Pulp Christmas on the Radio

Synchronicity--Within two hours of "Pulp Christmas" being posted on A Twist of Noir, I got an email from James Kerr, who runs a radio drama department for Trent Radio in Canada, telling me he'd just recorded "Pulp Christmas" and would be broadcasting it soon. Interestingly, he assumed the narrator was a woman, so a woman will be reading it. Puts a whole new, Diabolique kind of spin on it. I can't wait to hear it.

But meanwhile, James is looking for more stories, and he gave me some more insight into what he wants. Here's what he had to say:

I recorded Pulp Christmas today. When all is said and done it will wind up being about 7 to 10 minutes in length. You'll notice from the mathamatics at work here that a "short" written piece equals a medium-length radio piece, medium to long etc., &c.. Pulp Christmas is short enough to make a fun single-voice narrative piece that does not require too much work on anyone's part. However, then we get into the issue of dialogue vs. narrative.
***

I can't do anything with 8 pages of narrative. It would be a half-hour radio drama of one person's voice, which is firstly hard on the actor, and secondly (unless the actor and content are brilliant) hard on the listener. Something along the lines of "Speak No Evil" is more ideal for generating dialogue, but even that is broken up between heavy narrative sections, all of which meaning it would have to go through a fairly good overhaul in order to be a radio script.

Here is an example. We'll take Mike Hughes "Speak No Evil". Here it is as it was written:

“Well, ahem, excuse me Sheriff?” Lanny Watts asked, politely interrupting Sheriff Dale Cummins as Dale finished speaking to a representative from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“Looks like that thar blood all over the walls, that ain’t no human blood, sir. According to our man from the county lab,” Lanny said.

“Huh?” Dale’s verbal grunt in the form of a question was all he could muster.

“It’s goat’s blood, sir,” Lanny said.

Dale squinted at the walls and took this in. The fact that it was not human blood did not diminish the reality that two cold corpses occupied the bed in the middle of the room. One of the dead was his best friend; the other was his best friend’s girlfriend.

Here it is as it would be as a radio script:

SFX: Flipping of notebook open

SFX: Large-bulb camera crime scene photographs shooting

Lanny: Well, ahem, excuse me Sheriff?

Dale: Yes, Lanny? What is it, what have you got?

Lanny: Looks like that thar blood all over the walls, that ain’t no human blood, sir. According to our man from the county lab...

SFX: Large-bulb camera crime scene photographs shooting, acting as a bridge to silence.

Dale: [surprise/grunt]...Huh?

Lanny: It’s goat’s blood, sir.

N: Sheriff Dale Cummins squinted at the walls and took this in. The fact that it was not human blood did not diminish the reality that two cold corpses occupied the bed in the middle of the room. One of the dead was his best friend; the other was his best friend’s girlfriend.

*Dramatic music rises, insert title crawl *

N: A dramatic tale of blah blah blah blah blah goats blood blab-lab. Mike Hughe's "Speak No Evil"! &c., &c., &c....

There are other ways of doing radio drama scripts, all equally effective so long as the directions are clear. You'll notice I changed a few things - inserted reference lines for characters, for instance. In radio a listener cannot know when Larry has entered the room until someone says "Hi Larry", otherwise they just hear a door open, which is why in radio scripts you hear an over-use of character names in dialogue, but when listening it seems perfectly natural. Also, sound effects and ambiance are used to create the mood, in large part, instead of narration.

Writing for radio and writing for paper are different things, although the experiences are often transferable - but only in so much as a book can be made into a film. I'm happy to use the material that I can, submitted from writers from Astonishing Adventures Magazine, and contribute it back to the magazine community. There are some interesting things you could do with it from a presentation perspective to promote the magazine, I'm sure, and I would encourage you to do so.
***

I'm always accepting submissions, and if anyone has anything they think might fit better, I am open to receive it. I apologise that it has taken me some time to get back to you. Radio Drama is one of the projects of the station, but the day to day running of it takes priority, and this has been a busier season than some.

Cheers,


James Kerr
Programme Director
Trent Radio CFFF 92.7 FM
Peterborough, ON
www.trentradio.ca

Check it out. There's no pay but...it's always a kick to hear actors reading your words, so if you already have a story, what can you lose?

Pulp Christmas up at A Twist of Noir

I am very happy to announce that my story "Pulp Christmas" has been posted on A Twist of Noir. This story was originally printed in the Winter 2007 issue of Astonishing Adventures Magazine. (By the Way, the new issue--Issue #8--of Astonishing Adventures Magazine will be available by the end of the month. Details soon.)

Thanks again to Chris at A Twist of Noir and to Cormac, who originally introduced me to the site. And speaking of Cormac, he'll have two stories in AAM Issue #8, an interview with Kelli Stanley and a pulptastic tale that channels Dashiell Hammet, "The Tsar's Treasure."

