Death In Paradise's Creator On Selling TV Scripts

Sara Martins and Ben Miller in
BBC One's Death In Paradise

Big topic, this - and one which newer writers often want to know about.  Before you consider who's going to option, buy or generally give two hoots about your scripts, however, you need to spend years honing your craft and knowledge of how the industry works.

I can't think of a single person who coasted into the TV-writing industry without first paying dues by slaving over countless scripts which never got made.  Without delivering the kind of disastrous pitches which would embarrass a gibbon.  Without crashing into walls, dusting themselves down and forging onwards.  Without slumping over their desk at 4am, bleeding from the forehead.  Good ideas are always in demand, but you need to demonstrably prove yourself to be a safe pair of hands.  And to do that, you need to march through the wars.

Robert Thorogood, the creator of BBC One's Death In Paradise, had no previous TV credits before pushing himself into the radar of Tony Jordan and Red Planet Pictures.  This led to the 2011 launch of his excellent murder whodunnit series, which has happily been recommissioned for a second run.  As you'll see in the man's guest post below, however, this doesn't mean he was an overnight success or got "lucky" (see Your Script Is Not A Lottery Ticket).  Far from it.  Rob worked hard and made his own breaks, putting himself in front of the right people with the right material.

A couple of days ago on Twitter, I posted a link to a BBC Writersroom blog which Rob wrote in November, about how Death In Paradise came to be and specifically why he suspected it had been commissioned.  If you haven't read this, you should go away and read it now, then come back (the link should open in a new window).  The rest of us will wait for you.

Back?  Good.  I think that's an essential post for anyone interested in creating TV series.  Especially the part about The Stuff Only You Know and The Stuff Only You Can Do.  It's so true.  Just as your best work will mostly involve things which personally matter to you (I've learned this the hard way), you're most likely to receive commissions on drama of which you have ownership.  Know and love your territory, just as Rob does when it comes to the whodunnit, and with the right degree of application, you may come to rule it.  It's all too easy to look at established TV shows and think, "Oh dear God, I couldn't have come up with that".  No, you couldn't - but guess what?  The creator of that show almost certainly couldn't invent whatever utterly unique brew of life experiences, preoccupations and dramatic impulses bubbles furiously away inside your own cauldron.

Anyway.  Back to Twitter.  Having read that Writersroom blogpost, comedy writer Marc Paterson tweeted this question to Rob : "You talked about 'selling scripts' early on. How does this differ from getting your scripts produced?  Where did you sell scripts?  Or more accurately, who buys scripts?"

After a day of brain-busting graft on new Death In Paradise scripts, Rob resurfaced and replied, using the Twitlonger service, since this one needed more than 140 characters.  Here's what he said, in its entirety.  More gold dust for enquiring minds...

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"Right then, I can't quite remember what I wrote in the original blog, but I do of course remember the trajectory of my life. So it went a bit like this.

1) Write a spec script that eventually bagged an agent (the same agent I'm still with).

2) I then spent 10 yrs or so developing ideas for film and TV. It went like this:

2.1) My agent would send out my calling card spec script and then every now and again someone would like it enough to ask for a 'general' meeting. These were more a 'meet and greet' than anything else, but the contacts I made over these years have stood me in good stead subsequently.

2.2) There was always a moment in the general meeting where you could pitch an idea. I was - of course - desperate to work, so I'd always have a sheet of A4 with me with about 10 ideas on it (from an idea bank of 20-30 ideas in total. I'd then whittle that down to 10 or so ideas that seemed to suit that company - so each meeting had a bespoke list of ideas). Each one of these pitches was no more than a title and a logline. V easy to digest. For example, I hauled Death in Paradise around prod companies for at least 2 years before anyone got interested. The written pitch for it was this:

COPPER IN ST. LUCIA IDEA
A British Copper tries to escape the misery of his failed career in the Met by getting a secondment to St. Lucia in the Caribbean.

So I'd either leave this 1-page of ideas behind at the end - or even try and go through it with them in the meeting.

(As an aside, as I got a bit more robust about the ideas - and my ability to pitch them - I'd get the person I was meeting's email beforehand and email them in the one side of A4 beforehand. If they had a quick look before the chat, it meant they could ask about specific ideas that intrigued them - rather than me pitching into the void of their disinterest.)

