Things have been going relatively slowly at Hard Graft towers recently. Part of the problem is complacency whilst other faults could be a malaise that has descended like a cloud upon my creativity. Not necessarily writers block but I’m not challenging myself either.
However recently I bought the first three volumes of Bakuman which is by the creators of Death Note and about a budding Artist/Writer duo wanting to make it big in the world of manga. The writer spends most of his days creating ideas, roughly 20 a day at three large paragraphs.
20 ideas a day. Incredible.
So I thought I’d try and get up to speed and stretch myself a bit so I set myself a challenge to write an idea a day. The criteria is as follows:
- The idea must be vaguely unique to ones you have created before.
- The idea must be in the form of an elevator pitch of one to two paragraphs of three lines each minimum and five lines each maximum.
- The idea must fit one of three genres that you have pre-chosen.
- It must have a name.
So with this in mind I decided to press ahead and give it a go. Some I guess will be plucked straight from thin air whilst others will be mulled over time. It illustrates how tough writers in comics and manga have it that they have to be virtual ideas machines, exhausting themselves over time churning out idea after idea and then they have to be alert enough to elaborate and expand on that idea if it gets the green light.
So after careful consideration on my brand new barstool I put together for the balcony I had an idea for my first elevator pitch:
DECEPTIO
It is 1653 and Oliver Cromwell has dissolved the Rump Parliament. The Puritan theocracy that has descended over a battered and drained Britain after the end of the English Civil Wars tightens its grip. In the midst the confusion and mis-information where nothing is as it seems; two of the state’s most valued spies must uncover and defeat a plot that could plunge all of Western Europe’s great powers into a costly and apocalyptic war.
The story follows Samuel Downwell and Avis Whitby as they see conspiracy and death at every turn and find that they must be on their guard. None can be trusted as friend and foe merge into one as Cromwellian Britain slowly falls apart.
A reasonable start but casting my hugely self critical eye over this first draft I several things stand out:
- A historical story set outside of the traditional areas (Roman/Ancient, the Tudor period, Victorian, 1920s, the world wars, 1960s/70s) is very risky in my opinion especially if it is something like Cromwellian Britain & Ireland. My overriding thoughts would be 40% of potential readers would have absolutely no idea about the period, 40% will only know basically firstly that Charles I lost his head and secondly that a major massacre happened at Drogdea in Ireland and 20% will have a reasonable knowledge of the period. Thus a lot of effort will have to be made to try and brief the reader on the historical background without losing too much of the actual story.
- The idea is pretty vague. Who are Downwell and Whitby meant to be stopping? Are they working for Cromwell? If not then whom? Two paragraphs of five lines each is small but enough to brief people as to the basic storyline.
- Going back to the historical significance, would a woman really to survive as an assasain/spy in Puritan Britain? Perhaps not but not enough is put forward to make her a special case to be the exception to the rule.
I’ll read some more into it tomorrow but now my mind is thinking about tomorrow’s idea….
…and yes I did use Google Translate for the Latin. Who do you think I am? Stephen Fry?
