Rules? There's no rules here.

Rules are a double-edged sword.

Screenwriting isn't an easy gig, vocation, pastime or hobby. It is however very satisfying when it works.  Ideas come and go and come again. Characters mutate many time before they hit the page  and dialogue is just the most organic thing, even the most meticulously laid out scene can be turned on its head once the dialogue starts rolling in.

So, for a lot of people there is a lot of hard work just getting their story together, planned and onto a finished  hundred or so pages that end with FADE OUT. 

Then of course there's 'the rules', rules about structure, rules about pacing, rules about plots, rules about characters, genders, roles, journeys and cats. The list is seemingly endless, for a writer starting out in the format they are tripwires laid across the path to greatness, most of them are common sense and a lot can be circumvented by reading other screenplays from all levels of success. While some mistakes are forgivable and others fixable a few can be confused or coloured by the one rule that rules them all.

The rule that will make a gatekeeper look up over their trench and sniff the air, the rule that will open the golden door. Find your 'voice', use your 'voice', have a unique 'voice'. 

All well and good, but a nervous writer that is trying so hard to not trip up on all the tripwires along their pathway to glory can easily forget they ever had a 'voice' and be shackled by restraint. Yes rules are there for the greater good and for the most part they lead to well structured writing, but when they are used as a yardstick to beat the inexperienced, well you have to wonder.

So write, write the story you want to write, with the characters you dreamt up ironing your shirts. If you are capable you will get it on the page, if you really care about the end result you will learn how to fix those problems in the rewrite, because there will be a rewrite.

It's all about learning how to get up again, isn't it Mr Wayne?

Welcome to the party pal!

I'd been away from writing, for maybe some time...

There was a break of about ten years, I hadn't given up on screenwriting I just got caught up with other stuff. I moved to the other side of the world, battled illness (funny how the word battled immediately put that into perspective), self published a couple of non-fiction books, (one very well received and the other, well a rush job that probably should have stayed on the hard drive). Of course there were the extra mouths to feed, houses were moved, countries were moved again. Jobs were lost and new jobs were found. It was the circle of life, yet amidst all of that my brain, my creative, yearning brain just would not shut up.

I had been constantly kicking ideas around throughout these years, ideas evolve and characters blossom, some get left by the wayside while others stick with you like glue. Well I had come to the resolution that I had to do something, I had to start committing this stuff to paper because I wanted to get it out and share the things I had dreamt up. And probably deep down in the dark where the monsters play, I didn't want to selfishly take my ideas with me one day without giving them a chance in the wilds.

So, not long before Christmas 2012 I began solidifying one of my many ideas. It wasn't the one I wanted to write, it never is; that script is in waiting, ready for the right time just like its titular forever king Mr Pendragon. I settled on Patient Zero, regardless of the zombie overload that the Walking Dead was delivering it was a story I had, there were scenes I loved and my goal was to make it different. Once Christmas was out of the way I found my old love of writing started to flow, the dialogue came easily, I loved the characters and set pieces. By March 2013 I had the first draft well and truly in the bag. I tinkered a little and blindly threw it up for reads on The Blacklist, the website not the TV show. It hit an average score, which for a tired genre and my first foray in ten years I was actually happy with.

In short, the hero was the first zombie in this outbreak, he wakes trope-like in a military hospital a couple of days post infection. An investigative team arrive and discover him, they also discover he has his faculties and this sets him apart from the shambling masses. Its not long before 'Dutch' the heroic Patient Zero joins forces with this mercenary team and sets out to rescue his family from the zombie infestation.

Sounds awesome, right?

I know, I'd watch it. Why? Because it has perspective, its different enough to tell another tale and there are some scenes which would work beautifully on the screen, even if I say so myself. Now, I know I do need to go back and give it a rewrite and a polish, but given that Rick Grimes has pretty much killed the zombie market for now it can wait. 

However, here's a scene I'm fond of, forgive the cut and paste formatting...

INT. THE HOPKINS KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS 

Dutch enters the kitchen and crumbles to the floor as hope dissolves, he drops his weapon and can only stare at the broken body of Amanda. A keening wail rises from his throat, he is physically beyond tears, his grief will be anger. 

He crawls closer, the lifeless eyes are hard, he cradles the body whispering in tongues. 

DUTCH HOPKINS 

Nononononono, sorry Mandy, so so sorry, this whole fuckin mess, the bastards that did this, sorry, I should never have gone there, my fault, I should never have done this. 

He buries his head into her cold bosom, rocking, wailing, grieving. 

He lifts his hand to find it slick with her deep red blood. 

A click. 

He turns to see Thomas, framed in the doorway, his tear stained face behind the muzzle of Amanda's gun. Thomas and the gun are shaking. 

THOMAS 

Monster. 

DUTCH HOPKINS 

Thomas. 

The boys face changes for a second, then fear takes control. 

DUTCH HOPKINS (CONT'D) 

Thomas it's me. Dad. 

THOMAS 

(Shrieks) 

NO! Monster! 

He fires, high and wide and noisy. 

Thomas drops the heavy weapon and runs into the house.

Why do we fall Bruce...?

Why do we do anything, why do we aspire, why do we write? 

I have had a creative streak burning inside me since I was a ten year old under achiever in art class, I had the vision for a painting, but it never came off. Then there were the in-between years, the hideousness of school where you read subversive and exciting books, dreamt of being an author and struggled to be interested in algebra.

There comes a time in a creative persons life where they just have to take that leap, embrace the dream and breath life into the stories that have been swimming around that cluttered brain. Except that brain is no longer stressing over rugby practice and unprepared exams. There are bills, mortgages and children to feed. Not to mention work, the day job and for the deluded few "a career". 

I am embracing my desire to tell tall tales, I spent many years non-starting novels before I got swallowed up by the wage-slave machine. Then I realised something deep seated, I loved movies clear and simple. There I sat with my special mix of popcorn and Minstrels absolutely alone in a theatre quietly munching through 'Broken Arrow'; partly because Jon Woo will always be a god to me and at the time Samantha Mathis was about to become the next big thing. Only she didn't. 

Yes, movies, loved 'em then, love 'em now. This opened up the format and genre my mindset had needed so badly, after reading a couple of books and taking a few classes I knew I was in the right space. So eventually around 2003 I knocked out 'Sparrow's Flight' and I was so pleased I never did a rewrite, I never got notes and I never polished it. It went out to whoever I could get to accept it. Of course it was rejected and not surprisingly, in fact it can still be found resting on Triggerstreet today and deep down amongst the mistakes I can still find dialogue I am proud of. I felt like I had achieved something at least, I had completed a feature screenplay with a beginning, middle and end. With I might hasten to add a kickass female heroine a long time before it was such a talking point on social media, in fact a long time before social media because back then we were still on Web 1.0 and dial-up.

So I fell, lost interest and packed her away. I never had Bruce Wayne's dad abseiling into my writing room asking me why 'we fall?'. I had me and my life had other things for my brain to worry about. I moved screenwriting to the back burner and turned out the gas for a few years until I was ready to look up at Mr Wayne swinging there and shout with a big grin: "To get back up of course!"

So that happened next...