Invariably - of course - no-one was necessarily that interested in any of the ideas... and this is where the 'selling scripts' bit comes in, because...

3) Every now and again, an idea had chimed with the person I was talking to - and they'd commission a treatment or a script. Initially, it tended to be treatments - and what would happen (in TV land at least) is they'd give me c. £1,000-£2,000 (something like that?) and I'd then develop a 5-page doc with them over a number of weeks that they'd then take to the broadcasters.... and then the broadcasters would express bland indifference. The idea would be 'dead', but I'd have learnt a bit more, met a few more people. You know, it was all part of the learning curve.

Equally, I'd get the odd film script commission (i.e. this happened 3 times). Once from a spec I wrote that my agent sent out to film companies - once from a spec I co-wrote and my co-writer sold it to someone he knew - and once because I was recommended for the job, pitched for it and got it.

But - weirdly - you sort of get 'better' at the whole process of pitching and treatments - and then (or at least I found) you also pick up the odd genuine script commission. (i.e. being paid for your work before you've even started writing it). I had this with Granada and BBC4 - where I'd gone in and pitched ideas that I felt suited the channel, they agreed and then came back with a script commission. But.... once again, although the scripts I wrote were perfectly serviceable (I hope), the channels in question didn't proceed to production on any of them.

So that's an answer to your question. I sold scripts and treatments here and there - but I needed a decent spec script to get into the meeting with them in the first place - and I needed to hustle, hustle, hustle once I was in there. And ALWAYS follow up on meetings with ideas - never let any lead 'die' on you, you really don't know where that 'sale' will next come from.

(To give you a mwah mwah story. I had a meeting last week in London - and across the room was the first person I'd ever had a meeting with (10 years ago?). I caught his eye and he waved a hello. It's a small world.)

Whether I've answered the question you asked, I don't know! But to sign off: it was a mad, helper skelter for me for years - a desperate scramble to find the next bit of money to keep going - to find another contact - to pitch another idea. Think of the desperation of those trying to survive the siege of Leningrad and that's a bit like what it was like. I had to HAD TO sell a pitch or write a spec or it was death and destruction. Every day I made myself ask myself 'what have I done today that's advanced my career'. Every day.

And for most of this time (until a few years ago?) I was working full time as a temp secretary, reading scripts for film companies - and also trying to get my own stuff off the ground. It was HORRIBLE. And I was dirt poor and..... as Macduff says, 'O horror, horror, horror!'

Must get back to work, but perhaps there are two final things every about-to-make-it writer should acknowledge:

a) It is an illness. If you want to make TV or film and be well-paid and still creatively involved, go off and become an Exec. It's where the power is anyway, so why do I - lunatic that I am - want to be a writer?

b) It's the best job in the world. We get to sit in a room and make up stories that other people watch.

Hope this answers your question - and best of luck!

x R

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Yes, I think that answered the question pretty damn comprehensively.  Cheers, Rob.

If you're interested in writing for TV, and aren't following commissioned TV writers and creators like Rob on Twitter, then frankly I'd like to know why.  Free practical wisdom, piped into your computer-box every day?  Sounds good to me.  So let's close with a few Twitter-follow suggestions.

James Moran: Severance, Doctor Who, Torchwood, Primeval, Spooks... you surely know the score.

Graham Linehan: You're already following him, right?  Co-created Father Ted, created The IT Crowd.  His CV could be used to strangle a rhino, if printed on really strong paper.

Steven Moffat: Again, you're probably already there.  Doctor Who showrunner, Sherlock co-creator, etc.

Roland Moore: Land Girls creator, Doctors veteran, script genius.

Andrew Ellard: Red Dwarf, The IT Crowd, many more to come.

Paul Cornell: Writer on Doctor Who, Primeval and loads more.

Stephen Gallagher: Creator of Eleventh Hour, lead writer on Crusoe.  One-time Doctor Who scripter.

David Allison, Neil Jones and Chris Parker: co-creators of Sky's genre series Bedlam, with plenty of individual credits to their names.

