Tomb of the Undead | Mugabe

I've managed to wrap of the first act, and I'm at the "First Pinch" in the script for the second act in the Tomb of the Undead series - which is good. I haven't mathematically written a new page for the script each day, but I have been making additions on a regular basis (especially this week).

I've also made some quality progress on side-project to this side-project that is operating in the same vein, I may have the first page of it prepared for posting by the beginning of next week. It's only nine pages long, but it's fun.

Just an FYI on how things are coming along.

Peace

Tuff stough

So I have every intention of writing a new page of the script every day - but I'm finding that the hardest part is when you set your screenplay/story in a foreign place that you don't know anything about. 

Case in point, I've got to figure out where in Turkey I'm going to place some of these scenes and events BUT I literally know nothing about Turkey (though I've learned a bit in the last little while, at least a bit about its geography). In these instances, it becomes a significant barrier - and that gives you enough reason to take a break (and that's the worst thing you can do when you're having trouble getting going!)

Anyhow - through yesterday's research with google maps, I've found  a strong candidate for the location and setting of the opening scenes, which is great. I've even read through a few old scripts so I can get the feel and taste for writing in that format, too. All I can recommend is, use Google Maps to check out the Eiffel Tower - it's to the southwest of Paris in a park - use the "satellite" view to get the details. 

Go ahead - check it out. 

It's HUGE, right? I was astonished to see how massive that thing is!

Also astonished that the Turkish geography is absolutely alien to me - plus, I realized that for the last few months, I've had Pakistan and the Sudan mixed up in my brain. Jeez. 

Act three's a wrap

Which is great. The story is technically finito, which is cool by me. This has all been developed to be the first in a trilogy, not because I'm pretentious enough to think that it needs to be three stories long - but rather I just like the story, and felt that it should have three distinctly awesome parts (parts that were far too long to tell all smashed together in one story).

That being said, the third story was my original spark - the idea that started it all, but that doesn't mean that this won't have lots of good stuff to lead up to the third part. Like a mystery novel, you have to start with the end first, and then build up to it. Or so I've heard.

Anyhow - I'm real excited that the first three acts are shaped together, they introduce characters I like, plot points that I like, and they tease the overall story I want to tell. I hope to eventually get to telling it in a form you can enjoy easily.

Right now I'm going over the cue cards I wrote all the scenes down on and am drafting all the details for the settings in each scene. I've got my character biographies, traits and ideas, my plot points and an overarching narrative - I just have to see if I can't craft more details into the settings so that everything is one big cohesive unit. And of course, once it is, then I can smash through the writing and then get down to the presentation of the story - which I'm really looking forward to.

I would really like to make this into a comic script and do all the artwork. I really would.

Broke Act III

I managed to break act three a little while ago - and I'm just getting it scrawled down on flash cards. I think after this I'll go through the whole thing and start making notes on the settings and stuff like that - maybe go over the tone and feel for each scene. Should be very cool.

I've got the brass tacks all figured out, but artfully linking all the scenes together and writing the story and dialogue for the thing will surely take a lot of time. I'm excited, though - this story is pretty cool, if you ask me.

Breaking the story

I've managed to break all of Act II for the script, which is great. So I've got the first two acts laid out and ready to be written. I just have to figure out how the book will end - only about 14 more scenes to draft up and then the skeleton is done! That's very cool.

I even have about six of those 14 scenes already figured out - so I'm in good shape. Here's hoping that once it's all ready to go - I can just start cranking the story out. I'm looking forward to it.

My promise - early (Act II)

Well, I'd written Act I ages ago - and then I got stuck on Act II basically because I didn't know what was going on - so I had to do some research to get an idea of how to carry the story forward. Now that the research is done - I'm trying to develop Act II and character biographies so that everything stays nice and cohesive. The most important part of all of this is:

the things that happen to the characters have an impact on their characteristic makeup, and their characteristic makeup will influence how they move forward into their next challenge, which will thusly affect their characteristic makeup. It's kinda neat, so far.

Plus, all the research has given me a great feeling for what I want to accomplish: a believable sci-fi tale that really latches on to the mysteries and legends of our cultural past and makes them important moments in an archaeologist's contemporary challenges. Plus, it's all going to lead to zombie dinosaurs!

It just takes a while to carry two normal, realistic people on a normal day to confront zombie dinosaurs in a believable way. So I've created a mythology that's built on top of legends that already exist, filling in the spaces between what we know and can only guess at and making it into a history that somehow allows for zombies in a believable way, but at the same time, dinosaurs in a believable way, too.

