You may recall that in January 2015 we called for a screenwriter to help turn the short story ‘Axe’, by our client Marie Marshall into a drama for TV, or even a movie script. The story, told in a mix of Glasgow and Caribbean-British registers, follows a girl who has just moved from London to Glasgow, and who joins a ‘girl-gang’. The story sees everything through her eyes, and is strung together in a kind of stream-of-consciousness narration.
Following that appeal, a screenwriter was found. He and Marie have been collaborating on developing the script – he preparing the actual script, she providing extra narrative material – and between them they have fleshed out the protagonist and the supporting characters. The story that, hopefully, will eventually appear on screen somewhere, has grown well beyond the original short story, and is becoming a gripping drama with strong female characters.
image: Mercury Press Agency Ltd.
Unfortunately, due to unforeseen personal circumstances, the screenwriter has had to be excused from the project, and it is unlikely that he will be able to return. Along with Marie Marshall, we are exploring the way forward, and one possibility is trying to find another screenwriter to take over. That writer would have to ‘hit the ground running’, as there is a lot of pre-exisiting material to work with.
Are you that screenwriter?
The project is a speculative one, by which we mean that no payment can be guaranteed unless and until the finished script is taken up by a production company. Marie herself has waived any income, settling for the exposure of having her name credited as the originator of the story and provider of additional narrative, so royalty payments etc. would accrue to the screenwriter(s). This agency would be responsible for approaching production companies and would take its standard commission.
If this project appeals to you, please get in touch with us.
This is how it is at every ‘Fearie Tales’ event during Winter Words. Eight chilling tales are read to us in four late-evening sessions. The stories themselves are selected from submissions by contemporary writers from Scotland and beyond. On Friday 12th of February I was there myself. I spoke above of a lock-in, and indeed one of the stories told to us was set at a remote inn after drinking hours, where a stranger told the small company of the nightmares that had beset him since he was a child, as we feared for his mortal safety. The scene in the cold morning light, however, was a plot twist that stunned…
‘The Ice House’ was read by Helen, who put layers of character into her reading. The story itself was a tribute to M R James, arguably the greatest writer of ghost stories in the English language. James himself makes an appearance in the story, as an avuncular mentor to the narrator – a young, female, law student at the time of the action – and provides, though he doesn’t realise, the denouement in the form of a letter. The story takes us, via a discussion about humankind’s deepest terrors, a sense of dread in a lonely place, and the delirium of a fever, to the revelation of a brutal crime. The construction of the story is very Jamesian – a typical Marie Marshall emulation – and the sense of period and place is perfect. I do hope there will be some way in which this story can be read more widely, whether Marie places it on her web site, where she does showcase a handful of her stories, or in a collection.
Hard on the heels of news of our client Marie Marshall’s success at Winter Words comes a review from an enthusiastic reader of her YA vampire novel From My Cold, Undead Hand. Here’s an extract:
Marie Marshall has several things ‘bubbling under’ at present, so we won’t mention them until they come to the boil. However, if you would like to read eight of her poems that have never been published before now, either on line or in print, you might like to take note of 
Split Decision by Carmen Capuano is only a proof-edit and a cover short of e-publication. The cover artist will be available only at the end of June; however this gives us time to raise some publicity. Split Decision is YA, though I’d actually like to classify it as YA crime fiction; a girl (Natalie) is faced with a choice of two dates, and decides to… go on both. That is, the author follows this young lady down both possible decisions, and while the one date very quickly turns sinister, the other, apparently sweet and halcyon, has its surprises too, things that in an ideal world, a young girl just short of sixteen should never have to encounter. Capuano manages to balance these two contrasting paths with delicate skill, not losing traction in either for even a moment. A manuscript I could not put down, even though it was long past midnight and I was overtired.
Darx Circle by Leslie Hyla Winton Noble has been waiting far too long, and many of you have been following its development from the very first idea, on Colonialist’s blog. It is darker and far more serious than the light-hearted YA fantasy we are used to from this versatile author. I’m almost tempted not to place it in YA at all but into general fantasy; but it would be doing it an injustice as firstly the protagonists are young teenagers, and secondly it relates closely to the fantasy worlds he created in “Baa Baa Black Belt”, “Regina” and “Forest Circle Quest”. Tyrannical young Tyrentia accompanies the dreamer Hugh and his friend Dengana onto a quest to discover what is going wrong in the Darx realm. Their epic journey, laced with danger and heartbreak, leads them into the dark heart of the realm, and straight into the palaces of the evil forces trying to corrupt the very core of nature. During this journey Tyrentia also undergoes an inner journey, coming to terms with the evil that lies in her own personal past…
And then there is Marie Marshall’s gripping new YA vampire novel,
Over on the site for the e-zine the zen space (edited by our client Marie Marshall) spring is stirring. What has stirred it is a collection of haiku and ‘short-burst’ poetry by some of the best modern exponents, plus a translation of a classical greek fragment, and a collection of marker-pen mandalas.
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