Damon Lindelof: Co-creator of Lost, with perhaps my favourite Twitter bio ever.

James Cary: TV comedy writer (Miranda, My Family, My Hero) and script ed, who also runs a top-notch blog analysing the genre.

Ben Richards: Spooks writer, novelist and creator of Outcasts.

The list stretches on.  If I give you any more, I'll really be eating into my work day, and that won't do. The point is: find them!  So many of them are there, typing into that great tornado of words, thoughts and petty disagreements. Some of them have surprisingly low follower-counts.  Follow them, soak up their brainwaves.  Use their attitudes and wisdom to form an increasingly solid picture of what creating, writing and selling TV series actually means.

Also: have a splendid day.

Death In Paradise Series One is released on DVD in October 2012 through 2entertain.  Pre-order at Amazon UK here.

                                            
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My Amazon-acclaimed non-fiction ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de.  Amazon Prime members can also rent it for free.  Full details here, you splendid individual.

Five Ways To Kill Audience Satisfaction

Being a writer tends to taint your experiences of film, TV or novels, albeit in a way which can improve your own work.  While absorbing fiction, I'll inevitably analyse why I'm enjoying, or especially not enjoying, a story.  Finding faults can be brilliantly instructive, in terms of avoiding the same mistakes - provided, of course, that it's not simply an issue of taste.  You don't learn much from not enjoying a gangster film, for instance, if you don't particularly care for the genre.

Here are five of the mental notes I've made over the years, while trying to work out why some stories leave you feeling instinctively dissatisfied.  While there's no exact formula for making audiences happy, with that indefinable sense of 'fiction fullness', we can certainly try to avoid these pitfalls...

1) IMPORTANT CHARACTERS TURN UP LATE
I've seen this happen in two horror films in the last three months alone.  The protagonist(s) have been established, then between half and two-thirds of the way through the story, new people turn up.  Key distinction here: these characters aren't newly-introduced incidental characters like gas station attendants or waiters.  No, they're behaving like protagonists.  To all intents and purposes, they are protagonists.  In fact, in both of the films I saw they were Good Guys, on a (rather late) mission to rescue people from Bad Guys.  This feels instinctively wrong, as if the writer has only just arbitrarily decided to throw them into the story - or she's become bored with the protagonists' plight, or even the protagonists themselves, since these Newcomers are behaving like heroes.  At the very least, they should have been seeded into Act One.  But even then, there's a potentially fatal snag when...

2) THE PROTAGONIST DOESN'T RESOLVE THE MAIN PROBLEM
Yes, if those Newcomers actually do manage to sort stuff out, that's unsatisfying to say the least.  We want to see those Original Protagonists deal directly with the threat they've been facing - it's no good, watching them rescued or helped by magically materialising outside forces.  This is mainly because the OPs have had the longest journey.  They've been through the most hardship and are ideally the least equipped to deal with the main problem or threat.  So their eventual triumph over adversity is bound to be the most entertaining.  We're rooting for them to overcome all... so if someone else does it for them, we're deflated like a cheap air-bed.

Sometimes, often in TV drama, the protagonist needs to be instrumental in solving someone else's predicament.  I recently watched an episode of an otherwise good drama series from a few years back, in which our regular protagonist tried to help a guest character overcome their terrible problem.  Come the final scenes, it felt very much as though the guest character would have overcome it anyway, without the protagonist's help.  Needless to say, this was deeply unsatisfying, and could so easily have been fixed.  So here's a good question to ask yourself: if your protagonist was air-lifted clean out of this plot, would the whole story collapse?  If not, you've got real problems and need to carry out some surgery.

3) COINCIDENCE OVERSTEPS THE MARK
Sure, we'll swallow the occasional small coincidence in a story.  Two friends bump into each other in a big city?  Okay, we'll buy that.  Fine.  When coincidence plays a major role in the story later on, though - that's when our brows furrow, we become restless and suddenly we can hear The Wheels Of Plot grinding and creaking (more on that in a moment).  Plot should be a big chain of events, each of which follows logically on from preceding events, so that we understand and sympathise with how this story developed in a logical fashion.  Attempt to serve plot with a great big coincidence and you run the very real risk of that chain's links flying apart.  It's like hurling a basketball at a domino which stubbornly refuses to topple onto the next.

