Fun fact: this one has a typo in the title (which I'm not giving here).
"Dear Reader,
I have a complete screenplay that has been edited, with a critique and is "Pitch Ready". The best way to put together a query letter is to put in the Logline and Synopsis below. I can provide the critique upon request. The first paragraph is the Logline and the second the Synopsis.
My screenplay is an Action/Drama that is set against the Global Industrial Food Complex. It is a full length screenplay.
Tim's savior complex constantly pushes him into battles for the underdog. Saving an Iraqi girl from being shot pushes him into a global conspiracy to control the World's Industrial food supply. The choice is "Patented Corporate Seeds" vs. bequeathing "Nature's Seeds", to our children! A battle Tim didn't want!
Tim grows up with a Savior complex in a dysfunctional family in Golden, Oklahoma. The night Broken Bow High wins the Oklahoma State Football Championship, Tim's brother, Jason, dies from a long bout with cancer. He and Otis (his best friend) join the Navy Seals where they can make a difference. They are first into Afghanistan and Iraq. An executive, Warren, for Mansenti Corporation is overseeing the confiscation of the Iraqi national seed bank; Order 81, of the constitutional orders.
Warren's shoots three people in cold blood, and nearly a fourth before Tim can stop him. Maiming Warren ignites a personal vendetta for Tim. Tim is kicked out of the military becoming a drifter. Warren, uses his power to manipulate circumstances to get back at Tim but he becomes the victim of his own plan.
Warren, trying to seduce Tim's cousin Annette (a chemist for Mansenti), is rebuffed because of her affair with Warren's assistant Kathleen. Kathleen reveals to Annette, she works for a group trying to bring down Mansenti.
Mansenti controls the Global Industrial Food Complex that is behind the war in Iraq, their mantra? "Control what people eat and control the people!"
I look forward to hearing from you."
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
I Think I Cracked FRANK
I gave FRANK a think over this past weekend, came up with some ideas to solve what I thought might be wrong with it. I've been applying the past couple of writing nights, with some good results. The story is faster and smoother. I might have to lose a couple of characters and fun scenes, but that's fine.
In adhering to the script, upon which this novel is very loosely based, I'd forgotten this had become more of a hero's journey-type story. The major note will be applying the Joe Campbell goodness. I'll have to break some bones, but I'm sure the end product will be a lot better than the random collection of absurd scenes I'd welded together.
While everyone in LA heads off to the beach for the 4th weekend, I'm gonna be in the woodshed.
Meanwhile, I'm generating some script loglines. I wanna be working on a screenplay concurrent with the novel.
In adhering to the script, upon which this novel is very loosely based, I'd forgotten this had become more of a hero's journey-type story. The major note will be applying the Joe Campbell goodness. I'll have to break some bones, but I'm sure the end product will be a lot better than the random collection of absurd scenes I'd welded together.
While everyone in LA heads off to the beach for the 4th weekend, I'm gonna be in the woodshed.
Meanwhile, I'm generating some script loglines. I wanna be working on a screenplay concurrent with the novel.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Query of the Day
"This holiday, the Demons of Christmas, with their desire to corrupt innocent souls, kidnap the only ones who can stop them, The Spirits of Christmas. Once out of the way, they target, Mr. SCRUMGE, the true embodiment of Christmas. Scrumge learns charity fundraisers are a hoax, Bob Cratchit scams Tiny Tim as a cripple, his nephew Fred tries to kill him for his fortune. Scrumge's generosity fades, making him a cheap bastard. The good spirits escape, in super hero style they battle the evil spirits to save Scrumge and Christmas too!
The Holidays are right around the corner and we need a little spirit right this very minute! However the annual sweet and sugary sentimental Christmas movie just makes most of us want to gag. To appease this jaded view I have written my current screenplay entitled [title]. It received most Honorable Mentioned Comedy at "Screenplay Festival" 2007. Should you have any interest in a project like this please consider reading my screenplay."
