percent encourage it. But for me, losing my hobbies felt like I’d lost a lot of my creativity too. I need the stimulate of entertainment to inspire me, bring out the best in me, and quite frankly, get me out of bed in the morning.

I’ve never thought it was a consequence that my best work always coincides with me reading and watching more. It’s like it opens up a different part of my brain (I don’t know the science, just the result) so it’s one of the many reasons i’m really happy to be reading everyday again. I need books in my life. I need that vicarious escape and adventure. But most of all, I’m not ashamed to say, I need that inspiration and encouragement books offer me.

I have so many of my own stories to tell, and reading other people’s work helps motivate me to write them.

Alice On The Air

I’ve almost completed the third draft of my upcoming Novella Alice on the Air. I’m starting to become really pleased with how everything is fitting together. The story and characters feel like they’re working in harmony (Or disharmony but that’s what I’m going for) So while I always get a little anxious no one else will care or read my work, I’m happy with the story myself.

I’m starting to work on the synopsis now and will give the manuscript a quick fourth draft as there’s a few things I’ve changed and need to double-check.

But, I imagine I’ll be sending the manuscript to the editor before the end of the month. I might delay the release by a couple of week as I’m always at the start of September but we’ll see. For now the important thing is finishing Alice on the Air and getting it edited and formatted. Then I can worry about the most difficult part, getting people to read it.

I haven’t decided what I’m going to write afterwards. I have a few novels in mind but I’m also considering working on a few more shorts first. I have a lot of different things several drafts in that need finishing and now might be time to tidy them all up. I’m also not quite sure what genre I want to write next either.

Been Watching A Lot Of Late

I’ve watched a ton of films since my last ‘life’ update. I won’t go through all the old rewatches but there are some new ones I’d highly recommend: Colony, Blades of the Guardians and The Furious are all fantastic films.

Colony is another South Korean film that tackles the Zombie Subgenre in a creative and clever manner, and feels like the best Resident Evil film made in a long time. Blades of Guardians has insane action and a brilliant pace about it. Feels like an old school Hong Kong Movie (My happy place) but is also very modern in a lot of its techniques.

Lastly Furious is savage. It’s a wild story told with great action and grit. It’s pitched somewhere in-between The Vengeance Trilogy and The Raid.

Other new movies I watched were: The Mandalorian and Grogu, which offered absolutely nothing. It was just two hours of white noise and CGI blandness (although I did like the few practical effects they used)

Spiderman Brand New Day had some amazing performances but felt a little unfocused at times. I really enjoyed all the Spiderman parts but didn’t need any of the MCU parts. I know it can’t be helped at this point, but also, it should be helped. Spiderman doesn’t need A Hulk in his movies.

Lastly Supergirl was a cool Space Opera which didn’t deserve the beating it took. I’m not putting it up for any awards but I thought it was fun throughout and had a good pace to it. Supergirl was an interesting character and all the bad guys had a little something about them. Tonally it was all over the place but I never mind that when I’m being entertained.

Reading wise I’ve started Cloud Atlas now that I’ve finished rereading the Darren Shan Saga. I’m too early in the book to have much of an opinion but it am already intrigued. I never got round to watching the film despite always meaning too so I don’t really know what’s next. I like that each period has a different writing style though, that’s very interesting.

This Coming Week

I don’t really have any other plans outside of working on Alice on the Air this coming week so I imagine I’ll redraft a few more chapters either at Costa’s or home. I have quite a lot of scheduled posts now for my Subgenre Work on the website and Substack but I might start a new one of them as well. Supernatural westerns is the next planned one as I’ve read and watched the work for it.

Lastly incase you missed it I posted a new Short Story yesterday called Popsicle, I’d love it if you gave it a read. Really happy with this one.

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Gateway62 wasn’t due to go offline, so its sudden disappearance was alarming to everyone at GateCorp. It had been ten years since they last lost a satellite that wasn’t a scheduled destruction. Then, two of their own had collided due to faulty software. The problem was immediately rectified, and those responsible were fired. If GateCorp could have imprisoned them for negligence, they would have, but incompetence apparently wasn’t a criminal offence, despite costing the company millions through damages, fines, and the loss of a regular client.

This time, as far as anyone could tell, Gateway62 hadn’t collided with theirs or any other company’s satellites. There’d been none nearby. The orbital paths of all satellites were carefully tracked to prevent such incidents as space grew busier and busier. And GateCorp themselves now boasted the highest safety record among all satellite companies since the incident ten years ago, making the likelihood of a collision even more improbable. Their pledge to reduce space debris was one they took very seriously, not only for their public image, but for gaining new clients as well.

Any satellite they destroyed was brought down in a controlled zone where debris could either be collected or would burn up in the atmosphere. But that hadn’t happened to Gateway62. The delayed heat images hitting the screens after the satellite went offline showed the dish was in pieces. It had definitely been destroyed, but how or why was unknown.

The satellite’s small and durable backup location beacon, however, had survived, and all eyes were now on its signal as it drifted off course alongside thousands of tiny fragments. Initial tracking suggested the wayward debris could be on a potential collision course with several other satellites in the vicinity. GateCorp needed to immediately warn everyone involved. A disastrous chain reaction in space was the last thing anyone needed, especially with a shuttle currently in orbit and several new billion-dollar clients being touted.

As phone calls were being made, a collective confused gasp took ahold of the GateCorp Command Room as new images revealed a solid unknown object drifting near Gateway62’s previous location. Whatever hit it, it wasn’t another satellite. The object in the latest images looked tomb-shaped. It could have been part of an older station still stuck in orbit, or something lost during a space walk, although both options seemed highly unlikely.

The shape did resemble a discarded rocket, but they were all tracked, and none were currently in the surrounding area. Was it possible one had been missed? It seemed extremely unlikely given the attention to detail everyone in the various space programs displayed. Mistakes in space could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, so they didn’t happen often.

Also, despite it being difficult to judge from the images, the object appeared smaller than a rocket. Whatever the strange unknown object was, there was now little doubt in anyone’s mind that it had been responsible for the destruction of Gateway62.

The space shuttle Pioneer was informed of the Gateway62 incident, and brisk calculations fortunately showed that they were safe in their current location from any wayward debris. As part of their mission, they were in space to run tests on a new high-resolution camera designed to take exterior photos of the International Space Station and any other orbiting bodies in order to aid with maintenance and emergency repair work.

After GateCorp had shared their images of the unknown tomb-shaped object with the United Space Agency, Pioneer was asked to point the experimental camera in the destroyed satellite’s direction. The United Space Agency had been just as stumped by the object as GateCorp, and a swift check with other agencies across the globe drew more shakes of the head.

No-one was claiming ownership.

My Supernatural Thriller Alice On The Air is Available On Amazon Now:

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As the five-strong shuttle crew were safely out of harm’s way from the orbiting satellite debris (that was now being fully tracked), they were only too happy to have a unique test subject for their camera. They manoeuvred the shuttle into a new safe position and aimed the ridiculously expensive camera where Gateway62 should have been. The images it relayed back to the United Space Agency and GateCorp were beyond remarkable…

A decision needed to be made, and quickly. Another shuttle couldn’t be launched in time to retrieve the alien body captured by the Pioneer’s camera. The Pioneer was already nearby, and while the manoeuvre to reach the body was potentially risky and off-mission, it would change everything we knew about, well, everything! Many within the United Space Agency considered it worth the risk, despite their risk-averse nature. History was calling out to them. Life as we knew it was about to be re-examined.

The mysterious alien was close to forty-feet tall and eight-feet wide in its frozen state. The size of a shipping container. Any bigger, it may not have even fitted in the Pioneer’s cargo bay, and any hope of retrieval would have been lost. As it was, it was going to be a snug but doable fit.

Its head was the size of a car door, and shaped like one too. The creature appeared to have something that could have been an eye in the centre of its massive head, but the high-resolution photos didn’t show any signs of a nose or ears. There was a slit that may well have been a mouth, but that was pure speculation for now while the alien was in its frozen state. The photos also showed an overly thick neck, which was triangular in shape. The alien appeared to have some form of limbs, but it would be a stretch to describe them as arms or legs. Tentacles maybe? There were seven in total, spread throughout its massive frame. The high-resolution pictures showed there were no digits, with each limb potentially having some kind of ‘sucker’ at the end.

The creature was monstrous, and magnificently strange. Unlike anything we’d ever seen, even in the deepest depths of our diverse and wonderfully bizarre oceans. Otherworldly, which seemed appropriate for something lost and frozen in space.

As expected, none of the instruments pointed in the alien’s direction suggested it was alive. The corpse appeared frozen solid. Dead to the universe. How it ended up in space could be a mystery never solved. How long it had been floating in the stars, however, was something already being considered. They needed to recover the drifting body first before any early estimates could be made.

An order was given from the highest authority for the crew of the Pioneer to salvage the alien body. They were not to touch it themselves, simply scoop it up (for lack of a better scientific term) and keep it contained within the cargo hold while they returned to Earth. They would be credited for the discovery, along with the personnel at GateCorp who captured the initial image. After that, however, anything involving the alien would be out of all of their jurisdiction.

The crew of the Pioneer slowly inched the shuttle nearer to the colossal body, matching its speed and rotation the closer they got. The Pioneer’s large mechanical arm was deployed and eased towards its target, while two of the crew aided in the retrieval.

Up close, they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. It was even more incredible than the pictures had suggested. The alien was comfortably three stories tall, absolutely dwarfing them. It was an ugly creature, looking like something out of a hellish nightmare, but nonetheless, this was first contact. That contact wasn’t going to be reciprocated due to the alien’s dead frozen state, but still, what an amazing moment. First contact with an alien.

As the mechanical arm eased its grip around the icy unknown lifeform, the two astronauts closely watched for any sign of damage. They couldn’t hear any breakage in the vacuum of space, and the pressure being applied was difficult to judge, so they simply had to carefully watch for any cracks in the alien’s frosty shell. When the arm had a strong enough grip without accidentally severing a frozen limb, it began to slowly draw the alien into the Pioneer’s cargo bay.

The whole process was agonisingly slow and tense, but two hours after initial contact, the alien was safely stored inside the Pioneer’s cargo bay, ready for transportation back to Earth. The retrieval was a complete success.

News of the alien was kept from the public for the first few months after its retrieval. Instead, the mammoth carcass was studied in a secure location. Top biologists from around the world determined that the alien had been dead for over forty thousand years, and had drifted through space from another planetary system. It had no sign of clothes or anything we’d consider hair. The slit was categorised as a mouth, but it had no teeth or tongue to speak of.

Its enormous body had several deep wounds lashed across it, which the scientists believed contributed to the alien’s death. Whether it had been in some kind of fight, or whether it was environmental damage of some kind, was unknown.