4) THE RULES OF THE WORLD ARE NOT DEFINED
This is especially dangerous in the more fantastic genre fare.  Real-world drama has an in-built set of rules.  We know that world and so it needs less explanation.  If we're in a heightened, supernatural and/or fantastic world, though, we need to know the rules.  This doesn't mean we have to be force-fed them, Fight Club-style, in the first 10 minutes.  They should be ladled on throughout, with the artfulness also reserved for character detail and general colour.

Why are the rules important?  Because if we don't know the rules, it's likely that we're unclear on the nature of the threat faced by our protagonist.  What are the stakes?  What's the worst thing that can happen in this story and world?  If our protagonist is a ghost, can they actually die in any meaningful sense?  If we don't know what they stand to lose, we're far less engaged and liable to switch off altogether.

5) CHARACTERS DO STUPID THINGS
Now, this one's interesting, because it certainly isn't always a mistake.  If characters didn't do stupid things, they wouldn't get themselves into the scrapes and conflict demanded by all good drama.  So many stories - so many 'inciting incidents' - are launched by characters doing stupid things.  Drama practically demands foolishness, folly and flaws.  But here's where the Creaking Wheels Of Plot come back into play.  If characters do stupid things because, for instance, the film would be over if they didn't, that's when the writer feels our wrath.  We hear the Creaking Wheels Of Plot and it's a terrible noise, reminding us that this is just a figment of someone's imagination and a slightly clunky figment at that.  The spell is broken, even if only temporarily.

I've been deliberately vague about the other fiction to which I've alluded, but can give you a precise example of this one, which will give you a mild spoiler for the otherwise excellent horror film Wolf Creek.  About two-thirds of the way through, a protagonist (there are three in this film, which is one of its many strokes of genius) escapes the evil antagonist's house.  She then goes back inside, and for the first time, we hear the infernal din of those Creaking Wheels.  It's the film's sole flaw.  Incidentally, I'm giving you this example because I once interviewed its director Greg McLean as a journalist and put the criticism to him.  Here was his response: "Guilty! Absolutely. Without giving too much away, there's no reason in the world why she'd do that. What the fuck is she doing? I watch it and I go, 'Mmmm... okay'."

Needless to say, I've generalised throughout.  Rules are made to be broken, and all that, but I think it's best to have very good reasons for breaking the majority of the above.

What about you?  What regularly disconnects you from fiction and/or leaves you instinctively dissatisfied?  Tell us about it, in the comments below.

Other Popular Posts:

Eight Ways To Annoy People Whose Help You Want

The Magic Of Draft Zero

Your Script Is Not A Lottery Ticket

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My Amazon-acclaimed non-fiction ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de.  Amazon Prime members can also rent it for free.  Full details here, you splendid individual.

Taking America By Stormhouse

When I think about it, it's pretty unusual for a British horror film to be released in America before all other territories.  Still, I'm certainly not complaining.

Yes, Lionsgate unleashes Stormhouse today in the good ol' USA, via the media of DVD, On Demand and Digital Download.  I wrote and executive produced the film, while Dan Turner directed it and, like the fiend that he is, came up with the original idea: "The military capture a ghost".

I'm as yet unsure as to the exact details of the second and third methods, I know that it's available for buy/rent Instant Download at Amazon.com, as well as on old-fangled DVD.  And when it comes to physical media, I know it's for sale at Walmart, which makes me very happy indeed.

Back through the mists of time, in the '90s, when I was hopping back and forth across the Atlantic as a journalist, I would love scouring US stores for hard-to-find VHS and DVD releases.  So that makes this release even more special: the knowledge that our low-budget indie flick is nestling on those very shelves - probably somewhere between Dario Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome and excellent indie shocker Storm Warning.

Stormhouse was shot in the wilds of Suffolk in August 2010.  If you're intrigued by the story of the film's genesis, you might fancy reading an article I wrote for Issue Seven of the London Film 4 FrightFest's e-magazine, on page 18 here.

UK release, you say?  We have a distributor in place, and are just waiting to see when they plan to release. More news as it comes.

