The one with some female action
MUSING
Shit on a stick, it’s December.
This week, writing wise, I’ve been working on:
drafting the spec script you got a taste of last week
outlining an action film idea
writing this substack
The spec script is a romantic dramedy with rather eccentric characters who are all, in one way or another, trying to find the answer to the question: ‘why be alive?’ In a funnier and less depressing way than it sounds.
The action film idea is about an assassin with a rather unique ability. It’s morally murky (my favourite, though it does mean I write characters a lot of people don’t like) and is written to star two female leads who, vaguely Heat-style, become equally fascinated with each other while one chases down the other.
I still consider myself a newbie to the world of scriptwriting, but one thing I’ve noticed is just how “try it and see” this world is. I’ve never written an action movie in my life, nor a romantic dramedy. My novel chops are mostly in fantasy, whether small, dark, The Craft-like contemporary stories or big, complex second world retellings. Though there are comedic and action elements to everything I’ve written, shifting the focus of an entire story around a new genre is, well, new. I haven’t done it before and I’ve no idea whether I can - but no-one in scriptland bats an eyelid about my lack of experience.
I find this rather freeing. In novelist land, if you’re proven in YA fantasy and then try to sell an adult crime noir, generally you get told you might need to write under a different name, because you’ll need to find a different audience, and basically start from the ground up as a debut. I think this is limiting for both writer and reader, assuming as it does that people’s tastes are so narrow they couldn’t possibly want to pick up books in different genres by a writer they already like, but I suspect this is more about how marketing and sales and end retail works in traditional publishing than it is about publishers making assumptions. (It’s all very categorised. People like definite categories. It helps us figure out where to put things where people who want them might find them.)
In script land, though, there’s a kind of ‘why not?’ attitude that means I get to play in any sandbox I like - and for less time and energy commitment than it would take me to write the entire draft of a novel.
When I was just a novelist, I usually worked on two different projects at the same time: the one I was drafting - creating its first iteration - and the one I was editing for a publisher - trudging through its fourth or seventh or millionth iteration. Two projects.
Currently, I have five active story worlds in my head. Things I’m working on - developing, or outlining, or drafting, or waiting for feedback. Last year I got up to seven. (That was too much, my brain kept crying.) And that doesn’t count the dormant stuff - the TV pilots, podcast shows, feature films and next novels - that I’ve pitched or come up with an idea for or outlined that haven’t sold yet, or that I haven’t developed enough yet and have had to put aside.
Creatively, that’s a lot of fun.
FEEDING
My first Chuck Palahniuk, would you believe (no, not even Fight Club.) I enjoyed this. I had no idea what to expect going in, and was engaged by the allusive horror tones. Speaking of which, I’m taking suggestions in the comments for a great recent horror novel to read?
Luc Besson back when he was one of the most exciting directors in the world. I haven’t seen it since I was a teenager, but it still totally holds up. (Except the music. The entire score is just perplexing.) No-one has since done a better ‘girl gets turned into an assassin’ movie, and I’ll go to the mat on that. (Did everyone else know that they made not one but two different TV series from this movie, 13 years apart? Am I the last person to know that? Wild.)
WRITING
This is part 1 of an adult fiction short story I wrote many years ago for an anthology that never went ahead.
The title is ‘DAVID.’
The bookshop was hidden away in the back streets, where David never went.
It squatted among a collection of narrow alleys, corner shops, terraced houses, and tiny, dank pubs. Overstuffed rubbish bins spilled their slimy contents out onto the ground. He passed a rusted car shell and pushed his hands deeper into the pockets of his black overcoat, feeling exposed. His shoes were too shiny.
A sign above the window front of the shop proclaimed TRINITY BOOKS to the world at large. David stopped just before the door, glancing at the small collection of books arranged on the pavement, displayed in a case with spindly wooden legs. A row of worn bibles; a few cheap looking paperbacks on saints and angels; religious essays; a thick hardback with HERB LORE printed in gold letters on its spine; and a large collection of Stephen King.
He pushed the door open, and a small bell set above it tinkled sweetly. A young man looked up from behind the counter, one hand gripping a curled paperback. His long, muddy hair hung limply down to his shoulders. David feigned interest in the interior, looking around at the neat little shelves.
“Help you?” said the young man.
David turned to him, approaching the counter. “I’ve got an appointment.”
“An appointment?” The young man was blank.