The Holidays are right around the corner and we need a little spirit right this very minute! However the annual sweet and sugary sentimental Christmas movie just makes most of us want to gag. To appease this jaded view I have written my current screenplay entitled [title]. It received most Honorable Mentioned Comedy at "Screenplay Festival" 2007. Should you have any interest in a project like this please consider reading my screenplay."
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
FRANK Update
So... I've been working on this novel called FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER for several months. I got sidetracked by DEMON for a while, but I've been back on the novel for a few weeks, cracking along, passed the 200-page mark.
But something's wiggling around in my gut. My instinct's telling me something's not quite right -- the structure needs to be tighter, the themes sharper.
In the past, I've tried to ignore my gut, and I've been wrong every time. This is only my third novel. I should pay attention.
What I'm gonna do is re-read what's there with an editor's eye. It might just be a matter of shortening act one or moving up a couple of scenes. Then again, I may end up taking the entire engine apart on the garage floor before I figure out what's making that weird ticking sound, if you get my drift. We'll see.
Meanwhile, I've been bedeviled by a couple of ideas I like for specs. One's a kinda action-romcom a la MR. & MRS. SMITH, a movie I thoroughly enjoyed. To work, it would have to hit a very specific tone.
And it's slightly uncharted water: in all my scripts, I've only written one romcom, and that was The Angry Waiter in 1998. What a piece of shit, it'll never see the light of day. Romcom is a tough genre for me because my heart is a black and twisted thing. I think I could make it work if I keep the action to the forefront and the tone light -- jokes I can do.
But I haven't settled on anything yet... there are other ideas. The only real mandate is to keep writing commercial, keep pushing myself to get better, and keep writing.
But something's wiggling around in my gut. My instinct's telling me something's not quite right -- the structure needs to be tighter, the themes sharper.
In the past, I've tried to ignore my gut, and I've been wrong every time. This is only my third novel. I should pay attention.
What I'm gonna do is re-read what's there with an editor's eye. It might just be a matter of shortening act one or moving up a couple of scenes. Then again, I may end up taking the entire engine apart on the garage floor before I figure out what's making that weird ticking sound, if you get my drift. We'll see.
Meanwhile, I've been bedeviled by a couple of ideas I like for specs. One's a kinda action-romcom a la MR. & MRS. SMITH, a movie I thoroughly enjoyed. To work, it would have to hit a very specific tone.
And it's slightly uncharted water: in all my scripts, I've only written one romcom, and that was The Angry Waiter in 1998. What a piece of shit, it'll never see the light of day. Romcom is a tough genre for me because my heart is a black and twisted thing. I think I could make it work if I keep the action to the forefront and the tone light -- jokes I can do.
But I haven't settled on anything yet... there are other ideas. The only real mandate is to keep writing commercial, keep pushing myself to get better, and keep writing.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Finally, Someone Made a Real Movie
Now, all we need is Danny Trejo in Machete, and we'll be in bidness.
Monday, June 16, 2008
More Howard
Del Ray's putting out a series of "Best of Robert E. Howard" books. I picked up the first one, Crimson Shadows. It's awesome.
It's like a sampler platter of Howard characters: Bran Mak Morn, Solomon Kane, Conan (natch), etc. They threw in a Sailor Steve Costigan story. It was good, though I'd already read that one -- last year I scored Fight Stories, a collection of Costigan stories and a few boxing one-offs. If you've only read the Conan stories, you might not know that Howard could be really funny. The Costigan stories are too much fun, just really over-the-top, boisterous, rollicking adventures. Love 'em.
Besides the Costigan story I'd already read, the two Bran Mak Morn stories had been printed in the collection they put out last year, and the Solomon Kane story was a reprint from his collection, as well. I read 'em anyway, but I was starting to worry I'd picked up a best-of when I already owned all the albums, so to speak.
I was wrong. Now... I'm not a Howard scholar or anything, but I've been actively pursuing this guy's work for two-thirds of my life, and I can say I've read a lot of Howard. And Crimson Shadows had a lot of stuff I'd never seen before.