As I don a party hat and ignite the party poppers, I'll leave you with Stormhouse's wondrous Lionsgate trailer (still love that Scary Narrator Voice), links to online interviews we've done to promote the film and links to places where you can follow/support the film's progress.  God bless America.



Interview with me for the Horror Channel

Interview with Dan for the Cult Film Forum

Interview with Dan and I for Dread Central

Follow Stormhouse on Twitter

'Like' Stormhouse on Facebook

How Big Brother Gives Us Drama Fuel

An hour ago, I learned that Celebrity Big Brother starts tonight on Five at 9pm.  This is worrying, since I'm a fan and had no idea.  What chance does the casual viewer have, eh?  Now that's stealth programming.

Anyway, I wanted to share a thought which I've long held about Big Brother, in terms of how it can help us dramatists.  So before you unreservedly sneer at the show and perpetuate the idea that it's the sworn arch enemy of TV drama, consider this for starters:

Big Brother is jam-packed with people saying the exact opposite of what they mean.

This is gold-dust for we writers.  It helps remind us that our characters should rarely speak their brains in a direct, on-the-nose fashion ("Daphne, I love you but I also feel insecure!").  It can be devastatingly effective when they occasionally do (Pat Butcher's recent heartbreaking last words in EastEnders spring to mind: "I'm scared") - but these sudden outbursts of unexpurgated truth are all the more powerful because they momentarily deactivate the filters through which most of us - and especially characters in drama - speak.

Great thing is, people inside the Big Brother goldfish bowl - whether celebrities or extroverted members of the public - can't help but crank those filters right up.  The amount of mistruth in their speech is heightened - just as it is in scripts and prose.

Take this as an example: Tammy from Tamworth has been nominated for eviction, but absolutely doesn't care and in fact she can't wait to get out!  To the point where, when she does get evicted, she goes so far as to shout "Yes!  Thank you!" and jump for joy, just to show how incredibly fine she is with the nation booting her sorry, if shapely, ass out the door.  Or she might announce she's prematurely leaving mid-week, because she's bored of the whole experience and has achieved what she came here to achieve... as opposed to simply being scared shitless of rejection.  You won't get a better example of people saying the exact opposite of what they mean and how they really feel.  Drama fuel, right there.

People in Big Brother are also trapped with each other for weeks, so they will generally only explode into direct conflict when either absolutely cornered or they simply can't take any more.  So there's more passive aggression going on than you could shake a tweet at.  There's also a whole host of bubbling, brooding tension, often conveyed solely by the look on one housemate's face when another leaves the room.  Good scripts thrive on this kind of Purely Visual Information and Big Brother is shrewdly to pile in as much as possible.  All this stuff may very well reflect the tension in the family you're writing a kitchen sink drama about - or your sitcom set anywhere, since the vast majority of sitcoms are all about people being trapped.

Then there's the fact that, in almost every Big Brother contestants' head, they are the star of the show.  In fiction, even Scene 43a's hotel doorman should come across as a real, rounded person with hopes, fears, personality and a past - even if none of those specifics actually make the page.  That doorman in your script shouldn't think of himself as a bit-part with two lines: in his head, he's the centre of the universe.  Thinking this way may well help us write smaller characters who manage to transcend that ghetto of fictional people who act as if they only blip into existence when the protagonist is around.

Yes, yes, of course, I know - Big Brother is absolutely awash with ludicrous artifice.  It's as fake as a unicorn's wig and shallower than an ant's paddling pool.  And as much as I still love it, there's now inevitably far too much second-guessing among housemates as to how the public will perceive them.  What I'm saying, is that some of that very fakery can be used to your advantage, as a writer.  The tension, passive aggression and all those bare-faced lies about emotions and feelings may well fill a small tank in your brain, ready to be siphoned off later into your fiction.  Reality TV can often be way more real than most give it credit for.

Oh, and one last theory, which may or may not relate to drama: in Big Brother, even though it's undoubtedly on a very subliminal level, the housemates equate eviction with death.  Whenever someone gets evicted, they're in floods of tears as if they'll never see them again.  It's seriously like the end.  Eviction is inevitable in the Big Brother house - it picks those housemates off, one by one, like the scythe-wielding Reaper himself.