There was no obvious reproductive organ, and its gender couldn’t be classified. Its DNA was unlike anything we’d ever encountered and would have revolutionised medical science if we ever got our heads around it. When they carefully cut the alien open to take a look inside, its body was empty. There was no skeletal structure or organs to speak of. No one could come up with a good reason as to how the alien could appear to be intelligent life, yet have no organs or insides whatsoever. Had it always been that way, or had they been removed? The find was to remain classified as it was too unearthly to even consider. To add to the mystery, no brain was found either after the head was also sliced open.

How the alien functioned was to be lost to ancient history. The discovery muddled our own knowledge of life. Everything we believed we understood about biology and life was thrown into turmoil. Some conveniently suggested that maybe the alien wasn’t intelligent life, maybe more like plant life in nature, but that didn’t fit the eye and potential mouth. A hybrid of some kind, maybe? Sadly, the answers were never going to be found.

After a year of slicing and dicing the alien while trying their best to keep the lifeform in its original state, a decision was made to inform the public of the find. Too many leaks had occurred to keep the monstrous creature under wraps any longer, and the United Space Agency’s authority was beginning to be undermined. The announcement of the unique and terrifying discovery shook the world. Many discredited the alien’s existence, even when a further decree was passed to put the creature on public display.

The scientists had discovered about all they could. With another hundred years of research there was a chance they’d still discover nothing comprehensible about the visitor from outer space. Everything about the alien was too, alien. They had no earthly idea what they were looking at, and nothing of the alien could be used for anything useful on Earth. Hidden cures for human diseases were not going to be found within the alien’s DNA. It was a marvel of medical science, but a little too magnificent for us. Maybe a live specimen could have been of more use, but considering the creature’s age and way of arrival, that was very unlikely.

Plus, no one wanted forty-foot aliens wandering around the planet.

An outdoor display in New York was created for the alien. A freak show of sorts. It was kept inside an impenetrable clear bubble where no one could touch the creature, and its current state could be preserved. Whether it could still spread any kind of alien diseases was deemed undetermined despite assurances that it couldn’t, so it was best for everyone if it was still under some kind of strict protection. Armed guards were stationed around the exhibit at all times. The alien sideshow quickly became the biggest tourist attraction in the world.

The whole time it was on display, the gigantic grotesque alien began to slowly regenerate under the sun. It began to recover from its lengthy time frozen solid in deep space, and heal from the deep wounds it had suffered, and the smaller ones created by the human examinations.

Darkrique the Galaxy Destroyer was to return once again and rule the entire Milky Way like it once had after forty thousand years of exile. And the first planet to fall under its powerful might was unknowingly currently taking selfies with it.

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Setting The Scene

What better place is there to experience a horror movie than at the cinema surrounded by a large anticipating audience ready to be scared shitless by demons and haunted houses, or laugh at the dumb horny teens as they get themselves killed in various creative ways? But, what if you set the horror flick in the Movie Theatre itself?

We see the familiar rituals as the audience arrives: The crowd chatting in the street under the bright white light of the marquee as they wait for the doors to open to the cinematic temple. The ticket tellers handing out stubs. Buying tubs of popcorn from the confectionary counter, complete with an ungodly amount of butter if you’re in a movie, and an enormous drink that you’re likely to nearly spill at some point.

We watch as the excitement and anticipation gathers in the lobby. Friends and/or potential enemies form, who will no doubt have to work together later. They check out the film posters leading to the screen. Some we’ve never heard, only existing in the fictitious world created before us. Others are classics, or cult movies the setting is encouraging us to watch. Plenty of times i’ve seen a poster in a movie for another movie that I’ve ended up watching later. Movie Theatre Horror can be referred to as Meta-Cinema after all.

The lively crowd settles into the auditorium ready for the movie. It’s always noisy and boisterous, unlike most real world cinemas. Do the film makers know this? Or do they think this is how their movie would be received? A carnival like atmosphere has taken shape. They’re ready to watch some dumb horror movie they can laugh and scream at. If the mammoth drink is going to be spilt, or the huge tub of buttery popcorn is going to be accidentally dumped over someone’s head, now is the time.

Further expectations grow in the smoky theatre as the curtains are drawn back and the trailers begin. More room for fun as we witness future attractions that will most likely never be. The trailers often set the tone for what we’re about to witness: Give us insight into future scenes. Foreshadow a characters death. Or, they simply offer a repeatable line that can be used at an optimum moment… probably to undercut a murder.

Then… the movie begins. It takes a while for the crowd to settle down. The excitement is palpable. Everyone is game for having a great time. Sure, there’s plenty of eye rolling from partners dragged along to a dumb horror movie, or kids missing the on-screen action as they get action of their own in the back rows. But, mostly everyone is glued to the silver screen and the massive images projected in front of them. They remain this way into something inevitable goes wrong…

What Could Go Wrong?

Maybe something begins to haunt the Movie Theatre. The lights flicker. The projected image starts to slide up and down the screen to the inevitable boos from the sugar-buzzed audience. Burn marks and black blotches are sporadically dotted across the onscreen heroes. Popcorn and milk duds fly. The sound winds down to an eerie slow motion. Maybe this is when the audience starts to notice something is up, something maybe supernatural. What just appeared on the screen?

Or, the auditorium itself could malfunction. Electricity sparks from the surround sound. A frightening bang plunges the audience into complete darkness. Fire engulfs the screen offering them an unwelcome light source. The doors are locked or blocked, because they always are! Panic erupts as the patrons trample over one-another while they scramble to get away from the building fire. The spilt drinks and snuck-in-alcohol only enrage the flames. The cinema has become a death trap. Any second floor seating could already be falling, or at bare minimum, people are tumbling over the rail. The red curtain alongside the screen has fully caught ablaze now, framing the onscreen violence while echoing what’s happening before it.

Something within the flick itself could cause the chaos in the Movie Theatre. Give power to a demonic mask perhaps. Turn the watching audience into a horde hell-bent on killing one another. Infect them with pure evil, oddly reminiscent of the exact thing they’ve been watching. Before you know it, the actions spilt from the screen to the cinema itself. Suddenly people are riding around on motorbikes while swinging swords at the undead. If you know you know.

Or, perhaps the danger has been lurking within the confines of the cinema all along. A killer amongst the crowd. Do they have some kind of connection with the movie being shown? Or, is the film simply their pre-game? Maybe they’re taking notes. Learning new brutal ways to kill that they’ll quickly try out on the watching audience. Echo what they’re cheering on screen. They won’t be cheering when it happens to them.

Could the impossible take place and the audience themselves are sucked into the very film they’re watching? Have they been paying attention and learnt the rules to survive? Or, are they going to make the same mistake as the retarded horny teens who already succumb to the demented Slasher or Psycho Hillbilly.

Worse still… could the crazy insane savage barbaric psycho killer walk straight off the screen and into the cinema. Wouldn’t that be a shock to the packed audience. I’m sure more than a couple of them would want their money back, but they’ll be dead long before the refund is completed.

Legacy Off Movie Theatre Films

Movie Theatres have been the setting for some absolutely fantastic scenes and films in the last hundred years. While the beginnings of this genre didn’t start out as horror, although there’s still plenty of insane stuff that’s borderline horror in Keaton’s incredible Sherlock Jr, the setting itself really is ripe for the horror genre.

Without Movie Theatre horror we wouldn’t have gotten that everlasting image of the backlit demons stalking out of the smoky auditorium in Lamberto Bava’s Demons. Or the enduring brilliance of a picture house full of Gremlins singing along to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, complete with a few of the cutest bars ever from Gizmo.

Movie Theatre Horror might not be the widest recognised subgenre or trope, but we’ve all seen and loved something from it. When it comes right down to it, outside of the classical cabin in the woods or insane asylum, where better to stage a horror than in the cinema itself? It begs for creative. Allows narrative shortcuts. The doors are wide open for any kind of Meta-Cinema. The Movie Theatre really is a fucking great place to set a horror movie.

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My Writing Process

Introduction

Writing Processes are one of those things I find infinitely fascinating. Everyone seems to have a completely different process despite all heading in a similar direction. We’ve all read articles or books from famous authors and how they approach writing a book, learnt how their ways differ from ours. We’ve seen how other writers on Substack or Medium tackle their work from a completely different perspective than our own. Everyone has their own way:

There’s varying daily word count. Page counts. Times of the day people like to write. Length of time they write. Planning. Pantsing. Beat outline’s. Full outlines. Vomit drafts. Meticulous first drafts. Writing with music. Without music. Dictating notes. Diagrams. Graphs. Quiet studies. Noisy coffeeshops. Alone. With a writing partner. Writer retreats…

It feels like an infinite amount of things can be different.

So, I thought I’d share a little about my own process, and how it’s evolved over the years.

But, before I start, I want to make it very clear that the best process for anyone, is the one that works for you. Whatever process means you write.

By all means learn how many hours a day your favourite author writes. What their word count targets are. When they write. But, if that doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work for you. There’s no correct one size fits all approach and never will be. And, as you’ll see through my own journey, sometimes even your own process stops working for you, and you have to adapt.

The Early Days

When I first began writing it was as a scriptwriter. I was a planner from the start. The idea of sitting down to write with a blank page and no real solid idea of the direction I was going in sounded preposterous to me. To this day I still don’t really understand how anyone does it, despite it seemingly being commonplace.

I would fill up a couple of large notepads before I even typed FADE IN: Some of my early feature length scripts had about four hundred pages worth of notes before tackling that first draft. I’d write around my job when I was planning the script, writing in the morning, lunch breaks, and evenings. I had notes on the back of receipts, envelopes, single sheets stolen from the printer. Anything to hand. It was kind of ridiculous in hindsight, but it absolutely worked for me back then.

When it came to writing the first draft I took a week off work, and several days either side. Normally I gave myself ten days to write around one hundred pages (One page equals one minute of screen time if correctly formatted… at least it use to)

Ten pages a day meant I basically didn’t leave the house for those ten days. The reason for the short space of time wasn’t anything profound or technical, my mind just wouldn’t shut off when I was writing a first draft so I struggled with sleep. If I took any longer than ten days living on such little sleep I’d be walking around like a zombie.

So, a few hundred pages of notes taken throughout the day for about half a year, was followed by ten solid days of practically non-stop writing to have a first draft ready. From there, I printed out the first draft and made notes all over the hundred pages ready for subsequent redrafts.

My notes mainly focused on writing stronger dialogue, and tidying up the action/business. Often the story and characters already largely worked thanks to the crazy amount of notes beforehand but it also gave me a chance to look for, and fix, and major logic gaps. Concentrating on tone was another big part of my redrafts.

This was my process for a good ten years.

30 Days Instead of Ten

As I got older and had to take part in more adulting getting ten straight days to work on a first draft proved impossible. The compromise I made was a month, aiming for three to four pages a day. I still had the same problem with my brain not switching off and sleeping poorly, but I just had to put up with it until I adapted. Instead of writing for ten to twelve hours a day that number halved, but I’d still pull the odd all dayer if I wasn’t working or socialising.

