I’ve finished the first draft of my screenplay. (Since it’s a TV pilot, it’s technically called a teleplay.) It’s 53 pages, which is actually about the right length, despite the general rule of thumb that 1 page = 1 minute.
I learned a ton while writing it, so I think it was worthwhile even in the extremely likely event that it never sells.
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On the Codex writers’ forum, in a discussion about characterization, author Rick Novy said, “I’d love to know what Huck Finn would do if forced into* an airlock by Klingons.”
My response:
WELL, I catched my breath and most fainted. Throwed out of a wreck by such a gang as that! But it warn’t no time to be sentimentering. We’d GOT to find that ’scape pod now–had to have it for ourselves. So we went a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, too–seemed a week before we got to the stern. No sign of a pod. Jim said he didn’t believe he could go any further–so scared he hadn’t hardly any strength left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left on this wreck and it warps we are in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of the bird o’ prey, and found it, and then scrabbled along forwards on the deflectors, hanging on from emitter to emitter. When we got pretty close to the cross-hull airlock there was the pod, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her, but just then the airlock opened. One of the Klingons stuck his head out only about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone; but he jerked it in again.
Alas, the above is not an example of my ability to write like Mark Twain. I merely tweaked a passage from Huckleberry Finn.
*I originally misread this as “forced out of.”
The DragonComet Short Story Contest is held in conjunction with Life, the Universe and Everything (BYU’s science fiction and fantasy symposium.) This year, my story “Bird-Dropping and Sunday” took second place in the adult short story contest. (Just to clarify, that means I, as the author, am an adult. It was not a contest for “adult” short stories.)
Now if I can just find someone to actually publish the story.
Why are so many fantasies medieval? What makes fantasy fantasy? Do you need a specific setting, or specific characters? Can you have futuristic fantasy?
(Brandon Sanderson, Dave Wolverton, Rebecca Moesta, Eric James Stone)
A look at the last year of sci-fi movies (War of the Worlds, Star Wars, Serenity, Fantastic Four, Hitchhiker’s Guide, Batman Begins, Harry Potter 4, Chronicles of Narnia, etc.). Has there been a rise in the popularity of sci-fi and fantasy? Is it becoming cool to be a “geek”?
(Eric James Stone, Scott Armstrong, Janus Daniels, Kathryn Olsen)
Is Hollywood getting better at sequels? To discuss: Batman Begins sequel, Harry Potter series, X3, Superman movie, Spiderman 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3, rumored X-Files movie, etc.
(Bryce Cundick, Eric James Stone, Jake Black)
Joss Whedon’s Worlds: Emphasis on Firefly/Serenity as his current, most recent project, and the upcoming Wonder Woman movie in 2007, but also including discussion on Buffy, Angel, X-Men comics, FRAY comics
(Marianna Roberg, April Randall, Eric James Stone, Janus Daniels)