Could it really be a coincidence that Big Brother evictees ascend a staircase on their way out?
                                            
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My Amazon-acclaimed non-fiction ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de.  You can also get a Triple Pack of files (PDF, ePub, Kindle/mobi) direct from me.  Full details here, you splendid individual.

What's Your 60-Second Story?

This post contains spoilers for The Evil Dead and John Carpenter's The Thing.  Albeit mainly via the medium of clay.

Hello!  I've only just caught up with Lee Hardcastle's remarkable claymation videos - in particular his web series which presents 60-second versions of horror classics.  I've enjoyed them on two levels: namely, being greatly entertained, and having a subsequent think about story-related matters.

If you haven't seen it already, give Lee's take on The Evil Dead a spin, then come back to me, further down the page.  I'll make a cup of tea while you do so.



Great, isn't it?  As I say, it's also got me thinking about the tentpoles of plot.  The pillars which hold your story up - each of which topples forward to knock the next pillar over, like dominoes.

Obviously, to a certain extent, these 60 seconds are sped up for comic effect and you could argue that it does omit key information/moments.  But actually, there really aren't that many.  It certainly leaves out the group arriving at the remote log cabin, but if we're talking essential stuff, then the story can be enjoyed without it.

It also skips most of the third act, rejoining the story for the final splattery confrontation by the fireplace.  And why does it do that?  Because much of the first half of that third act is a great big run-around between Ash and his undead love, Susan.  She gets possessed, they fight, she seems to die, he buries her, good lord she's alive again, he decapitates her.  This stuff is tremendous fun to watch onscreen, but 'stuff' is exactly what it is: flesh and muscle in between the bones of the actual plot.

If you've got a story in your head and you're wanting to get it down somewhere, it might be a worthwhile technique to ask yourself what the 60-second version of this story would be.  It might well help you boil everything down in your head to the main events.  You could even write a single page of script - which roughly equates to 60 seconds onscreen - for just such a 60-second version.  Picturing it frenziedly acted out with clay is optional.

If you've written a script and it's over-long, the 60-Second Story technique could also be of use.  Again, write out the key moments which would fit into one single minute.  These may well differ from the bullet points of your outline, but provided it does so in a good way, that's all right.  The 60-Second Story technique will hopefully help you identify the flab - the stuff, the flesh - which you may regrettably have to hack out because there's just too much of it.

Lee Hardcastle's latest video, a Pingu remake of John Carpenter's 1982 classic The Thing, is not only very funny and entertaining, but perhaps even more instructive than The Evil Dead.  Take a look:



Brilliant, yes?  Now, then: this one's more thought-provoking than The Evil Dead because there's no dialogue at all, save the odd squawk from comedy penguins.  The story's told completely visually, but even in this hyper-fast, exposition-free deliveryof the tale, you get the general idea.  A dog arrives at an icy outpost and spreads itself around like a virus.  The key set-pieces - the ones which move the story and the threat on - are here, intact.

1) The dog arrives.

2) The dog transformation scene introduces the threat to the crew.

3) The open-chest scene hammers home that any penguin here could be The Thing (or The Thingu).

4) The blood-test scene determines who is who.

5) The dynamite scene sees the crew seemingly destroy The Thing.

6) ... or have they?

So those are, very basically, the story's six plot pillars.  Pretty much everything else in the film itself is the fleshy stuff - the way the humans react to their plight, with rising paranoia, dwindling trust and a whole load of shouting.  There's also wonderful suspense, misdirection and all the rest of Carpenter's tools in this, his true masterpiece.

You've got to have the flesh on those bones - of course you do.  Flesh is good.  Flesh is the stuff which makes that story organic and alive - more than just a cold framework of domino-toppling causality.  Besides, without it, your movie would be far closer to 60 seconds than 90 minutes.  Yet these videos remind us that it's vital to know your flesh from your bones.

Once you know your pillars, you can have immense fun with the stuff which happens in between them.
                                            
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My Amazon-acclaimed non-fiction ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de.  US Amazon Prime members can rent it for free!  Full details here, you splendid individual.