Also around this point I started writing a lot more in the mornings than evenings. I’d get up early, take the first bus into town where I worked, and sit in a coffee shop for a few hours writing before my shift began.

It’s the first time I considered myself to really have a routine when it came to writing.

The redrafting process was the same, but often I had more than one script on the go which meant a very heavy backpack with multiple hundred page scripts and a bunch of notebooks. That wouldn’t change until I got a good laptop and starting writing my notes digitally many years later.

Writing Books

When it came time to write my first novel, I gave myself a lot longer than a month, and changed much of my process. I still wrote notes, but they were in a somewhat simpler form. Instead of knowing every word and detail I changed to a beats and bullet point system. I still had most of the story outlined and a structure figured out, but the individual chapters would have bullet points to remind me what was important, and how my character would develop, rather than a blow-by-blow.

Also, rather than writing the whole story in one go and then working on each separate draft, I often tackled some of the older chapters as I wrote new ones. (One chapter could be on the third draft while another was on the first)

I’m not sure why I made this change. Whether it was a conscious decision, or one that just felt natural. I found it to difficult to keep track of the whole story when it was two or three hundred pages of solid text rather than a hundred pages of script with plenty of white. Constantly going backwards and forwards kept everything feeling fresh and immediate.

As my first few books were adaptations of my own screenplays much of the story was already in place, but I added plenty of extra scenes within the books. It didn’t take me long to realise the two formats were completely different beast. Adapting my own work was a good learning process.

When it came to writing my first story from scratch I wrote notes on the individual chapters before I wrote them, but not in the same regimented manner as scenes in my screenplays. I found myself leaving more room to go with the flow of what I was writing, and listened to the characters more (kind of hate that term, but also agree with it)

Nowadays

Now, my writing process is a hybrid of everything which came before. I tend to still mostly write in the mornings, but have different sessions throughout the day if I need them. The days of ten solid hours of writing don’t feel possibly nowadays due to various health issues, but a couple of two/three/four hours sessions are very doable.

I still write notes, outlining much of my idea before I start, and some as I go, but they’re not at the level of detail they once were. I’ll have the character’s journey figured, the big story beats, and the general structure, but I allow myself room in the individual chapters to go off on one if I want to.

Books feel much bigger than screenplays, and there’s always places to add extra details or enhance a character or scene. In scriptwriting everything has to be economical, a blueprint. So while I never want to write filler within my books, there is a lot more room to express yourself.

I still do four to five drafts, but more story goes into the redrafts now. Where as before it would be about tidying up my writing and strengthening the dialogue, now I find myself adding more character. Additional scenes. Extra details. More tangents. A lot more world building.

Whether the additional work in the drafts is because of less preparation beforehand, or having a better ideas of what I can do within my writing and feeling I can be more creative, I’m not sure. But, I’m happy with the results.

I think my re-drafting and editing is better than it’s ever been, and it’s something I won’t ever stop trying to improve at. Which, in turn, is why I still never give myself solid deadlines. The works ready when it’s ready.

Going Forward

I’m sure my writing process will change again at some point, but I have a routine that’s working for me at the moment. I feel I write best in the morning for three to four hours on my main work (novels, short stories, etc) and then can add a second session later in the day if I want to. That second session is for either writing more of whatever story I’m working on, or working on articles and subgenre pieces. Time has become more important than any kind of word count.

I redraft as I go now rather than at the end. I never did that with scripts. I always wrote to the end before starting the next draft. But, I find that difficult with books. I like working on a new chapter, then going back and tidying up an older chapter.

Sometimes, as I mentioned, one chapter will have three or four drafts before another chapter is even written. I’m still working on this process and know I have to find the balance. There’s a fine line between producing my best work, and procrastinating on writing the rest of the book.

I simply can’t write to three or four in the morning anymore thanks to my diabetes and other health issue. And I can’t write for the long stretches I use too without suffering for it the next day or two. But, I won’t let any new limitations stop me writing.

I’ve had to adapt my writing process over the years but I’m ok with that as long as it means I can still write. If I have to change it again, I will. I’ll find another process that works, because the important thing for me is to always be writing something, whether that’s for two hours a day or ten. Whether it’s a hundred words, or three thousand. It all adds up. It all means I’m writing.

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Love of Neo-Noir

I think because of the wide range Neo-Noir covers most people like at least a couple of films within the subgenre. Everything from David Lynch movies like Mulholland Drive, Lost Highway and Blue Velvet can fall under the definition, to violent Neo-Noir’s like Sin City, Pulp Fiction, Fight Club and Taxi Driver. There’s classic’s like Chinatown, To Live and Die in L.A, and Fargo, to slightly more modern playful movies like Brick or Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

For the purposes of covering the subgenre I tried to focus on the more Noir aspects of Neo-Noir, but really it’s a subgenre with vague boundaries now that so many anti-heroes exist. The days of the pure hearted good guy on the right side of the law have largely passed by after their decline in 70s cinema. Since then the Neo Noir anti-heroes and Femme Fatales have only grown in both their on-screen presents and personality.

However, I think the subgenre has somewhat retreated into the shadows of which it came of late during Superhero’s box office reign, and the Marvelisation of cinema. But, it’s a subgenre that won’t ever go away. It might adapt and have slightly different definitions, but rogue heroes, dangerous woman, and stories of power and corruption will always be a part of cinema.

For me, Neo-Noir is the genre that made me a cinephile. Movies like Taxi Driver, Reservoir Dogs, and Fargo broadened my understanding of cinema. I grew up on a hard diet of 80s action flicks and westerns. Two genres that I absolutely adore, but I enjoyed them in a purely entertainment way.

The Neo-Noir’s are what made me pay attention to things like symbolism and theme. The photography and framing. The Mise-en-scène. They’re what led me back to Film Noir and the more artistic westerns I’d previously missed. They pushed me in the direction of Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma movies, which then led me down the rabbit hole of the Maverick Film Makers and the Sundance Kids, but that’s another story.

Alongside these fantastic movies I also read plenty of Elmore Leonard in college. Books like Out of Sight and Rum Punch. I also read my fair share of Joe Lansdale Neo Noir’s as well. I imagine some of these books would qualify more as crime or thrillers, but again, the lines of Neo-Noir are blurry. The subgenre is a style and idea, together with many different useable tropes and archetypes, rather than strict dogmatic guidelines.

Frank Miller’s Sin City graphic novels were also a big part of my formative years. That Film Noir look mixed with the heroes and villains of Neo-Noir was chief kiss. I couldn’t get enough of it.

Neo-Noir Within My Own Work

Despite my love of the genre I’ve rarely written within it. In the past I’d started writing a couple of different Neo-Noir book and scripts ideas, but ended up abandoning them. One day I might go back to them, but I don’t recall ever completing any long-form work within the subgenre either as a screenplay or manuscript. Some of my work could be considered slightly more transgressive, but never what I’d consider out-and-out Neo-Noir.

I have however recently began working on a series of short stories that might be within the subgenre, it’s too early to tell yet. They’re something I intend to put online individually at first before compiling as a collection at a later date. The series will be called ‘Neon Drenched Violence’ and definitely plays with a lot of aspects of Neo-Noir, while probably upping the violence a little too, as that’s what I do.

These stories have some of the classic characters and traits, while also trying to build the atmosphere and city environment that Neo-Noirs are famous for. The stories are currently leaning more towards movies like Taxi Driver and Live and Die in L.A rather than the films I consider being a bridge from Film Noir to Neo-Noir: Chinatown and L.A Confidential.

Away from Neon Drenched Violence I recently published my Neo-Noir short story: The Long Day. This one was a rare story that I had completed, and always intended as a Neo-Noir. I first wrote it as a short screenplay about eight years back with the intention of directing it. During pre-production Covid happened, and by the time it was safe to direct movies again my life had moved in a different direction. I’d written Abby Vs The Splatploitation Brothers and writing books had become my future. It’s all I want to do now.

So when it came to researching and writing pieces for the Neo-Noir subgenre The Long Day re-entered my head. It was a story I’d always wanted to tell, and this suited it perfectly. The story was already written in screenplay format so it became an exercise in adapting my work into a short story. I’d gone through a similar process with a few of my books and felt a comfort in doing it again.

If you’ve read The Long Day I hope it captured what you’d consider Neo-Noir to be. Obviously with the female lead it moves away from the isolated hard-boiled male detective, but it was always Rita’s story from conception to finished short. I feel like I still kept the spirit of the anti-hero, along with the odds being stacked against them in the harsh environment, but I included some modern twists and sensibilities.

I loved adapting The Long Day (maybe one day I’ll share my original screenplay too) and as mentioned, I have been dabbling in the subgenre more with Neon Drenched Violence. I have a few other ideas for novels or novellas as well so it is a subgenre that I’ll work in a lot in the future now that I’ve started. Caught the Neo-Noir bug.

Neo-Noir is a subgenre I feel comfortable watching, reading, and writing within. It’s a subgenre with so much class and history, and as mentioned, it inspired more of my love of cinema as well. A lot of the tropes of Neo-Noir are probably in plenty of my own work too, even if none of it is within the genre itself. I love the heroes and villains of Neo-Noir. The settings. The atmosphere. The style and vibe. It has everything that makes stories interesting for me. Neo-Noir really is a fantastic genre, and one I look forward to seeing evolve over the upcoming years.

Stephen

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Why Do I Write?

Why do I write always seems like a question which should have some profound answer. Something about having to share your passion or outlook with the world. To educate or bring attention to something vitally important to you, and those around you. Or maybe something even more wax lyrical. I’m not undermining or mocking any of those reasons, they’re all great reasons. But, if I’m truthful with myself (which I always try to be) my answer is a lot simpler:

I write because I really really enjoy writing and storytelling.

I could make it grander and say it’s my lifeblood, and that’s true to a degree (although cinema also gets me out of bed in the morning) but it’s the enjoyment of telling a story which makes me write most days. It’s a selfish reason to be honest, because, if I stopped enjoying writing, I wouldn’t do it anymore, no matter how well (or not) things were going. I write stories for myself, expressing the ideas that have popped into my head. I really hope others enjoy my tales, but they’re truly written for an audience of one.

Enjoyment

I think my reason of writing because I enjoy it is important in this day and age because it almost goes against that ever thinning line. A lot of times now people monetise what would normally have been a hobby. Good at Photography, start a Youtube Channel. Enjoy sewing, you should have an Etsy. You like Skateboarding, you should post clips of your tricks on Instagram or TikTok. It’s rare to see someone just enjoying a hobby now with no strings attached.

And once it’s turned into a business, the joy can be sucked from it fast. Not always… but there is that lingering threat. And if you do fall out of love with it pushing forward because it’s your business could permanently ruin the pure love for the hobby you once had.