I have a mock zombie-dinosaurs script that skips the "believable part" and goes right to making zombie dinosaurs happen - people might be more interested in that? You'll have to let me know. If anyone posts a comment on this blog about wanting to see the "mock zombie dinosaur" explanation - I'll post it, I promise.

No updates - but some things done

Well - it's been a while since I've updated this project, and it's mostly because I got stuck - and then didn't work on it, and things like that. No new artwork, no more writing yet, but I was doing a lot of research. Basically, you get stuck and stop when you don't know where to go next, which means you likely haven't plotted out your story yet.


This was true for me - it wasn't plotted out, I didn't know where the characters were headed or what they were going to do. Plus, it a variety of cases, I didn't know some of the main characters, in particular the antagonists: who are they? Why are they trying to stop our protagonists? What are their purposes? Well, I had to figure that out.

And to do that - well, I had to go back about 2 or 3 thousands years ago to build up a back story. Yikes, I know. What do I know about all that stuff? Not much, I discovered, and my story's believability hinges on this back story being accurate, interesting and unimaginable at the same time. I think it's going to work out, especially after learning everything I have so far.

So, here's my bibliography so far:

First off, in the craft of writing itself, I have been through a couple of books, happily.

• Stephen King wrote a great book (right around the time he was hit by a truck and temporarily crippled) On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft which was a lot of fun to go through. A lot of very interesting insights on how he works and how he's grown over the years. Funny anecdotes, plus the trials and tribulations of being a starving artist. Will I write like Stephen King? Well, I'd say: I could only hope so, but at the same time, I'd like to have my own voice. I like how he takes very interesting moments and concepts and transforms them into dangerous and frightening situations to frame a story around. I really like that.
  
  
• Syd Field is the staple book for how-to screenplays. Thus, The Screenwriter’s Workbook: is an apt title. I am still considering whether I want to develop this as a graphic novel, a screen play or a novel just yet. Not sure what I want to do with it - besides the tremendous amount of time it would take, the graphic novel idea would be really fun to finish (probably not nearly as much fun to produce, though).
  
  
• Karen S. Weisner's From First Draft to Finished Novel which has a lot of good information for writing a novel. In my experience, this should be a staple for anyone interested in creatively developing an idea of any kind. Whether it's a television show, a screenplay, a novel, or a short story. This book impresses what's most important in telling a story, no matter what your medium.
  
  
• Linda N. Edelstein’s Writer’s Guide to Character Traits to help develop characters > I've been using this quite a bit to help develop characters in The Extent, as well. Lots of point-form information that lists the characteristics of people in certain situations, all from a clinical psychologist. If anyone were to know characteristics better, it would be her. The important part after this sort of research is to apply the "Show, don't tell" philosophy. Yes, the hero has these characteristics, but how do you show them in your story?
  

• Richard E. Rubenstein's Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews rediscovered ancient wisdom and illuminated the Middle Ages was a great book on science burgeoning out of the dark ages. A very fascinating read about the ages I'm interested in writing about in the back stories. Specifically, it views how scientific information transformed many different faiths (not just Christianity).
  
  
• Jeffrey J. Butz's The Brother of Jesus and the Lost Teachings of Christianity provides a very interesting secondary perspective on the life and times of Jesus and the Jewish world of the first century. This is probably the most important book I read of the bunch. I want to recreate an important Biblical figure for the purposes of moving my story forward, but I have to reimagine what we know about him to build a new legend and mythology for my story. That means you've got to know your stuff, or else things look and sound sloppy. When it's someone this important at a time in history where Christianity was founded - well, it's got to be believable.
  
  
• Michael Grant's Nero which was about one of the Roman emperor's back in the day. There was a great fire in Rome back then, and he murdered a bunch of Christians in the name of justice. Some tertiary research came out of this novel. If you didn't know that the Romans genocided different religions at any given moment throughout their reign, well, you would after reading this. It was like religious groups were lambs, and the Roman citizens were polytheistic gods. Basically, the Romans had to sacrifice religious groups to appease the denizens.
  
  
• I finished a fascinating book by David Klinghoffer called Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, providing a lot more context on the Middle East during the first century (and quite a bit before that, too). All very valuable information for the founding mythology of my story.

So - while there haven't been any updates - there is progress going on, namely research. Though, I'm taking a sick day today (I feel like garbage) so I think I'll try and apply some of the research into story today. If I can generate a believable and interesting back story to build up a legendary end game that I'm hoping to do - then this should be really awesome. And progress can be made.