2011: How It Was For Me, Darling

Now, then.  Having tidied and sorted my office, which had rather begun to take on a life of its own, I’m in a good position to sit down and sum up my 2011 for you.  If you like.  (Your continued reading of these sentences and paragraphs will be taken to signify interest in this proposition.  Possibly in a court of law.)

Globally, 2011 was clearly an extraordinary year of unrest, whether natural or social.  You'll be relieved to hear I won't be writing an incisive essay about these seismic worldly events: this is purely about my year in the altogether more comforting world of fiction.  And on that front, 2011 was great.  Sure, there was some bad stuff, but there always is - and this year, that stuff was solely confined to utterly tedious business matters which almost certainly won't interest you.

Smug pointing at London's Leicester Squar Empire cinema

STORMHOUSE

My debut feature film, Stormhouse, which I wrote and executive-produced, certainly made the most of 2011.  We threw a BAFTA test-screening, combined with a cast-and-crew screening, which very much taught me the value of test-screenings.  We made some really significant changes to the film, based on our audience's questions afterwards, which improved it tenfold.  Director Dan Turner created a whole new edit and it was good to spend a day with him at Elstree Studios, helping to tweak and overview what we had.  That's another thing I learned: removing even so much as a single frame in a horror movie's 'jump' scene can have a dramatic effect.  It was also a valuable lesson in terms of how much you can cut out of a film without losing the basics you need.

The finished film played festivals around the UK and indeed world.  We couldn’t have had a better world premiere, playing two nights at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.  I'll be forever grateful to Edinburgh's fine organisers for approaching us, having seen a Berlin screening of Stormhouse, to ask whether they could screen the film.  Oh yes, that was a good day. 

Over the August Bank Holiday weekend, we played the UK's biggest and best horror festival, the Film4 FrightFest at London's Leicester Square Empire, which was a real honour too.  Amazing stuff.  After that, Stormhouse was screened at the Birmingham Comic Con, the Chichester International Film Festival (as part of a Best Of FrightFest bill - honour upon honour!) and finally Los Angeles' excellent Screamfest - an event which I'd attended twice before, but typically couldn't make this year.

Stormhouse is now scheduled for a Lionsgate DVD release on February 7, 2012.  Very exciting - as is the trailer which Lionsgate cut together, which is definitely one of my favourite things of the year:

A UK release will also happen in 2012 - we're just waiting to hear when the distributor plans to release.  And of course, it will be issued in other territories too.  More news to come.

DOCTOR WHO

Wonderful 'classic DVD' mock-up of The Gemini Contagion

I had great fun in Whosville this year, getting to write for the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) three times.  Firstly, for a Doctor Who Adventures comic story called Earworm (which you can read in its entirety by clicking the Comics tab at the top of this very page), also featuring TV companions Amy and Rory.  I was really happy with how that one turned out and it seemed to be received well.

Next came a BBC audiobook, Doctor Who: The Gemini Contagion.  Read by the excellent Meera Syal, The Gemini Contagion was a whole load of fun to write, concerning a futuristic anti-viral handwash which turns out to contain a virus (oh, good lord, the irony!) which overloads the language centres of the brain.  That one also featured Amy, who's obviously great to write for.

My third Eleventh Doctor Thing this year was a piece of fiction for the BBC's Brilliant Book Of Doctor Who 2012.  I had an irresistible brief from editor Clayton Hickman - fill in the blanks between TV episodes The Impossible Astronaut and Day Of The Moon!  Surely you can't ask for more fun than that.  I had a brilliant time, writing an intro from the Doctor, then Amy, Rory and River Song's diary entries as they traipse around a late-'60s USA, feeling the presence of an unseen enemy, while the tally-marks on their limbs mysteriously multiplied...