I’m guilty of monetising my hobby too as I self publish my work, but I know for a fact that I’d write most days just for me whether I made another penny in the craft or not. I want it to be my career. I want to one day be able to live off my writing again, but I’ve barely written a word for anyone else, and frankly, never will again.

Writing has always brought me joy, from writing short stories as a kid, to the scripts I wrote in my teens through to my late thirties, to the last few years working on different novels. And all while I have that enjoyment, I’ll continue to write, whether the stories are read by anyone else or not (although, please read them)

Storytelling

Another big reason I write is my fascination with the art of storytelling. I find the structure of stories sometimes just as interesting as the words themselves. I read way too much Joseph Campbell and Christopher Vogler in my teens. Learning about the Heroes Journey and Character Archetypes. I was fascinated by mythology from all around the world. Soon that love spread to script writing and Syd Field’s work on the Three Act Structure.

Storytelling for me holds a direct mirror to life. We’re all the heroes (or sometimes villains) of our own story, and are going on a wild journey filled with ups and downs, peaks and valleys. I like that idea, even if I feel like I’ve had too many dramatic dips and low points in the last ten years.

Within my writing I never grow tired of playing with structure and format. Writing outrageous shit which somehow still largely fits into the Journey. I like hitting those beats and reaching transitional moments. Experimenting with different combination of character archetypes. I love twisting genre conventions, or applying them in interesting ways to genres they don’t belong in. My writing is a practical way to do those experiments, while also getting to tell a complete story.

I guess all that stuff comes under finding my voice. My Style. Improving as a writer. I believe I can only really do that if I’m writing for myself, rather than to a current trend, or even my own readership. I back myself, and hope to learn a lot more about writing while I do.

Creative Outlet

Then there’s the Creative Outlet idea. I am someone who firmly believe everyone should have some form of creative outlet. A way to either express themselves, or take themselves out of the day-to-day grind of the world. Disappear into something they love. Writing and Photography are my creative outlets (Along with cinema)

I adore creating new worlds. Building a character from scratch. Telling an insane story that can’t possibly happen, but treat it like it is happening. It gets my brain firing. I can spend, days, weeks, months obsessing over the world I’m building for the story I’m telling and in those moments nothing else matters. However difficult my life is or isn’t at the time, the result is the same, I can disappear into my work.

Maybe some would argue that’s not healthy. That these stories are a way of escaping things I need to face, and that may well be true, but I don’t care. I like living in the worlds I’m building. Moulding the characters I’m creating. And there is plenty of subtext in my work dealing with the things which matter to me in real life, even if I don’t make a big deal of it on the surface of the story. (the way subtext should be)

Writing is my way of expressing myself, but it’s also my way of telling fantastical nonsense stories. It can be both!

Life

Writing will always be part of my life. I know that, because it has been already for over forty years. I’ve stopped for little periods of times when things have gotten rough, and I’d stop again if I need a little break from it, but it’s something I’ll always go back to. I always have.

Writing has helped me overcome grief. Gotten me through heartbreak. Helped me in my absolute lowest moments, and rarely by ever writing about the issue itself. Often, it’s just being able to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard now) and tell a story. Any story, no matter how absurd, or straight forward… as long as it’s one I’ve created and want to tell. That’s always the key part for me:

I write because I want to write.

That won’t ever change.

… I haven’t added a personal update this week because things have been kind of quiet. I’m working hard on Alice on the Air but little else and am just having one of those weeks where I’m a little in my own head (Did also finish reading all of the Darren Shan Saga though)

I won’t write a personal aside next week either as I’m away for a couple of days but there will be a post. After that, should be back to business as normal.

Stephen

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Steam rose from the porcelain bathtub as Rita lay submerged with only her face above the waterline. She was staring into the abyss above, which currently took the form of the vanilla ceiling, but her gaze reached far beyond the pale PVC panels. Rita was looking into an uncertain future. Or, perhaps worse, a certain future that she wanted no part of. One without the world she’d meticulously built.

She could feel her heart beating a little too quickly in her chest at the daunting prospect. Her breasts joined her face above the waterline as her breathing intensified. Surely she wasn’t just about to have a panic attack?

A wall of muffled sound built around her ears, dulling everything except the thudding of her rapid heart and the anxiety bubbling in her stomach. Her heavy breaths sent the bathwater lapping against the side of her face as the steam continued to fog the bathroom mirror.

Rita felt ready to burst… until she regained control.

She took several deep breaths, sucking in the humid air before allowing herself to sink under the hot water. Rita lay perfectly still at the bottom of the tub. Eyes closed. Lips tight. Her heart slowly returned to its regular, dull rhythmic pattern. The anxiety was momentarily forgotten as she emptied her mind and thought about nothing, because nothing was a hell of a lot more comforting than what awaited her.

Rita wanted to remain immersed in the water for the rest of the day, but her problems couldn’t be solved at the bottom of a bathtub… not unless she opened her mouth and sucked in the bathwater, never to re-emerge. But she couldn’t do that to Mike or their young daughter. So Rita pushed herself upward and broke free of the water’s inviting hold.

✯✯✯

Mike was loading the washing machine when Rita trudged into the kitchen. She wore her normal dark jeans with a baggy hoodie that may have once been his. They’d been together too long to remember such things. Her trusty black backpack was slung across her weary shoulder, looking fuller than normal. She had everything she needed for a long day, except the will and confidence to face it head-on.

Her husband, Mike, was in his mid-thirties but looked and acted older. The type of guy who couldn’t wait to hit the big four-oh and relax into the routine of middle age. He handed Rita a mug of coffee in her favourite cup and a plate of toast he’d made when he heard her leave the bathroom. He knew she liked her toast lukewarm. It was one of many things they used to joke about when they still got butterflies and Maria was years away.

The four-year-old grinned from the kitchen table as she watched her mum eat her toast. Maria had abandoned her own breakfast halfway through in order to continue her colouring. A yellow and green zebra, and the lines be damned.

Rita made her way to the table and smiled as she looked at the messy picture, then gave her beautiful daughter a good-morning kiss. Her heart quickened again. Her soul was making noises too… but she had to temporarily ignore them both.

She took a sip of her coffee and tried to smile at Mike, but it no longer came as easily as it did with Maria.

“I’ll be back late tonight,” she flatly told him.

Mike nodded and failed at his own attempted smile despite desperately wanting the warmth to return to the house.

✯✯✯

Rita closed the front door, leaving Mike and Maria inside, and leant her forehead against the wood. Her eyes bulged and her throat tightened as she swallowed and sucked back the rush of tears ready to drip onto the pavement.

Then again with the breathing exercises.

She couldn’t remember when she’d learned them, another life maybe, but she was thankful to have them today.

She turned down the garden path and saw a black BMW parked directly across the street. Its bulky driver was on his phone. Rita adjusted the straps on her backpack and tugged a baseball cap over her head before marching down the rest of the garden path while her eyes never left the driver of the car.

Rita’s journey to the high street went by in a flash. She could barely recall sitting at the grimy bus stop, aside from her feet tapping nonstop and her legs uncontrollably shaking. The journey on the cold bus had followed a similar pattern, with the added bonus of all the colour draining from her face.

She remembered wanting to be sick and got off one stop early just in case she was, but she’d managed to gulp it back down just as she had the tears when she left Mike and Maria.

It was still early on the high street, with the morning chill reverberating from the pavement. A few people were around, with most either part-time staff heading to work or eager customers waiting impatiently outside the stores as keys were turned and doors flung open.

Promotional signs and seating from various shops and cafés were carried out and set up for the day. Eight hours of boredom awaited anyone with responsibilities as the high street began another day.

The time for panicked breathing and anxiety was over. Rita had her chance to be sick and had passed it up. Her heart would have to deal with the stress by itself for the moment, as she had bigger things to focus on.

Rita strolled calmly down the high street with a single objective in mind as she slid a handgun from her pocket and walked into the bank.

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✯✯✯

A gleaming silver Bentley pulled up alongside St. Annes All-Girls School in the no-parking zone. Two huge, intimidating guys sat in the front, both smartly dressed. Their job was to protect the smaller, but no less dangerous, guy in the back, their boss, Dex. Dex’s job was to get his sweet little girl, Polly, to school on time.

“You got your homework?”

Polly nodded.

“Your lunch?”

The smiling kid patted her Pikachu schoolbag.

“Now I know you haven’t got a great big hug for your dear old dad.”

“I do,” Polly enthusiastically laughed as she unbuckled her seat belt and reached across to give Dex a huge, warm hug.

He tenderly embraced her before giving the top of her head a goodbye kiss.

“See you tonight, sweetie pie, when Daddy finishes work.”

Polly climbed out of the car and waved goodbye to both her dad and the two heavies in the front.

All the care and love in Dex’s face and voice disappeared the moment his loving daughter closed the door.

“Drive,” he aggressively told his goons.

✯✯✯

Rita strode out of the bank back onto the still nearly deserted high street, with no early-morning shoppers waiting outside or paying her any attention. She now carried two bags instead of one, as her trusty backpack had been joined by a bulging generic duffle bag that looked like something she could have brought to the gym.

Rita discreetly tucked the gun back into her pocket as she turned left to leave the bank. After a couple of steps, she immediately turned left again and entered the coffee shop next door.

She was first in line at the contemporary coffee shop and had begun to order her hazelnut latte when the alarms finally blared from the bank next door.

The young barista finished preparing Rita’s coffee, absently talking about the cold weather and thinking the loud alarms were nothing more than a fire test.

Rita paid in cash and thanked her as she made her way to the back of the Coffeehouse.

Rita placed the tall latte on a table furthest from the front window, but still with a view of the high street. She then disappeared into the toilet at the back of the café with both bags in hand while the alarms blasted from inside and outside the bank into the early morning air.

Double-checking the lock on the door, Rita stripped out of her dark jeans and hoodie and put on a black-and-white checked dress. The dress was a little short for the early morning chill, but the day would warm up, and more importantly, the dress didn’t look like the sort of get-up you’d wear to rob a bank.

She then placed her backpack on the floor and unfolded two shopping bags from it.

Unzipping the duffle bag, Rita transferred the thick wads of cash she’d stolen into the pre-prepared shopping bags. She then folded the empty duffle bag and placed it back into her nondescript backpack. It was the only thing she hadn’t changed, but she was certain it wouldn’t draw any attention. Plenty of people had the same colour backpack, and her gun had scared most people from looking at her too closely.

She then placed the extra items of clothing she’d brought along on top of the stacked money, concealing it within the shopping bags. Both shopping bags were thick green reusable bags that would (or should) not only hold the weight of the money, but also weren’t see-through. To the outside world, she should look like she’d done nothing more than go grocery shopping.