The book has stories featuring El Borak, Steve Harrison and Breckinridge Elkins, three characters I'd heard about, but had never been able to track down. El Borak is an American Old West gunfighter who travels to Afghanistan and embroils himself in their endless tribal warfare. Breckinridge is a big, goofy cowboy who isn't too bright and doesn't know his own strength. It was a funny story, I laughed out loud. And it was cool to read a Western by Howard. I think a lot of his stories are basically just Westerns dressed up in different clothing. I don't have a problem with that, of course, but I do like reading Howard working in the genre, unadorned. Steve Harrison is a detective who works in Chinatown. It's straight-up, two-fisted pulp.
And this fucking floored me -- the collection includes a Conan story I'd never read! The People of the Black Circle. Awesome. It's Conan hanging out with the "Afghulies," which are just slightly-renamed Afghans. It was odd reading this one back-to-back with the El Borak story, like Howard got on an Afghanistan kick for a while. It's a great story, tons of action, lots of bastards getting skewered by tulwars. But it's also dark and creepy... it reminded me of Tower of the Elephant in that sense. It has a lot of standard Howard stuff -- a character is sent back in time to witness all of her prior "selves," there's a giant snake, etc.
As a bonus, the other Conan story included is Beyond the Black River, which is my current fave Conan tale. For a long time it was Red Nails. But I just love the idea of Conan going on a suicide mission with a dirty-dozen crew. And it's a story from later in Conan's life, after he's done a lot of traveling. There's a character who acts as kind of a sidekick throughout, and he's constantly surprised by the knowledge Conan throws out. Finally, he's like: "Dude, you're this barbarian from the hills, how do you know all this stuff?" And Conan's reponse is along the lines of: "I've done some shit." (I'm paraphrasing).
There's a one-off called The Valley of the Worm that's about a Viking named Niord who goes up against a Great Old One! The conceit is this is the core tale that spawned all the other dragon-slayer myths. This tribe of Vikings settles in a valley. The local tribes are like... that's not a good idea. But they're Vikings, they don't care. Niord is laid up after getting into a fight with a saber-toothed tiger. When he recovers, he decides to visit his friends in the valley and see how they're doing. Whaddaya know? Everyone's dead, the village destroyed. A buddy of his from the Picts tells him it's the work of the "worm" that lives in an ancient temple.
This basic set-up has a lot in common with Lovecraft. The two corresponded, and you can find a lot of Lovecraftian elements sprinkled throughout Howard's writing. There's even a creature that summons the Old One with piping that "induces madness."
But here's the difference. In a Lovecraft story, the protagonist would be driven insane by the mind-blasting knowledge that we're not alone in the chaos, etc. In Howard's version, the Viking hunts down a giant snake, cuts off its head, dips arrows in the venom, goes back to the ancient temple and kicks the shit outta the Old One. Even when the thing's trashing around in its death-throes from the poison, Niord starts weeping man-tears because he's too wounded to hack at it with his sword. It's good as dead, but Niord still wants to seal the deal with an extra-special fuck-you steel enema.
And that, my friends, is the core of why I love these stories so much. Too many people in this world face their troubles like Lovecraft -- they think there's nothing they can do, give up, get depressed and do nothing.
But there's always another way to go -- Howard's way. My way. For a variety of reasons, it's absolutely ludicrous that I should be working as a producer in the film industry. And I just kinda am. I made up my mind to put on my boots and kick Hollywood in the ass. I'm not a rock star yet, but every day I get one step closer... I understand it's a journey, and that's fine. It took Conan a long time before he could wear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow.
It's like a sampler platter of Howard characters: Bran Mak Morn, Solomon Kane, Conan (natch), etc. They threw in a Sailor Steve Costigan story. It was good, though I'd already read that one -- last year I scored Fight Stories, a collection of Costigan stories and a few boxing one-offs. If you've only read the Conan stories, you might not know that Howard could be really funny. The Costigan stories are too much fun, just really over-the-top, boisterous, rollicking adventures. Love 'em.