The Brilliant Book gave me another fun highlight of the year: appearing among the book's various authors, to sign at London's Forbidden Planet venue.  The signing, and drinks after, were as much fun as you'd expect.  And I've noticed recently that an attendee uploaded their brief video of the event to the YouTubes.  Here it is:



I've had a couple of Doctor Who releases via Big Finish in 2011.  My short Fifth Doctor audio story The Lions Of Trafalgar featured on the company's Doctor Who: Short Trips Vol IV collection (a lovely reading by Peter Davison); and my full-cast Eighth Doctor four-parter Doctor Who: Army Of Death was released in December 2011, starring Paul McGann, Julie Cox, David Harewood, Carolyn Pickles, Eva Pope, Mitch Benn... a really nice cast, that.  I received my copies of the Army Of Death CD just before Christmas and haven't had a chance to spin them yet, but I'm hearing good things.

It was also announced this year that 2012 will see the release of Big Finish's Doctor Who - UNIT: Dominion.  This is a four-hour Seventh Doctor mini series which I've written with the splendid Nicholas Briggs - a hoot!

OTHER WORLDS

Among all the Doctor Who and Stormhouse stuff, I was toiling away on projects of my own, or those brought to me by other people.

I script-edited The Man Inside, the film which Dan Turner shot in Newcastle this Summer, starring Ashley 'Bashy' Thomas, Peter Mullan, Michelle Ryan, David Harewood, Jason Maza and other fine thespians.  That one should be out in 2012 and it was nice to be involved with a non-horror feature project.

I was delighted to be invited to quack at the Cambridge School Of Art and the London Screenwriters' Festival 2011 this year.  Felt like those events went well.  I also signed various audiobooks at the Big Finish Day in Barking, where one of my favourite things of the year happened - a guy called Mick handed me a homemade card, which visually gathered together a couple of different things I'd worked on.  You can see the card here, below right.  It was, and remains, so touching - the idea that someone might actually be aware of, or even care about, your work as a whole.  Thanks, Mick - and Happy New Year!

I wrote the short prose story The Screams Next Door for charity flash fiction e-anthology Voices From The Past, which you can still buy here at the mad prices of £0.99 or £2.99.  I also wrote the seven-page comic story Consumed for the zombie anthology Dead Roots (site here), which I'm very much looking forward to seeing brought to life on the page.  Oh, and I published my first non-fiction ebook, How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else, which draws on my journalistic past to tell readers everything I know about interviewing people.

Mick's splendid card

2011 has been my first year with an agent, the excellent Matthew Dench at The Dench Arnold Agency, and we've been building up various specs for film and TV.  One handy thing an agent can do, is 'package' you together with other people under his agency roof.  Matthew did that during 2011 - a welcome move which will hopefully result in a new feature film during 2012/13.  I now have three or four feature scripts in various stages of development now, so will continue to write/push those next year.  Needless to say, I'll also be looking to make my way into TV - things seem to be moving in that department, which is encouraging.

While Twitter continues to be the place where I spend most of my social media time, it feels like I've blogged more during 2011 than I have in the last couple of years.  Why, I even wrote posts across five consecutive days!  The most-read post here, over the last 12 months, was The Magic Of Draft Zero, which seemed to strike some kind of chord, while the one which generated the most comments and discussion, was the recent Eight Ways To Annoy People Whose Help You Want.

While I very much intend to be even more focused on the all-important writing during 2012, I'll try to keep up the bloggery-pokery.  Hope you'll join me!  I also hope you've had a tremendous Christmas and will have a magnificent New Year.

If you're a writer, what is your writing-related resolution for 2012?  Please tell us all in the Comments below.  (My resolution will be stricter time management.  In particular, not checking e-mail every ten minutes and definitely not replying to e-mail straight away.  That way lies distraction and sheer, screeching, wall-eyed madness.)

And now you've told us all about your resolution, why not check out my script-mates' own end-of-year posts, hmmm?  Good DAY to you.

James Moran: 2011 In Words & Pictures

Phill Barron: 2011

Dan Turner: 2011, Review Of The Year

David Bishop: My Report Card For 2011, Part One and Part Two

William Gallagher: So Where Was I?

Ken Armstrong: Happy New Microcosm

Helen Smith: Lovely Things, 2011
                                            
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My Amazon-acclaimed ebook How To Interview Doctor Who, Ozzy Osbourne And Everyone Else is out now on Amazon UK, Amazon US and Amazon.de.  You can also get a Triple Pack of files (PDF, ePub, Kindle/mobi) direct from me.  Full details here, you splendid individual.