Random thought: Government shutdown? How about a government shut up? Who’s with me?
Welcome back, kids, to another installment of Scotty Cornfield, Storyteller-at-Large. I’ve got something a little different when it comes to our Story of the Week. I’m sharing one of my favorite 101-word tales, but since this story was turned into a short film, I thought I’d also share the movie script with you. Finally, if you’d like to see the film (which premiered last weekend at the Carmel International Film Festival), I will share a private link—if you email me, ask for it, and promise not to send it to Netflix. More on this after the story. Here it is…
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Unfortunately, Not Everybody’s a Baseball Fan
Holding hands and clearly in love, Dirk and Jessica strolled the deserted downtown street.
Jessica playfully kissed his ear as she removed the .22 revolver from her purse.
Two apartments ahead, a man in a Phillies ball cap exited and strode past.
Jessica whipped around and fired a bullet into the man’s brain.
“What’re you doing?” Dirk barked.
“Orders were to take out the dude in the Pirates hat,” she explained.
“Right, but he’s wearing a Phillies hat!”
“It had a ‘P’ on it,” Jessica protested.
“They’re not even in the same division,” Dirk scowled.
“Like I’m supposed to know that?”
Prompt: Execution of an innocent person
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The above story appeared in my first book (FAST FICTION: 101 Stories/101 Words Each, Vol. 1). When we adapted it to the silver screen, producer and star (Nina Martina) and I changed the name to The Nightcap. If you see the film, you’ll notice a few changes were made. This happens all the time. At least that’s been true with every one of my movies. You always have to adapt to real-world conditions, and sometimes, what looks good on the page (or in your head), may not be the best idea for the movie version.
When we were in pre-production, as I storyboarded the film, I realized that we really needed a stronger ending. Leaving things up to the reader’s imagination worked great in the book, but I thought it would seem too abrupt for moviegoers, so I added a few lines to the end of the script. Speaking of… if you’re curious to see what that looked like, I’ll include a link here.
Novel News & Notes…
Last week I finally received my manuscript back with notes from my editor for my upcoming novel QUESTIONABLE CHARACTERS. Based on what she wrote, the title may change when it’s time to send it out to find a home, but I’m sticking with it for now.
Overall, despite the fact that I will be making a lot of changes (as anticipated), she was VERY positive about what I have, and she has absolute confidence that once I get it where it needs to be, I will have no trouble finding an agent to represent me who will find a publisher just dying to get their hands on Q.C. (or whatever the new title becomes).
The biggest overall note is that I need more layers to the story and more depth to my lead character. I haven’t gotten inside his head enough so the readers knows what he’s thinking and feeling at all times. Definitely something I can do. She also told me (and this was something I heard from one or two of my beta readers) that I need to make my protagonist smarter than he is now. She (and the others) are right. In the current draft, I have him making dumb mistakes in his quest to take shortcuts and cut through bureaucratic roadblocks. With that in mind, I already came up with the three or four main scenes where this was a problem. I want my hero to be a bit of a maverick when it comes to rules and procedures. We need to see him embody some of that “the ends justifies the means” kind of guy, but that’s only because he desperately needs to solve this case. With these new ideas, he’ll still accomplish the mission, but this time out, he’s smarter about how he does it. Even when he steps over people, he’s justified in taking the action he takes. People might be pissed off initially, but once they see the whole picture, they have to admit that he was right in what he did.
I’m excited about the path going forward. More about it (and my editor’s work) in our next adventure. Until then…
Thanks for being along for the journey.
Scotty out
Want to catch up on all the stories you missed? Here’s the link: