Exploring Script Writing (& The History of my Oldest Project)

Hello Star Tugs!

Happy Labor Day to my US readers, and to everyone else, Happy Monday. I hope you're all doing well. I'm currently taking a break between homework and class to get write a new blog post.

I know I haven't been able to write a lot recently because of class starting back up again, but I did want to give you all an update on what I'm doing with my writing.

Recently I started to explore writing scripts, which took me from my normal form of novels. This was most likely inspired by many of my friends who are Film Majors. Another inspiration was my idea for a sequel to one of my favorite 80's movies The Wraith. (I'll leave you to google it if you're interested, or maybe I'll do a Pat Pitches or history blog, but that's a subject for another day).

I decided to start with an original project versus attempting to write a sequel for a little known 80's movie. I wanted to make my film script different from my other projects and not based on anything I'd written before, to keep it standalone. However, a certain element from almost all my projects sneaked in. You know what I'm talking about. (Unless you're a new reader, if so, hello! All will be explained soon).

While planning my film, an idea struck me: "What if I did a chase film, set on a train?" I also wanted to use the project to give attention to a steam locomotive I'm quite fond of, which isn't well known outside of the UK and the Train Enthusiast community. And thus the film script Royal Scot was born.

Royal Scot is a chase film where the Royal Family and Royal Protective Service (RPS) must escape to France from a giant conquering army using Royal Scot, a preserved steam locomotive, because all electronics in the UK are wiped out.

I began writing after doing a few googles of how to write a film script, and began to write my script. Unfortunately I lost motivation to work on the project and left it idle while pursuing new projects.

So backtrack a few weeks, and I decided I needed to finish projects I had started. So I returned to Royal Scot and decided to power through until I finished the film script. Which I did!

Don't get too excited Chase fans. My first draft is definitely a rough one, and I have no idea when I could pitch this to studios to be made into a movie. I will have to consult my Film Major friends on how to do this. (Ps. If you're an Executive send me a message on Twitter @ConductorPat and I'll send you my email.)

My other project is much older, though not in it's current form. Which takes me back to when I began to write. Back in around 2008 I stumbled across this video, which literally changed my life www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqwXBNSAPH4. The name of the character at the end of this video, Johnny, stuck with me. Probably because I watched Short Circuit and liked the main character, the loveable robot Johnny Five.

I thought to myself "I can create a character to!" And thus Johnny the V3, later the Bethany Railway Chronicles, was born. Essentially, imagine Thomas but a bit more adult, at least in its later form. Originally I planned the Bethany Railway Chronicles to be a novel series. However, I ran into the problem that I struggle to describe what the locomotive characters look like.

I also had trouble with the world building of the location. Originally I started with an island, then changed it to an island chain so that no one could say I was ripping off Thomas. Despite this, I was still struggling to develop this fictional island chain.

My friend CC, who I've tagged on here before, suggested that I set the series in space. While they mostly meant it as a joke, the idea stuck with me. So the series became the Bethany Galactic Railway Chronicles.

Treading back to Royal Scot, after I finished the first draft of Royal Scot, I got to thinking about making the Bethany Galactic Railway Chronicles into a TV show. I always imagined the series as a TV show, mostly because of Thomas & Friends, but I also thought of funny comedic breaks in between the stories.

Taking my Snowflake Outline that I created for my newest book draft, I tweaked it and wrote the pilot episode, and finished the first draft in 2 days. I personally find script writing a lot easier than novel writing because my main strength is dialogue, and not so much description. So who knows? Maybe my novel projects will turn into film or tv scripts.

I do have a lot to learn, and if anyone has any advice on how to write scripts better, please let me know, I'd love to learn more. Well, that's all for me today, I should get back to some homework. Thank you all for reading, and I hope I'll be able to write again soon. If you'd like to keep in touch, you can follow me on Twitter @ConductorPat.

Thanks for reading. Remember to Keep Writing, and...... Keeeeeeep Tuggin!