“Yes.” David was starting to feel uncomfortable, as if he had the wrong place; but he knew he wasn’t wrong. He knew he wasn’t. It didn’t help to have a disdainful stare shooting at him from across the counter. He obviously didn’t look as esoteric as the usual clientele.
“With who?”
“Miss Brunnen.”
“What’s the name?”
“David Stanley.”
The young man put down his book with bad grace. He picked up the handset of an old, mushroom coloured telephone and pressed a button. David looked at the front cover of the book. He traced the upside down letters of the author’s name, Aleister Crowley, and just about managed to stop his eyes from rolling.
“Yeah,” the young man said suddenly. “Yeah? Okay.”
He put the phone down and looked at David. “Up the stairs. At the back.”
David glanced towards the back of the shop. “Thank you.”
The young man shrugged, and looked down, scowling. He swiped up his book and started to read. David picked up his bag and walked in what he hoped was a confident manner.
Tucked between two bookcases was an open door and a narrow staircase leading upwards out of sight. He started to climb, ducking his head awkwardly to avoid the low ceiling, passing a small print on the wall of a unicorn surrounded, on closer inspection, by little fairies. His sense of embarrassment grew.
But then Michael’s face flashed in his head, and he pushed the doubts away to the back corner of his mind, where they belonged.
He reached the landing, and paused. Three doorways, only one of which was closed. He made for it and raised his hand to knock.
“Miss Brunnen?” he said, through the door.
A female voice, indistinct; but she sounded encouraging.
He grasped the handle and turned it, pushing forward.
The room was dark. A figure moved in the farthest corner.
He stopped.
The figure stepped forward. “Mister Stanley, is it?”
She moved in front of a dim lamp by the fireplace, and sat at a small table placed by itself in the middle of the room. A candle on the table lit her face from underneath. She was craggy and enormous. The soft light glowed on her chins and threw her painted face into sharp relief. She moved lightly, placing her large bulk with deftness onto the chair. She was dressed in floating, silky materials and had a brightly coloured scarf around her throat.
“Yes, er, yes.”
She smiled radiantly.
“Sit down, please. Is it too dark? I like to make people feel that I’m being mysterious enough.”
He slid onto the chair opposite, puzzling over her.
“Look…. I don’t mean to be rude, but…”
“But you’re going to be,” she said, still smiling. Her hair curled over her shoulders; she patted it back with fat fingers, but it clung insistently to the silk she wore.
“Yes. I suppose it’s what immediately follows a statement like that.”
“You don’t think you should be here?”
He shifted on the hard little chair.
“No.”
“You don’t really believe I can help you, but you’re desperate enough to try?”
“I suppose so.”
She clasped her hands and rested them comfortably on her round stomach.
“That describes about ninety percent of my clients. What have you got to lose?”
David opened his mouth to laugh politely. She turned her face away before he could make the sound.
“Show me what you brought.”
He clutched his bag. “Look,” he began. “I don’t think I’m doing the right thing…”
“Well, how do you know?” said the woman. Her breathing was heavy and wet. “How do you know this isn’t exactly what’s meant to happen?”
God, he hated that kind of talk; he flashed on the hideous unicorn painting in her hallway. But his mind brought him treacherously back to the months he’d spent, thinking and thinking. Waking up in the night covered in sweat, alone. Craving something he could not have. Watching, but not doing. Wishing. Hurting.
He brought the bag up, delving into it, distracted by the ache in his body. He took out a small black comb, a leather bound book, and a jar full of pale liquid, sparkling in the candlelight. The woman opposite leaned forward gently and grasped the book. Her little eyes went to his face, the black make up around them making her seem strange rather than garish.
“A diary.”
He couldn’t tell if she was amused.
“It’s…”
“It’s the one,” she interrupted, fingering the binding. She patted her hair back again. “Shall we start?”
David watched her, unable to commit. She acted as if her question was rhetorical, studying the jar.
“Does he know?”
David shifted uncomfortably. “Who?”
“Let’s just gloss over the ‘being startled at my powers of intuition’ and all that. I know it’s a he. I just do. Now, does he know?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“You’re sure?”
David scoffed, needing a cigarette. “He wouldn’t know it if I wrote it on a piece of card and stuck it to my forehead.”
“Fine,” said Miss Brunnen smoothly. “It’s better that way.”
She unscrewed the jar and sniffed at the contents, blanching.
“What… what are you doing that for?” squealed David, shamefully aware of his voice, glowing with embarrassment.
“You wouldn’t believe how many people have bottled out and tried to con me with juice or something,” she replied, winking at him. The gesture looked completely out of place.