Besides the Costigan story I'd already read, the two Bran Mak Morn stories had been printed in the collection they put out last year, and the Solomon Kane story was a reprint from his collection, as well. I read 'em anyway, but I was starting to worry I'd picked up a best-of when I already owned all the albums, so to speak.
I was wrong. Now... I'm not a Howard scholar or anything, but I've been actively pursuing this guy's work for two-thirds of my life, and I can say I've read a lot of Howard. And Crimson Shadows had a lot of stuff I'd never seen before.
The book has stories featuring El Borak, Steve Harrison and Breckinridge Elkins, three characters I'd heard about, but had never been able to track down. El Borak is an American Old West gunfighter who travels to Afghanistan and embroils himself in their endless tribal warfare. Breckinridge is a big, goofy cowboy who isn't too bright and doesn't know his own strength. It was a funny story, I laughed out loud. And it was cool to read a Western by Howard. I think a lot of his stories are basically just Westerns dressed up in different clothing. I don't have a problem with that, of course, but I do like reading Howard working in the genre, unadorned. Steve Harrison is a detective who works in Chinatown. It's straight-up, two-fisted pulp.
And this fucking floored me -- the collection includes a Conan story I'd never read! The People of the Black Circle. Awesome. It's Conan hanging out with the "Afghulies," which are just slightly-renamed Afghans. It was odd reading this one back-to-back with the El Borak story, like Howard got on an Afghanistan kick for a while. It's a great story, tons of action, lots of bastards getting skewered by tulwars. But it's also dark and creepy... it reminded me of Tower of the Elephant in that sense. It has a lot of standard Howard stuff -- a character is sent back in time to witness all of her prior "selves," there's a giant snake, etc.
As a bonus, the other Conan story included is Beyond the Black River, which is my current fave Conan tale. For a long time it was Red Nails. But I just love the idea of Conan going on a suicide mission with a dirty-dozen crew. And it's a story from later in Conan's life, after he's done a lot of traveling. There's a character who acts as kind of a sidekick throughout, and he's constantly surprised by the knowledge Conan throws out. Finally, he's like: "Dude, you're this barbarian from the hills, how do you know all this stuff?" And Conan's reponse is along the lines of: "I've done some shit." (I'm paraphrasing).
There's a one-off called The Valley of the Worm that's about a Viking named Niord who goes up against a Great Old One! The conceit is this is the core tale that spawned all the other dragon-slayer myths. This tribe of Vikings settles in a valley. The local tribes are like... that's not a good idea. But they're Vikings, they don't care. Niord is laid up after getting into a fight with a saber-toothed tiger. When he recovers, he decides to visit his friends in the valley and see how they're doing. Whaddaya know? Everyone's dead, the village destroyed. A buddy of his from the Picts tells him it's the work of the "worm" that lives in an ancient temple.
This basic set-up has a lot in common with Lovecraft. The two corresponded, and you can find a lot of Lovecraftian elements sprinkled throughout Howard's writing. There's even a creature that summons the Old One with piping that "induces madness."
But here's the difference. In a Lovecraft story, the protagonist would be driven insane by the mind-blasting knowledge that we're not alone in the chaos, etc. In Howard's version, the Viking hunts down a giant snake, cuts off its head, dips arrows in the venom, goes back to the ancient temple and kicks the shit outta the Old One. Even when the thing's trashing around in its death-throes from the poison, Niord starts weeping man-tears because he's too wounded to hack at it with his sword. It's good as dead, but Niord still wants to seal the deal with an extra-special fuck-you steel enema.
And that, my friends, is the core of why I love these stories so much. Too many people in this world face their troubles like Lovecraft -- they think there's nothing they can do, give up, get depressed and do nothing.
But there's always another way to go -- Howard's way. My way. For a variety of reasons, it's absolutely ludicrous that I should be working as a producer in the film industry. And I just kinda am. I made up my mind to put on my boots and kick Hollywood in the ass. I'm not a rock star yet, but every day I get one step closer... I understand it's a journey, and that's fine. It took Conan a long time before he could wear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow.
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