Writing

FINISHED WORKS

Note: the vast majority of on-site links use Scribd, a flash plug-in that both allows you to read material on the site and download the PDF files for later. You’ll need both Flash Player and Acrobat Reader to see them. Also, the first six of the items below are in my book, which I urge you to go out and buy.

NEVERMORE [WAVE ONE] (Teleplays)

Nevermore is a sci-fi dramedy by Joseph and I, focusing on a team of researchers who go into the past to try and uncover some evidence of why their dystopian home in the future ended up the way it was. In doing so, they threaten their very existence, and they finally face a decision which could destroy their whole world. Wave One comprises the first three scripts, all of which are both in my book and on here via the following links:

Episode One | Episode Two | Episode Three

GOD’S NEW CHILDREN

I guess you could call this a short story, but it’s way too short. A new man, the new Adam, is born, kills a few people and goes underwater to wait for the destruction of the human race. All good fun. In the book and readable at the following link:

Read it

TONY

A short story, initially entitled “Ambition”, about a failed comedian who finds a chance to revitalise his career before he dies. My one attempt at tragedy and my best first-person death scene I’ve written. I don’t think it’s too bad. Again, it’s in the book and readable at the link below:

Read it

INDECISION

A literary endeavour between me and Joseph O’Brien, wherein we took turns to write a short story a paragraph at a time, without any decided plot to speak of. The result’s a sort-of skewed stream of consciousness that (surprisingly) actually works. It’s in the book and accessible below.

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MIKAEL

Part Fight Club, part Bostonian life (of which I have a very cursory understanding now), and with any luck part originality, this story focuses on a man named Mikael K. Pietersen, who has just lost his wife and is beginning to lose his mind. If anything, I’d say this is a tragicomedy - there’s too many uplifting moments for it to get completely bogged down in the depression of it all. Again, in the book and viewable/downloadable below.

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JOHN

Partnered with a story by Joe called “Peter”. In this one, a man named Peter wakes up in Mali with no recollection of who he is, is severely mentally retarded but totally at peace, and then gets sent back to his old life, just in time for a nuclear explosion that destroys everything but him. The story ends with him meeting an unknown character called “John” for the first time. It’s in the book and readable here by clicking below.

Read it

CHRISTMAS

The longest - practically short-story length - of a series of flash fiction pieces I’ve written for an upcoming compilation called Tales From The End (more on that below). As I finished it a while ago, I figured I’d put it here - it’s another of those trip-down-the-rabbit-hole type stories that I seem to be alright at.

Read it

CURRENT WORKS

FORCE OF CHANGE (Short Story)

A new short story (at least, I’ve got it in mind that it’s short) that’s told from five different personae. Basic premise has already been published on this blog, so I won’t go into it here, but you can read about it here. There’s been a couple of changes, but nothing worth noting. The first chapter is here - as with all the stuff I do, it’ll probably be quite different by the time it’s finished. I’ve also written a couple more chapters in my notebook, but they need working on. This will be going in Tales From The End, detailed below.

TALES FROM THE END (Book)

This will be a collection of short pieces (about 40 in total, though we’ll see for page counts - it might be significantly less) that I’m hoping to release this year, ranging from flash fiction (700-800 words apiece) to stuff that borders on short stories - some are about 4,000 words long. The title comes from the fact that I usually write this sort of stuff when I’m either tired, or drunk, or massively hyper - not really fully aware of what’s going on, anyway. At the moment, this is providing some solace away from the above project, which will also be included in this book.

UNDEAD IN THE WATER (Screenplay)

The basic premise: two British writers write (what, really?) a screenplay about zombies trying to invade the territory of a mob boss, which then gets accepted, sent to the studios and subsequently warped out of proportion to make it more popcorn-worthy. More about people than the actual subject matter, it should be funny and a decent story by the time it finishes - there are a couple of serious emotional breakdowns in there that I can hopefully do justice. As tends to be the case, now that Joe’s come up with the idea, he’s handling dialogues (he’s used to writing sketches), I’m tweaking them to make it seem like it’s people talking rather than comedy machines, and structuring it so it’s not just a sequence of mindless conversations. And, surprisingly, it’s actually turning out alright. There’s no way it’ll get finished before we go to university, but it’s something that we can carry on working on.

PSYCHO-HORROR-SCI-FI EPIC (Novel)

Man has flashbacks to previous life as a research scientist called Mark, shady figures (i.e. drug dealers, people who generally live off the map) talk to him as if he is Mark, and so begins a fucked-up tale of conspiracy and revelation that features but is not necessarily limited to: cloning, medical ethics, nervous breakdowns, murder, pop culture references galore, a really cool road trip that detracts from the point of the novel, and a botched research creature imprinted with the same memories as the protagonist. If you want to read more, there’s my initial plan here, my embellishments to said plan here, my mini-prologue here and the opening of the first chapter here. No doubt they’ll change, and I really haven’t got down to it to the extent that I’d hoped to, but it’s a start.

FUTURE IDEAS

SITCOM

No clue of what this could be about yet, though it’s a long-term goal. Sitcoms are the one thing I can rarely stand, so if I can write a good one, I can probably do anything.

THE BENCH

I struggled over the plot for this for some time, for two reasons. One: if I wasn’t careful, it’d just seem like I’m ripping off Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, which would be just wrong. Two: I couldn’t really find anything suitably short and interesting enough to adapt (it was originally going to be an adaptation of some famous short story). Oh, and an additional one: I wasn’t really that committed to it. However, I’ve finally worked out - with Joe - a basic plan for this, and I should be able to write it soon-ish, depending on how inspired I’m feeling. I’m going off the basis of two men, one a seasoned tramp and the other one an ex-banker, working out an exchange of ideology through a series of dialogues - that is, the ex-banker learns to renounce capitalism, while the tramp starts learning the meaning of possession and how hard having so few things truly is. It needs work, but this could be good.