KT Parker
  • Home
  • Screenplays
  • PLAYS
  • Blogue
  • Photos
  • Contact

How The Twisted50 Project Helped To Make Me A Better Writer

2/24/2017

1 Commentaire

 
Photo
(Originally posted on the Create50 Twisted blog on 2nd February, 2017)
The Create50 initiative has been a boon for me. I didn’t think I could write a short screenplay, but through the process of the Impact50 I learned to. Same with short stories. It wasn’t a medium I had turned my hand to and initially I wasn’t tempted to have a go at Twisted50, even though I’ve always loved horror stories and my first screenwriting success was with a ghost story.

Then Merlin Ward asked me to head on over to the Twisted50 site and read his chilling tale, “The House On Axe Edge Moor”. It had all the elements of a good haunting: a remote location, a lonely child, a cruel institution. That was it: I was hooked – at least from a reading perspective.

The variety and imagination I have found in the stories is impressive by any standard. They more than live up to the brief to be twisted. As with the Impact50 project, the value of the feedback process is evident. There is a wonderful community vibe. Stories improve markedly between one draft and the next.

Finally I took the plunge myself and had fun experimenting with a couple of stories of my own. The first, “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner”, is really a children’s ghost story, not nearly twisted enough for Twisted50, if truth be told. The second, “Victim”, is more aligned to what the competition organisers were looking for and has been selected as a bonus track on the recorded version of Twisted50’s Evil Little Sister.

At first it was odd, switching from screenwriting to prose. Screenwriting is a very economical form of writing, focusing on what’s seen and heard, with very little room for description. Prose is a much freer form of expression and may include more lavish detailing of the setting and a character’s interior life, even if there's a word-count limit to respect.

I’m really glad I participated. Experimenting with a new writing form has helped me to become more versatile and skilled as a writer. In both forms it’s important to craft the reader’s emotional experience, rely on subtext, choose your words carefully and avoid overwriting. As an exercise, I rewrote one of my Twisted50 stories as a screenplay, and I found that, although the finished product was very different, it was one of the fastest screenplays I have ever written because the character-work was done and the story beats were in place. So writing in one form has reinforced my ability in the other form.

Having one of my stories chosen as a bonus track for Twisted50’s Little Sister Audiobook is the proverbial icing on the cake – a suitably twisted cake of course; Miss Haversham-style, with rats poking out of it. The recordings are very high quality. The actors do a terrific job reading the stories and the use of music increases the sense of foreboding.

​Listen to an excerpt here.

The Create50 team is still accepting entries for the next volume of Twisted50. So why not have a go? Whether you are predominantly a prose writer or a screenwriter, it will help your writing and you never know what it may lead to. Merlin Ward is just now putting the finishing touches to a full-length novel version of his story, “The House On Axe Edge Moor”. There’s no reason why you couldn’t tap into a new vein of inspiration too.
1 Commentaire
Better Than Chocolate link
9/1/2023 07:33:28 pm

Thanks greaat blog

Répondre



Laisser un réponse.

    Author

    One of my uncles calls me, “Kim the Intrepid”. Adventures include an African revolution, questioning by the KGB/FSB and being guest of honour at a Turkmen wedding.  What else would I want to do but write? 

    Archives

    Février 2017
    Mars 2016
    Février 2016
    Janvier 2016
    Septembre 2015
    Avril 2015
    Mars 2015
    Décembre 2014
    Novembre 2014
    Septembre 2014
    Août 2014
    Juillet 2014

    Categories

    Tout
    Altamira
    Amma Asante
    BAFTA
    Bang2Write
    Banished
    Baron Erskine
    BBC Two
    Bournemouth
    Brief Encounter
    Caroline Lawrence
    Castaway
    Cera Rose Pickering
    Chariots Of Fire
    Chris Jones
    Die Hard
    Dorchester
    Edge Of Tomorrow
    #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly
    Geoffrey Chaucer
    Girl With A Pearl Earring
    Gravity
    Harry Potter
    Hitchcock
    Hollywood
    Hugh Hudson
    Inception
    Into The Woods
    Janet Leigh
    Jimmy McGovern
    JK Amalou
    J.K. Rowling
    Joel Schumacher
    John Yorke
    Jonathan Newman
    Julie Gray
    Jurassic Park
    Just Effing Entertain Me
    Kenneth Branagh
    Lee Jessup
    Life Is Beautiful
    Linda Aronson
    Little Women
    Logline
    Loglines
    London Screenwriters Festival
    Lord Of The Rings
    Luc Besson
    Lucy
    Mark Gatiss
    Morena Films
    Nick Powell
    Olivia Hetreed
    Philomena Lee
    Psycho
    Robert Thorogood
    Screenwriting
    Sherlock
    Silence Of The Lambs
    Snakes On A Plane
    Speed
    Star Wars
    Steven Moffat
    Ted Tally
    Terminator
    The Dark Knight Rises
    The Hobbit
    The Shawshank Redemption
    The Social Network
    The Sound Of Music
    The Wizard Of Oz
    Tracy Chevalier
    Twitter
    WGGB
    When Harry Met Sally
    William Nicholson
    Writers
    Writing
    Wuthering Heights

    Flux RSS

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.