Rita skimmed the café toilet floor to make sure she hadn’t dropped anything, but knew she hadn’t. The money had been tightly wrapped together in bands, and her clothes were all accounted for. She hadn’t been wearing any jewellery during the heist, but put on a pair of earrings now. Any details that could make her look different had to help.

She would have dyed and cut her hair in the coffee shop toilet if she could, but instead just removed her baseball cap and let her long black hair fall loose. It still hadn’t dried from her morning bath, and if she hadn’t just robbed a bank, she would have been worried about catching a cold.

Then came the hard part… opening the toilet door.

If all had gone to plan and the CCTV surrounding the area was as useless as she’d been led to believe, then there shouldn’t be any police waiting outside ready to arrest her. If it hadn’t gone to plan, well, that wasn’t worth thinking about.

Her hand felt paralysed when she gripped the door handle. Rita wished there were a peephole so she could check what awaited her, but then nervously laughed at herself, remembering she was in a public toilet. A peephole would not be appropriate.

It was the first time she’d smiled all morning. Maybe all month. In fact, definitely all month.

But would she still be smiling when she turned the door handle?

Only one way to find out.

✯✯✯

Rita sipped her second hazelnut latte from the back of the coffee shop as she kept a peripheral eye on proceedings outside. The staff of the Coffeehouse kept disappearing out the front door to check on the latest commotion as the police continued their investigation. Statements were being taken, and a small crowd, alongside a few reporters, stood behind the yellow tape that had been used to cordon off the front of the closed bank.

The coffee shop was now full, with a mixture of passers-by trying to get the latest gossip on the robbery, people using their laptops, and the odd catch-up session between friends. Rita had asked the staff in a curious manner what was going on outside when she bought her second coffee, and the young barista had enthusiastically told her how there’d been a robbery next door.

‘No one was hurt, thank God,’ she had said. ‘But can you imagine?’

Rita shook her head like she couldn’t as she kept a careful eye on the shopping bags she’d left under her table.

While she watched from her advantageous position at the back of the crowded Coffeehouse, Rita took a burner phone from her pocket. The ugly phone had exactly one number in its directory, which Rita dialled.

“I have the money,” she told the caller in a matter-of-fact manner when someone answered on the other end after the obligatory three rings. Her eyes were still fixed on the window and café door as she coldly spoke. “I did it exactly as you said.”

She took a nonchalant sip of her coffee as two officers entered the Coffeehouse. Despite her outward calm, Rita could feel her insides tense up. Her stomach knotting.

But the police weren’t here to arrest her, or even question the patrons within the café. Instead, they ordered two large mochas to go while fielding questions from the curious staff and nosy customers.

“Where do you want to meet?” Rita asked as she diverted her eyes from the cops.

✯✯✯

Rita left the Coffeehouse deep into the afternoon, having spent the time drinking more coffee, keeping a vigilant watch, and reading a paperback. The romantic period drivel she’d picked up in a charity shop the week before wasn’t her thing, but it was in keeping with her ‘disguise,’ and she’d found herself getting into the melodramatic story the longer she read.

The ruckus was long over, but the bank was still roped off. A police officer stood guard outside while a lingering journalist remained in the hopes that he’d get an inside scoop.

With her backpack slung over her shoulder and a shopping bag in each hand, Rita looked no different from any other shopper as she made her way back to the bus stop.

Sitting at the back of the busy bus, Rita kept a tight grip on the shopping bags as she watched the world pass by outside the filthy window. It felt like she’d spent her whole day watching, but the moving view had a more calming effect than the tense, narrow view she’d had at the back of the Coffeehouse.

Rita passed the stop that was a short walk from her house and kept going as the bus slowly emptied. She wondered whether Mike and Maria were home, or whether the little tyke had persuaded her pushover father to take her to the park again. The girl was obsessed with the swings.

The rendezvous was at the very end of the route, away from all civilisation. When she arrived at the stop, Rita was the only passenger left on the bus. Apparently, most people didn’t travel this far, and looking around at the boarded-up shops and empty houses, she could see why.

Rita watched as the bus tackled the nearby roundabout, ready to start its route all over again. The next one wouldn’t arrive for another hour.

Rita followed the practically empty road around the corner and made her way down it as the odd car drifted by. The shopping bags were beginning to feel heavy in her hands, and the backpack was weighing on her shoulders.

The morning chill had morphed into an evening bite without ever warming up as the day passed. She could feel her exposed arms and legs starting to freeze.

The sun was setting early this time of year, and Rita continued to make her way down the long road as the darkness began to claw its way across the sky.

She surveyed a side street as she neared the meet-up point and was happy to discover no one was around. Rita disappeared into an alley that ran off it and made quick work of transferring the stolen money back into the original duffle bag that they’d issued her. She changed for a third time, putting on another thin hoodie and pair of jeans that had previously been used to cover the top of the shopping bags before resuming her journey.

✯✯✯

When she arrived at the disused small parking lot tucked behind a row of shops that had long since gone out of business, Rita was met by a single silver car parked sideways across three spaces, Dex’s car. He exited the vehicle from the back and was immediately flanked by his two suited heavies. All three of them looked smart; Rita bet they all thought they were smart too.

She meekly approached, scanning the immediate area, wondering how many more hired thugs could be hiding in the shadows. Dex and his men followed suit, making sure Rita hadn’t brought along any surprises with her, but they’d been at the rendezvous long enough to know they were all alone. They were just fucking with her.

“On your own?” Dex asked in a gravelly tone reserved for business.

Rita gently nodded. Her nerves were shot. Her body language was that of someone defeated as she barely kept hold of the bag. It suddenly weighed a ton.

“That my money?” Dex looked at the duffel bag, knowing damn well it was. He just liked to impose his will. His wife and kid may have been the boss of the house, but outside in the mean streets, he ruled.

Rita tugged the bag from her shoulder and offered it to Dex. The heavy to his right tucked his gun away and grabbed the bag. He began to thumb through it like he was counting the whole stash in the cold darkness of night as the moon hid behind the clouds and little street light reached them. Maybe the dim interior light shining from the car was enough? He nodded his approval to Dex in too short of a time for him to have counted the whole bag, but it was all there.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Dex asked Rita.

“My husband and daughter?” she questioned, trying her best to stay calm.

The gangster grinned. He loved this part.

“What about them?”

Rita tried to reply, but the words stuck in her throat. Her face had to do the pleading for her as the tears welled up in her eyes and her lips began to tremble. She looked ready to drop to her knees and beg.

Dex beamed. Nothing was quite so beautiful as a scared woman.

He took out his phone and dialled. Then he looked towards Rita once more, watching the fear spread across her face before he spoke.

“She’s all paid up.”

If possible, he began to look even more smug as he continued to stare in her direction. Still playing his games. Making her sweat. In control. It was always about control.

“Let them be,” he finally told whoever was on the other end.

He tucked the phone away. An ear-to-ear grin stretched across his obnoxious face. But while his mouth was smiling in a mocking manner, his icy eyes were dangerously serious. They told the real story of just how sinister a man he could be.

“All sorted,” Dex said, like he’d taken it upon himself to solve her problems rather than being the root of them. “You learned your lesson?”

Rita drew her gun before Dex had even finished the sentence and shot the armed heavy to Dex’s left in the head at point-blank range. The second heavy fumbled for his gun while still holding the duffel bag but couldn’t draw it quickly enough and suffered the same fate as Rita brutally executed him in one swift movement.

He dropped to the floor with a bullet lodged in the middle of his forehead, just like his partner. The open bag of money sat on the tarmac beside him, already soaking up the blood that was freely flowing from the two bodyguards. Rita shot them both once more for good measure, but she hadn’t needed to. They were already corpses.

Dex lunged at Rita, but she expertly took a step back and shot him twice, putting an end to his seething roar. The gun ignited mere millimetres from his heart as both bullets tore through his body with ruthless ease. He was dead before he completed the lunge. She gave him a couple of swift kicks while he lay sprawled across the ground.

“You should never have threatened my family,” Rita told the dead body in a frightening, unmerciful tone. It was a tone she’d all but forgotten over the last decade, but apparently it was still available to call upon when needed.

Rita wiped the gun and placed it in Dex’s rigid fingers. She then wiped the money bag clean of prints as best she could but left it sitting on the sodden tarmac. She wondered if anyone would even care to figure out what really happened with the money retrieved and three dead assholes off the street. It was a shame one of the bodyguards wasn’t a woman, as that could have tied up everything nicely, but Rita was more than aware that she couldn’t have everything her own way.

✯✯✯

Rita returned home much later in the evening after walking home instead of taking the bus. She needed the walk and the brutal frosty air to figure things out in her head, which had been no easy task. It had been a long and difficult day that, in theory, had gone about as well as it could have, but that was of little comfort.

Mike was watching the news when she entered the living room. They were reporting a bank robbery and how the money had been retrieved at a murder scene. He switched the TV off when he saw her enter the room.

“You okay? It’s late.”

Rita automatically nodded, but she was already looking past him to a brown envelope sitting menacingly on the coffee table. Mike followed her gaze.

“The divorce papers arrived today,” he told her in a gentle voice. A sadness washed over his face as he spoke the words he never thought he would.

Rita couldn’t hold the tears inside that had been building all day any longer. They flooded down her face. She could feel her heart aching, trying its best to stay in one piece while it broke at the seams. Mike took a step towards her and wrapped his arms around her like the softest of bears. Not a bad bone in his body. He didn’t want to hurt her.

“We don’t have to sign them this second,” he whispered between his own sobs.

…Rita remained in his arms for as long as she could. Then she wiped away the tears and signed the papers, ready to start the certain future she didn’t want after returning to a life she’d left behind.

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Introducing Driver

Driver for me is one of the all-time great anti-heroes of Neo-Noir. While I absolutely adore the film (it’s one of my favourites) I want to talk about the main character, Driver, in James Sallis’s two novella’s, Drive and Driven. They both feature the same main protagonist, Driver… and I already feel like I’ve written the word Drive to much.

Driver is a classic noir character, or even further back, a great western character. But let’s concentrate on his Neo-Noir sensibilities for this piece, although there is a lot of overlap. Driver is a loner, even when surrounded by people he’d somewhat consider friends. He’s someone who lives inside his own head and outside the rules of society. He’s dangerous, but isn’t someone who necessarily goes looking for trouble. If he’s out to get you, then you must have crossed the line at some point.

In Sallis’s superb novella’s we see a more chatty version of Driver than Gosling interpretation in Nicolas Winding Refn masterpiece. Someone who’s connected to more people. Less of a loner, but still a stoic enigma. We learn a little more about where he came from, but it’s just as difficult to piece together who he really is now. Is he someone looking for an easy life? Or does he relish the danger, even if he’s not looking for it? It certainly never seems far from him.