“Well, it’s, it’s er, the real thing. I can assure you.”
“Won’t work if it’s not,” she said cheerfully, and set it aside. “Who’s the girl?”
David was silent.
“I can see a girl. Pretty. She his girlfriend?”
“I suppose you could call her that,” said David. He heard the frost in his own voice.
Miss Brunnen smiled. David didn’t like the smile.
She laid her hand out, palm up. The soft, pulpy skin shone greasily in the candle light.
“And it’s her you want to get rid of? Give me your hand.”
“No, I don’t want to get rid of her,” he said, sliding his hand into hers without thinking. When his skin touched hers with a wet smacking sound, he looked down. “What… is that?”
“It helps, that’s all you need to know. And yes, you do want to. For as long as she’s around, his focus is on her, spread your fingers.”
She interlocked her fingers with his. He felt a fluttering in his belly.
“He hasn’t known her long, has he?” she said, gripping his hand.
“A couple of months. She’ll probably be living there soon. She… don’t you, er, don’t you need to know his name, or anything?”
“Not necessary. So he loves her?”
“Yes, I think so. He says he does.”
Miss Brunnen gripped his fingers more and more tightly until the tips went numb. Her face continued serene.
“And you object to this because…?”
“Because she, ow… because she’s … she’s not good for him.”
“Because you want him for yourself.”
“No!”
The lady smiled, strained at the corners. Both their fingers were white.
“If you don’t tell the truth, this won’t work. Your reasons must be made clear. You know that.”
David grimaced, twisting his arm. “I don’t… I don’t want him for myself, I want him to be happy.”
“Why do you think that she won’t make him happy?”
David gasped through his nose. “… I met her… she was awful to me. But she’s different around him. She pretends. She’ll screw him up.”
“And you want him for yourself.”
“No.”
“You want him for yourself.”
“No, I-”
“Say it, or it’ll all be for nothing! You want him for yourself!”
“Yes.”
“Again!”
“Yes, I want him!”
“Again!”
“Yes, I want him!”
“Good.”
It was all over, and she let his hand go. He nursed it, the fingers crushed.
She turned away from him and got up from her chair slowly, levering outward with a little huff of air. She moved off into the gloom in the corner of the room.
David stared at the candle flame at the centre of the little table, flexing his fingers.
“Done, my dear.”
He looked up. “Done?”
“Done. I don’t need you for the rest.” She placed her hand on the back of her chair, facing him, and offered him a tissue.
“So, er… what happens now?”
She shrugged. “I’ll let you know.”
“Oh. Right. But… what am I to, erm, expect?”
He could feel an irritation building inside him, at her for trying to take him in with this crap, at himself for wanting to believe it. For behaving as if he was at the end of a check-up at the dentist.
“You’ll know, when it happens,” she said. “Things will change suddenly, for no apparent reason. At least, hopefully.”
“Hopefully?”
“If it doesn’t work at all, you get your deposit back.”
She was matter of fact about it. He must have look surprised, because she raised her eyebrows and smiled.
“It’s unpredictable by its nature, this method you’ve undertaken. We’ll see. When I know more, you’ll know more.”
“Right,” he muttered, standing up awkwardly and picking up his bag. “Right, then.”
He turned, and had his fingers on the door handle before she spoke again, suddenly.
“Can I ask you something?”
He waited, wary.
“Where are you from?” she said.
“I was born in this city, actually. Why?”
She was quiet for a long time.
“Why?” David said again, annoyance creeping into his voice. Was this another feeble attempt of hers at being mysterious?
“You’re not from another place, then.”
It was the way her tone cracked over the words ‘another place’ that finally alerted him.
“No,” he said.
But his voice had sounded too sharp. Too thin.
You’ve practised this! Calm down.
He forced himself to meet her eye. Scrunch his forehead to make himself look puzzled. “Why? Do I have an accent, or something?”
“Is it true what they say, do you think?” she replied, as if he hadn’t spoken at all. “Those things they say on the news. About the people from another place. About what they are.”
David clutched the empty bag to his side.
“Look, I really have to get back to work,” he said.
“I mean, the way the news reports it, you’d think they were monsters. It’s kind of a horrifying idea, isn’t it? That monsters are real.”
“I have to go!”
She fell silent.
He pressed down hard on the handle in his grip and the door opened outward, releasing him.
He felt her watching him from the darkness of her corner.
She doesn’t know anything, he told himself.
She doesn’t know a damn thing.
[Part 2 next time…]