Here's the link to "Pulp Christmas." I hope you enjoy it.

What's the French word for Faster?

Bonjour mes amis--

Here is a video of the world's fastest train doing the bullet thing through France. There's one moment where you'll swear it's about to break the sound barrier. My brother sent me the video and it is in fact going over 500 mph, so that's did the math and figures it's traveling about 350 mph or roughly 2/3rs the speed of sound (761 mph).

I like riding the train. I take the one from LA to San Diego quite a bit and also out to the desert to see my friend Julie. One day I'd like to do the trip cross-country. Sit in the observation car at night and watch the universe whiz by.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw4zn-qw1oM

My brother lives in DC where it's snowing at the moment, so when a client was delayed by traffic, he found a productive use of his time, as you can see.

Once again, I realize I need to "read the manual" in order to make my links clickable. I've gotten lazy using wordpress.

Soul of a Kitchen is back

My blog Soul of a Kitchen is back on the Gourmet Food Garden site. The site is undergoing renovation and will soon have a lot more content. I'm quite pleased with the current pos if I do say so myselft. Hope you enjoy it too.
http://www.gourmetfoodgarden.com/wordpress/mincemeat-cake-recipe/

MedGadget--redefining what's bleeding edge

I entered the MedGadget sci fi story contest and now I'm hooked on the site. You would not believe what's out there. Yes, they had a couple of the prosthetic-arm-powered-by-the-brain videos on CNN.com but this site will have you coming up with ideas before you even click away.

Here's the link:
http://medgadget.com/


Well worth adding to your bookmarks.

Michael Crichton's last book

I just finished reading Pirate Latitudes and it made me sad because no matter how much his publisher wants to sell the idea that the manuscript is complete, it feels very much like a rough draft.

One of the things I always enjoyed about his books was the way he stuffed them full of details that had nothing to do with the story but were just bits of cool information he wanted to share with his readers. That was, I think, the reason he always included his research reading list. So if you wanted to know more about any of the topics, you had a college-level course laid out for you. It was always humbling to read those lists because you knew that he was not just taller than you, he was also a whole lot smarter.

The first chapter of this book is chock full of great period ... stuff. But that falls off as the story continues and you just know he would have gotten back to it if he'd had the chance. The book is entertaining, but it feels like there was so much left undone. And there won't be any other stories from him. Crichton wasn't always the most graceful writer but he was a damn good storyteller. And there is really nobody out there like him. Maybe James Rollins.

I (Heart) Short Stories

I came across this great quote by Isaac Asimove,"If knowledge creates problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them." and found myself thinking about his wonderful short story Nightfall.

And then I started thinking about the short stories that have stuck with me since I first read them. Yes, yes, yes, Jack London's To Build a Fire is a fantastic story, and so is Stephen Crane's Open Boat but the stories that really made an impression never made it into my English books--with one exception.

I was going to make a list of my five favorite short stories and then I realized, I had to make it a top 10 list. So here they are in no particular order:

Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. I know what you're thinking, how can I pick just one? But I recently saw Jeffrey Combs' awesome one-man Poe show Nevermore where he recited this one and it's still so potent.

Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.--I'm also fan of his Pretty Maggie Money-Eyes with its stinger of a last line.

Nightfall I once wrote Asimov a fan letter, one of the few I've written, and he was gracious enough to respond to me. His guides to Shakespeare and the Bible are outstanding works of scholarship and well worth owning in the days before the Internet.

Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. Written in 1948, the story goes that she wrote it because she needed money to fix her refrigerator. Her novel has one of the most chilling last lines of any ghost story I ever read.

Saki's The Open Window also has a great last line and a twist. He wrote a ton of great short stories, but this one is probably his most famous.

Arthur C. Clarke's The Nine Billion Names of God. Just an awesome story and so incredibly simple. I love the collision of mysticism and technology.

Ray Bradbury's The Small Assassin is a dark, dark story of the kind you might find in a Stephen King anthology. (I love a lot of King's stories, and also many written by his son Joe Hill, but I read King as an adult. The stories here are the ones that shaped me as a writer because they just haunted me.)

Richard Connell's The Most Dangerous Game which has been used as a basic plot in a bazillion movies including the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Hard Target directed by John Woo.

Frank R. Stockton's The Lady or the Tiger is another favorite. I don't remember ever reading anything else he wrote but like Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, maybe one thing is all you need.

And finally, W. W. Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw.. This story was written in the 19th century and they'll still be reading it 500 years from now. Stephen King used it as the basis of his novel Pet Sematary and if you haven't read that, you should.

If I could go to 11 like the amps in Spinal Tap I would add one more, D.H. Lawrence's The Rocking Horse Winner. And then there are all those wonderful Roald Dahl stories. I skipped right past Willy Wonka and James and the Giant Peach and went right to his stories in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

What are the stories that shaped your life and your writing? I'd really like to know so I can go read them.