He’s a complex character who always seems to be running away from something, while facing it head on. It’s these myriad of contradictions that gives him that power on the page. We want to know what he’s thinking. What he’ll do next. And we know that anyone in his way is in deep shit. The odds never feel against him despite always being out numbered.

Driver is Unstoppable, A New Trait To Neo-Noir

In the classic sense of a Noir the odds always tilted against the protagonist. He normally started of somewhat cocky or confident, but then was eventually worn down by the double crossing. The relentless pursuit. The betrayal. It all lead to his inevitable downfall.

Driver on the other hand is powered by these events. Double crossing makes you the target, not him. Pursuing him makes him more dangerous. Betrayal will get you killed. He won’t be the one laying on the pavement dead at the end. Driver is battling and winning against the tropes that normally destroy the hero, while still being the anti-hero himself.

He’s someone on the move as well, as opposed to always being in the an apartment or office like our Noir heroes from the past. We see him constantly moving home, admitting that he carries everything he owns in a backpack. He’s ready to go at the drop off a hat.

All this means Driver lives a lifestyle more in keeping of an outlaw than any hard boiled detective, despite retaining those investigative attributes. He takes illegal jobs, but has rules about them. He kills, but doesn’t start the fight. Multiple times across the two books he waits for the attacker to be within reach and then strikes. He gives them ample opportunity to back out, it’s their own fault that they don’t.

There are even moments when they tell Driver what he wants to know so he lets them go, but he lets them go with the understanding that he will fucking end them if they try anything. And whenever they try something, they do end up dead.

A Dangerous Hero

However, it isn’t the sudden bursts of violence that makes Driver such a dangerous character. Nor is it the fact that he takes the masculine qualities of Film-Noir to another level. He’s strong and brave, but also fearless, emphasised by his work as a stuntman and history in racing cars.

It’s his lack of emotion for me that really stands out on the page, and within the film too (Reminds me at times of Meursault in Albert Camus The Outsider/The Stranger) This is what makes him dangerous.

This lack of emotion is difficult to get a handle on too because his actions are emotional, just without the actual visual emotion or victimhood behind them. We’re never going to see him breakdown. Show regret. Plead for his life. We’ll just see his response. His actions. His dangerous and unrelenting nature.

In Driven when his girlfriend is killed he sets about avenging her death, but we hear little of his love for his fiancee. The moments where he reminisces about their relationship are few and far between. It’s almost haunting, especially when the plot is revealed and we find out why she died.

It’s hard to tell whether the man who ordered the kill succeeded. He wanted Driver to feel the pain he felt when losing his daughter, but did Driver feel that pain? We know he loved and respected his girlfriend from the conversation with her parents, but as a reader we want to see that emotion on the page… but Driver refused to show it. There’s something enigmatic about that. A dangerous and mysterious quality within a heroic figure that we struggle to relate to.

The Complexities of Driver

There’s something about the complicated nature of these sort of characters that makes them fascinating. They’re inhuman in a way, yet they’re they’re the ones we’re cheering on whether it’s Driver or John Wick. This macho nature complete with the lack of emotion or tears isn’t something we’re used to associating with heroes in Film Noir. It’s more mythology based. The heroes of old who could rampage through hell and survive the ordeal. It’s a more classic hero, but with a twisted dangerous edge rather than being completely virtuous. To survive a Neo-Noir you need that, and it’s why the old Film Noir anti-heroes failed. They lacked that edge.

The ones who fall apart at the hands of a Femme Fatale, a nefarious plot, or their own guilt, don’t survive. The heroes who now make it to the end are the ones who seem less like they give a fuck if they live or die. I get the impression Driver wouldn’t be too upset if he died, but he’s invincible.

Another interesting contradiction is that he’s actual capable of being present for other people. He lives in this lone-wolf isolated leave me the fuck alone state, but when he makes friends with his neighbour and her kid in Drive he looks out for them. He has a good relationship with the mother and kid. Forms a friendship of sorts with the husband after he’s released from prison. Looks after them when the husband dies.

Even when the mums killed and the kid is taken away to live elsewhere he still keeps in touch. But, when he losses touch, he doesn’t search for the kid. It’s like that chapter of his life is now over. We don’t ever see him mourn any of the deaths, or any of the losses he suffers despite knowing he did care about these people. That includes his own mum and Doc, to the family and his fiancee.

There’s always a detachment. So, is Driver just playing the role? Trying to pretend he’s a somewhat normal person? Or, is he great at compartmentalising?

All these qualities within Driver add up. They give him that Neo-Noir feel. A loner. A Man. Him against the world. Someone who will solve the mystery no matter what. Someone who can be extremely dangerous if you cross him. He’s an archetype of Neo-Noir, while also being the evolution of Film Noir and the old Crime Stories.

He’s this updated version that’s a lot more dangerous than his predecessors because there is room within Neo-Noir to push these characters further. Explore them deeper. Make them crueler if you must. Tap into the darkness that they regretted in Film Noir but don’t tend to in Neo Noir.

Driver is a dangerous anti-hero, but he’s someone who’s help you’d enlist in a heartbeat.

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Enjoying Dystopia

I’ve found myself reading a lot of dystopian novels over the last year and a half. It wasn’t a subgenre which particularly interested me before my recent reading burst (more about that in another blog) but i’ve been going back to them constantly of late. Reading everything from classics like 1984 and The Road, to newer additions like Wool, and slightly more obscure bleak predictions of the future like The Drowned World and The Long Tomorrow.

Since my dystopian addiction began I’ve been researching and learning about all kinds of great novels and books series, I had no idea the subgenre was so bountiful. I knew about (and had previously read) some the classic, and of course had heard of most of the different YA dystopians turned into movies and TV shows over the last twenty or so years, but there’s so many others I never knew nothing about.

I find myself now down an endless rabbit hole of books about how fucking horrible the future is going to be, and I can’t stop reading them. Not only am I enjoying them, I’m feeling inspired by plenty too (writing wise, not dooming humanity wise)

And I have to say, a lot of them have been eerily accurate. Maybe not in the exact details of how things have turned out, but within the attitude of society and the depression surrounding these types of futures. So many are to close to the world we’re living in now, or what the near future could conceivably bring. They’ve been fascinating reads.

Why Has Dystopia Been Appealing Of Late?

I’m not sure if my recent captivation with this niche of science fiction relates to a more difficult period within my own life over the challenging last few years, or whether I’m simply enjoying the creativity and world building within the subgenre. The dark themes of isolation, paranoia, and ruin do seem to have a certain appeal (might need to investigate that) but I’ve also loved reading how the disguised broken world’s Brave New World and This Perfect Day came about. Or learning about the hidden history within Wool. The authoritarian rules of 1984. The depressive breakdown of society in Handmaid’s Tale.

Maybe it’s a perfect storm. I’m just feeling subdued and pessimistic enough these days to enjoy the depressing themes of dystopia while I’m also getting more interested in the world building aspect of science fiction and fantasy and what could be done within those in relation to my own future writing.

There’s also the fact that it feels like everything is miserable of late. We are constantly being bombarded with horrible news. Social Media is a place where hate and lies are worshipped (The algorithm rewards nastiness) World politics and the potential rise of A.I. suggests a dystopia isn’t out of the question. The world feels like it is heading in the direction of one of these books, so maybe my recent fascination is more a morbid curiosity of what the future might bring.

I’ve shed a little more of my naivety and belief in people too over the last five or six years so that probably also helps me get into the mood and vibe of these bleak books.

… Or, maybe I’ve just accidentally discovered a new genre I like to read and it isn’t connected to anything other than an admiration for the words on the page and a strong author’s voice. I like to think it’s that one. (Never going to fully let go of my naivety)

Some Of My Favourites

I don’t normally do this in my blogs but as this post is already a little different I figured I’d quickly share some of my favourite dystopian books with you:

1984 by George Orwell will always be a favourite. It’s one I enjoyed long before my recent reading resurgence and long before my like of dystopia grew. I’m just fascinated by Winston and the somber grey world around him. I get sucked into the idea of history being erased or altered. Something about these themes always hit hard.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is another that just works for me. It’s a classic for a reason. Also features some of the best world building I’ve read.

This Perfect Day by Ira Levin has been one of my favourite reads over the last year. The idea of a dystopia disguised as a utopia is utterly terrifying for someone who predominately writes about themes like identity within their work. And the led character Chip does some nasty shit that can be heavily debated within the realms of nature vs nurture. It’s a great book.

High Rise by JG Ballard is another long time favourite. It’s more isolated than the rest on this brief list, but the microcosm of the high rise is perhaps the best example of the direction the world is currently heading.

Lasting, otherwise I’ll list another twenty, I really did enjoy Harry Harrison’s Make Room! Make Room! The atmosphere and hopelessness created in the book is at a whole other level. As much as I enjoy the world building of Soylent Green, I think I prefer the source material.

ohh… I forgot Walter Tevis’s Mockingbird. That was absolutely amazing too. Probably my favourite robot book.

Will I Write A Dystopian Novel Myself?

This is something I’ve thought about a lot over the last half a year as I’ve turned my attention to more genre based stuff within Spilt Latte Press. The simple answer is I want too, but I don’t have a particular story in mind at the moment, and have plenty of other ideas more fully formed. If I was going to write a dystopian novel anytime soon the idea would have to take shape in my head pretty quickly in order to jump the queue (which is always flexible)

That said, I do see a dystopian novel somewhere in my future. I like the idea of creating a potentially bleak world and working out exactly how it was formed. I have a novel in mind which could potentially qualify as having elements of dystopia within it, but I see it more as a cyberpunk or futuristic story for now, but who knows how that will develop.

I have written a short story called Analog Apocalypse which I’ll publish on my website and Substack at some point, and that’s also a story which could be built upon, so it’s an option. I have a side project in mind too which I could develop, but that’s a long way off.

What I do know is I’m definitely going to keep reading dystopian novels even as I expand my reading range into a bunch of different genres. I really am thoroughly enjoying them.

Alice On The Air

I’ve finished the first, and most of the second, draft of Alice on the Air this week. I’ve been re-drafting as I go, working on older chapters as I write the newer ones, so the two drafts have come along together. Because I’ve changed a chunk of my planned ending the third draft will be concentrating on making sure the character’s motivations are aligned throughout, while also adding some extra details to make sure everything works.

The change has made the book a little more complex than I originally planned, and has given the main character a choice to make which they previously didn’t have. I was reluctant to make the adjustment at first, but in all honestly it makes for a better more impactful ending, and tidies up a couple of things which had previous been a little loose. It’s the right decision, I think.

This means the third draft will take longer than planned, but I’ll reiterate once again, I’m in no rush. As eager as I am to move onto the next manuscript, I want this one to be the best it can be without falling into the perfection trap. July feels very unlikely as a release date now, but August isn’t out of the question so that’s my new aim.

What Else Have I Been Up To?

The rest of my week has been shared between re-reading the Darren Shan Saga, writing notes for a future fantasy novella, and working on some subgenre work for the website and Substack. Oh, and playing Trails in the Sky Chapter One… which is awesome.

I didn’t get as much done as I thought I might have this last week but it’s been super hot, and I had some freelance photography work to do at the weekend. This last week kind of slipped by really, but as mentioned, I did finish a draft of Alice on the Air and took a ton of photos so I can’t be too disappointed.

This Coming Week

At the beginning of the week I need to edit the photos I took at the weekend (a few hundred) so I’ll have to put writing aside for a couple of days. I’m hoping that break will get me motivated to dive into the third draft of Alice on the Air. I also need to continue my subgenre work. I have plenty scheduled, but haven’t written anything new in a while and I’m keen to get more done. I do have the next batch of subgenres and articles planned, and have watched and read everything needed for them, so now it’s just finding time to sit down and write them.

It has been difficult keeping up a good pace with my writing recently due to the heat and some health stuff. And, I’ve had a few things on my mind which needed to figuring out. But, I am feeling optimistic that I can get plenty written this summer. My main priority is finishing Alice on the Air. Then, I need to work out a schedule which allows me to start writing another book while also beginning some of the side projects I have in mind. There’s so much I want to write.

Stephen

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Introducing The Neo Noir Femme Fatale

One of the biggest evolutions from Film Noir to Neo-Noir is the use of the Femme Fatale character. Under their previous guise they were still sexy, manipulative, and dangerous, but within the unrestricted rules of Neo-Noir everything can be cranked up to eleven. They can be hyper-sexualised in ways the Hay’s Code would never have approved of. Can manipulate a wider range of anti-heroes. Their roles are more diverse, no longer simply being the bane of the anti-heroes existence, although that is still often the case. Their perceived victimhood can take on more forms with their ability to fight back. They no longer need to be brought to any kind of justice either. Much like the new anti-hero, they can get away with murder.

There’s a lot I could talk about within David Lynch’s Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive but what I want to focus on is the roles of the Femme Fatales within these movies. Obviously as it’s Lynch these aren’t conventional Neo-Noir’s (if such a thing truly exists) and the Femme Fatale narrative isn’t as linear and clear as other movies I could use as examples (say Atomic Blonde or Bound) But, Lynch does play with a lot of the more modern conventions of the Neo-Noir Femme Fatale and produces a couple of excellent examples to work through.

Rather than switching between the two films I’ll talk about them together as we go through those modern traits: The Sexuality of the Femme Fatale. The Manipulation and Control they have. Their Style, which I think largely sticks to the old-school ways. And, the danger they pose, alongside the perceived danger they are sometimes presented in.

Sexuality Of A Neo-Noir Femme Fatale

Lost Highway

Sexuality has always been the Femme Fatales biggest weapon. Their ability to catch the hero of the story in a trance. It often triggers all their other powers. This sexuality use to always be introduced onto the screen in a dramatic way: a sultry walk down a spiralling staircase. Opening a door while the camera lingers on their often angelic face and full lips in beautiful soft lighting long before the shadows are introduced. The camera would hold while both we, and the unsuspecting male lead, took in what stunning creatures these woman were, long before they realised the extent of the danger they were already in.

The modern Femme Fatale has moved on from such grand introductions. They often tend to grow into the role of dangerous and manipulative. Their beauty becomes more apparent as the narrative moves forward. We don’t need that immediate moment anymore. We still get it from time-to-time, as seen with Kim Basinger’s reveal in L.A Confidential, but we can also see in Lynch’s Neo-Noir’s how that sexuality can be exhibited over time instead.

In Lost Highway the first iteration of Patricia Arquette, Renee, is seen lurking in the background in murky lighting. Our hero almost seems disinterested in her. When she strips naked for the first time Fred (Bill Pullman) wants her, but he can’t. It’s a blow to the Femme Fatale’s ego and pride. She seems powerless.

But, a Femme Fatale is never powerless. Later, when he sees her talking to another man, he becomes instantly jealous. Her power grows, as does her sexuality. Suddenly she’s in dresses and heels. No longer lit in a gloomy way. Looking sexy and alluring. He wants her again.

However, as soon as she’s powered up and looking like a Femme Fatale his life goes to shit and he ends up killing her over an affair which leads him to death row (Her life obviously took a bad turn too) As a Femme Fatale there’s little we’ve seen her do wrong, nothing that would warrant death, but again, this is a Lynch film so the narrative isn’t over yet.

The second iteration of Patricia Arquette, Alice, is more conventional in her Femme Fatale ways, but is an updated version. She’s shot to look heavenly from the beginning. Sexy from the moment she appears on screen. And is naked in no time. She’s manipulating Pete almost instantly, and in classic Noir fashion he’s too infatuated to realise. Every scene she looks more and more beautiful until we reach a point where she gets what she wants.

That’s the moment she tells him he can ‘never have her.’ She ate him up and swallowed him whole, and he was utterly helpless. And honestly, who can blame the guy! He quite literally killed for her because every move she made led him in that direction, and every move was supported by the promise of having her.

He threw away an already good relationship. His future, now that he’s fucking a gangster’s girl. And potentially the rest of his free life after committing murder. It’s no coincidence that at the moment she crushes him she’s naked and shot with a spot light literally on her in the form of the car headlights. He’s caught like a deer in the headlights, while she looks like a slutty angel gone full devil. He never stood a chance, and she got everything she needed from him.

Mulholland Drive

Lynch took a similar approach in Mulholland Drive. While both Betty (Naomi Watts) and Rita (Laura Harring) look great to begin with, their beauty only grows as their danger intensifies. Their sexuality is increased as the mystery is slowly resolved and their ambitions becoming clearer.

At the beginning neither character is ‘acting sexy.’ Betty is cute and friendly, while Rita, despite being half naked during the second part of her introduction, is more lost and wide-eyed than seductive as she tries to discover who she was and get over the car crash she was involved in.

The turning point is when we discover Betty can be sexy. After that, she doesn’t look back. Her audition scene blows everyone’s mind, and suddenly all eyes and attention are on her. Every guy in the room is in love with her, and the girls want her on their side. Betty discovers the power of her sexuality in that scene. That it can make all her wildest dreams can true. It can get her whoever she wants. Within the narrative it isn’t long after this that the story begins to unravel.

That’s because this reinvigorated sexuality is a lie. And this is where a master like Lynch almost plays the trope against itself. In the, shall we say parallel version of these characters when Betty is Diane, she doesn’t have that sexuality. Her teeth don’t look as great. Her hair is dirty. She doesn’t have the confidence. And all eyes are on her friend Camilla, Rita’s alter ego. Diane/Betty sees firsthand what beauty can get as she watches her friend and rival. Camilla is the Femme Fatale in her eyes. Getting everything she wants. Love. The lead Roles. The adulation and attention.

It’s no wonder that in Betty/Dianes alternate version Rita/Camilla is so codependent on her. That Betty is presented as the more sexual of the two. Betty/Diane knows in this town being sexy and seductive gets you everything! Narratively speaking, Camilla is literally given just that as the director is told ‘this is the girl,’ with his life at stake if he doesn’t choose her.

Sexuality is the key for Femme Fatales. It was during the Film Noir days, and Lynch shows in modern Neo-Noir’s that their sexuality holds even more power in the modern equivalent. He quite literally doubled it in both films.

The added bonus of nudity gives them even more power over the male characters (and female characters in Mulholland Drive) as well as the audience. We’re disarmed by their beauty, even though we know the danger these characters pose. Pete has a loving girlfriend in Lost Highway, but what’s he to do when the mob bosses girlfriend throws herself at him? Even if he did know it was a trap, would he have had the power to act any differently?

Control and Manipulation

Alongside sexuality (and most likely because of it) Femme Fatale’s often have a great deal of control over the characters around them. Be it their husbands, potential suiters (is that still a phrase?) Hard-boiled detectives, or other woman. And, with control, comes manipulation. If there’s one thing a good Femme Fatale knows how to do, it’s manipulate.

Alice clearly knows what she wants from the beginning (well, mid-point of Lost Highway) she wants to use Pete as a way out. Manipulate him into helping her get what she needs. In her eyes there’s no other way, and she doesn’t give a fuck about the collateral damage. And the plans goes without a hitch. She gets whatever it is she’s after (it’s a little vague) from the douchey friend who Pete kills, and then sets Pete up to take the fall from either the police, or Eddy, her violent enraged gangster boyfriend.

The only thing she didn’t account for in her plan was Lynch’s bizarre parallel universe wormhole bullshit, but who could blame her for that. She used her brains alongside her feminine wiles and would have got everything she wanted, if she hadn’t disappeared.

Similarly in Mulholland drive Betty/Diane manipulated the entire narrative to get what she wanted. She got the killer apartment rather than the crummy one by being the niece of a Hollywood Player. Got the roles she wanted by being a fantastic actress and kisser. Got the girl she wanted by being irresistible and making sure Rita/Camilla was fully dependent on her. She achieved it all by being what she needed to be in each situation. We thought we knew the true sweet Betty early on, but that was just a ruse. She was a chameleon like all Femme Fatales.

But her plan broke down because it wasn’t real. It broke down because while she could pretend to be these things to control and manipulate and get everything she ever wanted, she never was any of them. She wanted to be the Femme Fatale, but lacked the qualities needed within the role.

It could be argued Camilla was all the things Betty/Diane wanted to be. She had the fame and fortune. The high-profile loving relationship. The lead roles and talent. And because Betty couldn’t have it for real, she decided to metaphorically burn the whole fucking house down.

The manipulation normally works because of a mixture of the Femme Fatales sexuality and intelligence. Her ability to get what she wants by manoeuvring those around her. Betty failed because that ability was an illusion. Unfortunately, it’s probably why she failed at a career level too within the ‘real world.’ It’s a brutal truth for the character who wanted to see herself as more.

Style and Victimhood

Style

Touching upon style quickly I like how Lynch kept a lot of it similar to the old Film Noirs, but only in the fantasised (fetishised) versions. In Lost Highway Alice looked like she walked right out of a crime novel, and was shot like it too. She was an idealised version. The blond fluffy hair. Made up face. Perky tits. Accessible. What man could say no?

Within the context of the narrative she could be considered Fred’s fantasy version of his wife Renee who was a lot more dressed down compared to Alice, despite them being essentially the same person. Alice was the poster everyone had up on her wall.

In Mulholland Drive Rita was dressed in the sexy black dress from the get go. Had the lipstick and clutch purse. The style. It took a while within Betty’s lie to build herself up to that. Taking control only when surrounded by old men. She couldn’t fight Rita/Camilla’s sexuality and style even within her own fantasy.

It was almost telling of Diane’s weakness and lack of confidence that in her fantasy version she was still dressed down rather than being the object of affection. That she always saw the balance of their relationship in that manner. Camilla’s style was part of who she was, and the only way Betty could take that from her was with the ridiculous wig when she tried to make them look like equals… which again was around the time the illusion began to break down because they never were equal.

Victims

The Femme Fatales in Lynch’s movies were also presented in a way that played with the trope in the terms of their victimhood, something that wouldn’t have been presented like this in the past. In Film Noir the Femme Fatales were often ruthless. Any best intentions forgotten early on. They were cold and calculated. But Lynch saw them differently, and offered a new perspective.

Alice is Fred’s fantasy version of his wife (in my understanding of the very complex narrative) She is all the potentially negative traits I mentioned above because he needs her to be. In the real world Fred’s wife Renee may have had a past in which she had done some porn, a life before she met him, but she wasn’t the succubus Alice was. Their relationship was strained, but all evidence pointed to that being his fault rather than hers.

Fred transformed her into a Femme Fatale to justify his jealous killing. Even if she had an affair, murder is a greater crime than adultery every time. I think it’s very interesting and telling that Fred tries to justify his behaviour by turning her into a Femme Fatale, while also in his head probably believes she was one all along.

Why admit fault and face the reality of your problems when you can just twist the truth and blame someone else? It’s like he’s taken on some of the Femme Fatale traits himself.

Within Mulholland Drive Betty reversed engineered the Femme Fatale. Camilla was closer to the role in the real world, so Betty tried to take away all her power. All her weapons. Make her dependant on her as Rita because Camilla didn’t need her.

She took her acting ability. Her sexuality. Her confidence. Betty/Diane took those traits and slowly instilled them into herself. But she wasn’t built to be that person, and ultimately, it cost her. The Femme Fatale isn’t meant to be the real victim, just plays the role of one until she gets what she wants. Diane didn’t understand that.

The New Definition Of A Femme Fatale

The Neo-Noir Femme Fatale has expanded from a plot point to a lead character in her own right. Now these characters can lead movies like Mulholland Drive, Basic Instinct, and Bound, rather than being just a disastrous detour for the anti-hero male protagonist. Their sexuality has grown from beauty shots to nudity and sex giving them more power than ever over characters and the audience.

They can manipulate with greater flexibility, and have the ability to get away with their crimes now. They can be victims or perpetrators. Can help himself, or use a male counterpart. The choice is theirs. They’ve have grown more complex, allowing the narrative and action to grow more complex with them.

I personally love the evolution of the role and find it fascinating. With the current crop of non-stop superhero movies the trend of Femme Fatales has stopped, or moved in the direction of films more like Atomic Blonde, but these characters are far too interesting to stay on the sidelines forever. There was always the fascination with them and their ability to break even the most manly of men, but thanks to Neo-Noir and directors like David Lynch, they can now be so much more, and will be as Neo-Noir continues to evolve.

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Endless Ideas

I’ve been writing for nearly thirty years now and the one thing I’ve never been short of is ideas. Much like the endless backlog of games I’m never going to play, pile of unread books which is growing rather than shrinking, and films still in their shrink-wrap years after buying them I’ve got more stories to tell than time I have to tell them.

New ideas come to me all the time. I’m inspired by so many things and my brain never stops forming new characters, settings, and situations. I’ll probably come up with a new idea while I’m writing this article.

That’s not a boast. I don’t believe for one second I’m alone on this front. Plenty, if not most creative people, come up with more ideas than they can truly explore. It’s part of being a creative person. Ideas beget ideas. Everything and anything can be inspiring. There are stories everywhere waiting to be told. Idea’s grow and change shape and suddenly that short story you were planning has become a trilogy of novels you need to write… which then has spinoffs! It’s natural.

But is it also a weird problem?

Is an endless well of ideas a blessing or a curse?

Spoiler Alert… for me, it’s an absolute blessing. I love having all these ideas constantly popping into my mind. Developing all these stories in my head and on paper. Creating all these different characters and situations. It’s what I live for.

But… it does come with some interesting things to consider in order to get the most from it.

Managing What’s Next

The biggest decision for me is always, what’s next?

Throughout my scriptwriting and now book writing career I’ve mostly written on spec and self published. I’ve done a little bit of work for others, written to assignment and other people’s deadlines, but I didn’t enjoy it. It wasn’t for me and was short lived. I much prefer being in control of my own writing, and with that comes the responsibility of making my own decisions about what to write next.

I generally start the year with a rough slate in mind of books I want to write and stories I want to tell. A slate which maximises my time and energy. Creates work people will read. One in which I have maybe already considered the marketing for. And, most importantly, is full of ideas I’m happy with and believe in.

However, the slate’s not written in permanent marker and laminated.

I’ve learnt to be flexible down the years because new and better ideas can come from nowhere at any point. I’ve worked on whole outlines and written hundreds of pages of notes only for another idea to skip the queue when the time comes to write my next piece. I’ve learnt to trust my instincts.

I don’t purposefully deviated from my curated slate, but I like to always be writing the thing I’m most excited about next. And sometimes, that’s not the thing I was most excited about a month ago. A week ago. Sometimes even a day ago (There’s a story there for another time) It’s not a case of being indecisive but rather, as mentioned, listening to my instincts.

But there can be a cost to that…

The Difficulties of Managing Endless Ideas

What I’m most excited to write next may not always be what’s best for my career and self publishing business in that moment. And that’s when the hard choices need to be made. Where right and wrong can take on different meanings.

It’s easy to throw around phrases like the art should always come first. That sounds like the poetically noble thing to say, but anyone serious about self publishing or running their own creative business in any form knows there’s more to be considered than just the art.

For Example:

Image having an idea which you’ve worked on and are happy with. Then when the time comes to write it the genre (subgenre) is doing extremely well in the market (or nowadays is popular on TikTok) You’ve accidentally hit upon a trend (hate that word) It’s a great opportunity, especially as you’re ready to write this book.

But… then there’s this other idea in your mind which has quickly taken shape. It’s feels like an amazing idea and the characters are practically writing themselves. It’s all formed so damn quickly and you’re incredibly animated about it. It feels like one for you rather than one for the current market, but holy hell are you excited to get started on this one. It’s bursting out of your head ready to fall fully formed onto the page.

So what do you do?

You can write both eventually, but will you miss that window of opportunity on the original idea? Will your excitement for either idea fade? Will you write one while you keep thinking about the other and therefore not produce your best work? Will you keep swapping between the two and end up fucking up both? Is one longer or more complex so the editing costs will differ… will that factor into your decision?

It’s difficult.

Consequences of Endless Ideas

I’ve missed that window before when the book would have preformed a lot better but I choose to write something else for myself instead. The idea which excited me more. Financially, it probably wasn’t my smartest decision. It may have even delayed building a stronger readership by months. Years perhaps.

But, given the same choice, I would have written the one I was most excited about again. The one which didn’t do as well, and maybe cost the other work while I was at it.

I’m not going to say I did it for the art. Or because I don’t care about the business side of self publishing, because I do. I want to make a living as a self publishing author. And I’m not going to even say I made the right choice because I think that point is very debatable.

I made my decision and stuck with it because I personally always want to write the thing I’m most excited to write. No matter what. It’s how I write my best work. Maybe I should have a little more business sense. Or have backed my original idea because I was clearly excited about it at some point. But that’s not how I work. I want to be successful, but I want to be happy with what I’m writing more.

It’s a difficult balance, but one I like having. I like dreaming up and developing new ideas. Having an endless supply of them sprout out of nowhere. But, big decisions do come with this endless supply.

There are pro’s and con’s. Blessings and curses. And the decision of the work you’re most excited about, versus the one which makes the most business sense is perhaps the biggest of them all. It’s fantastic when the two align, but sometimes you need to make Sophie’s choice.

Current and Future Writing

The reason the above subject has been on my mind is the novella I’m writing, Alice on the Air, is getting closer to completion. I’ve been rewriting and editing the chapters as I go so I’ve almost finished the second draft now. I’m still going to take my time with another draft but part of my attention is drifting to what’s next.

I have several ideas in mind ranging from a Neo-Noir story to a western, while I also have plenty of science fiction and horror ideas always rattling around in my head. I’m leaning towards the Neo-Noir after writing a short story recently in the genre and getting a bit of a taste for it, but the other horror ideas are more developed… and I’m keen to write more science fiction.

I’ll wait another week or two before I decide, but I need to make a decision soon if I want to publish another book before the end of the year.

This weekend I also started work on a novelette (or possibly long short) By the time I post this the first draft should be done, but will need tidying up with a couple more drafts. It is a fun idea and one I look forward to sharing when it’s ready. I might write more about it next week.

I’m pleased with how the subgenre articles I’ve wrote so far have been received and hope the whole project continues to grow. Alongside those, my second short story was published on my Website and Substack this weekend: State of My Kitchen.

It’s a bit of a nastier one than I’m intending to write going forward because it’s something I wrote a few years ago. Hopefully it will get the same sort of love Terraroid’s had because that’s had some nice feedback.

How Else Did I Spend The Week?

I spent the rest of this past week largely reading. I finished the Preacher Graphic Novels and started rereading the Darren Shan Saga. Between the pair they’ve taken a fair bit of time but I really have enjoyed reading of late. It’s become a part of my daily routine.

Preacher was as awesome as ever. It’s one of my favourite graphic novels and a story that has everything. I really got into the relationship between Jody and Jessie more this time and the dynamic is something I might touch upon in a future piece. I also forgot how well Cassidy would have fitted into my Assholes and Saviours post.

It’s been a long time since I’ve read The Darren Shan Saga. Maybe close to twenty years. I find some of the writing a little simple but it’s a great story with so many interesting characters. I’m already straight back into the world and thoroughly enjoying it. I can’t remember all of it, but have been doing that thing where you remember it just before it happens. Those ‘oh yeah, I remember now,’ moments.

I’ve watched a couple of films this week too. Clint Eastwoods Pale Rider, and Jackass 5. Needless to say they were two very different experiences. I won’t talk much about Pale Rider as it was for a future subgenre piece so I can go into more detail then. But Jackass 5 was really good, much better than the 4^th instalment. The nostalgia was strong and the cinema was packed with everyone enjoying themselves.

This Coming Week

At the risk of repeating myself this coming week really is about writing more of Alice on the Air, although I’d like to finish the novelette too. Hopefully I can balance the two.

Then at the weekend I’m doing some paid photography work. It’s nothing I can show on here as it’s for an end of year rock show where all the performers are kids (I can probably post some photos of their tutors performance though) This will be my fourth time photographing the event. It’s always a difficult day as I have to make sure I get a good photo of every kid and there’s normally seventy to hundred taking part, but it is fulfilling.

I don’t know much photography nowadays thanks to my health but it’s a nice reminder of the gig photography I used to do pre-covid and before diabetes starting making everything difficult. It will be a fun day.

Stephen

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