Bikerjob - thanks for the comments.

First of all, towns can absolutely have identities. Try comparing Manchester to London, or Sydney to San Francisco - those towns all have strong, unique identites. Most towns do.

I think you're broadly right, some of the writing in this version could be tightened up. Having said that, I'm not convinced the examples of improvements you've given are noticably better.

I think basically my writing style is not to your taste, which is fine! Interestingly though, this was the story that got me signed up with an agent, so I guess the good aspects must have outweighed the bad... view book

Thanks everyone for your comments!

Debbie - I actually did flesh this out into a full novel which I keep meaning to post on here. It was picked up by an agent based on this version, but unfortunately I didn't get a bite from any of the big publishers. view book

Hi Clare

Thanks for the suggestion, I'm going to check out Twisted Tongue. Yeah, I know short stories aren't where the money is, but I thought it would be a good idea to put up bite-sized stories for people to try out; I think a short stories section would be great on Authonomy - sort of like a singles chart as opposed to all albums... view book

Wow, that was fast - thanks Jane!

You might be right about quickening the pace a bit, this was my first attempt at a novel and I was trying out a more stately pace than I've used in the past. I still definitely want to finish it, but it's on the back burner at the moment as I'm developing another novel for an agent who contacted me via authonomy!

Thanks for your comments, though! I have another 10 or so chapters of Skin Deep written longhand, and it does start getting a little more eventful after a slow burn. I'll type them up and post them once I've finished the first draft of the other book, which is about 70% done right now. view book

Thanks!

Sorry, need to check in here more often. Yeah this one or Cut Short, really!

Gavin view book

Thanks for the links Anne!

I've split the script into three 'acts' - hopefully that'll make it a bit easier to read. view book

Thanks Annie that's really nice to hear!

Good point about the difficulty of reading, I'll see if I can break it up a bit over the weekend to make it a bit more digestable... To be honest I haven't really tried sending it out. I sent a copy to a director aquaintance a couple of years ago, but he never got back to me.

I was recently at a Q&A with the comic book writer Mark Millar and he advised sending full scripts to agents in the US, but I'm not sure where to start looking for one. Internet would probably be a good bet I suppose... view book

SP - thanks and of course I don't mind! I really enjoyed the first story in Red Poppies and will post feedback soon. Don't think I pointed you towards Old Habits Die Hard, is it good?

JamesE - yeah I think you feel the same way about the story as I do! You don't sound overly negative at all, I really appreciate your comments. view book

Hi Mackenzie

It's around 80 pages, so going by the page-per-minute rule it's around 80 minutes. I reckon if it was filmed it might run a little longer as it's potentially heavier on atmosphere than dialogue. Thanks and hope you enjoy it!

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Thanks for the comments everyone...

EarlGrey - thanks for the feedback, good to get constructive criticism! I know what you mean about that line, it's trying a bit hard, isn't it? I might do a rewrite of this story when I get a minute.

SPMiskowski - I'm glad you liked the stories, and really liked your description of my stuff as "not exactly horror but horrific in its depiction of the human psyche strained beyond capacity" - I hadn't thought about that before as an overarching theme, but if it's there I'm certainly happy with it! If you liked The Room, check out the script version I've posted on Authonomy - it's the same story fleshed out to an 80 minute film, and I found you could do a lot of things in a script that you couldn't do in a story and vice versa - I recommend it as an exercise. Sounds like I might like your stuff too - I'll try and look soon, promise!

JamesE - "sagaciously" and "emboldened" arose out of the fact I only had 100 words to use in the original story, and I wanted as many polysyllabic ones in there as possible! You're right about short stories, I think authonomy could do worse than flag up short story collections. I always like to hear a couple of singles before I buy the album, and the same logic could work here. Can't remember why I changed the name of Breakfast at Midnight (I tend to do that with my stories a lot, even if I didn't have the guts to rename The Room as Rear Windows 98), but I think I was tailoring it for a specific magazine. I'll have another look at that hair colour part when I'm doing my rewrite. I'd quite like to do a straight 'slice of life' story, but I always seem to be drawn towards having a twist at the end. The Misfortune Teller comes close to that, but I couldn't resist a little reveal at the end...

Thanks again guys, I'm getting frustrated that I'm not on the internet more - I'll need to make more time to be on here interacting with everyone. view book

1 – It’s Not You, It’s Me

I wrote this a few years ago, and it was an attempt to do a kind of straight ‘slice of life’, quasi-romance story with a twist towards the end.

2 – Faith's Reconstruction

I quite like the way this story’s written, and I really like the lead character, but part of me absolutely hates the ending. Which is strange, because the ending was the initial idea that led me to write the story.

3 – Kitty

I’d been reading a lot of the old EC Comics horror books when I wrote this. It was rejected by Weird Tales for having too many loose ends, but personally I like the fact that nothing is explained. It’s just, in the words of Homer Simpson “a bunch of stuff that happened”.

4 – What Was in the Cellar

This one I originally did in 100 words for a competition, and then fleshed out a little bit more. There’s no back story or resolution, but as with Kitty, I like that the story is just about one scene of insanity impinging on an every day life.

5 – The Misfortune Teller

I wanted to try an old fashioned private eye story here. I set it in my home town, of course; primarily because I know it so well, but also because Glasgow has more than its share of mean streets, yet seems to be slightly underrepresented in crime fiction. The supernatural elements just butted in as I wrote.

6 – A Job Worth Doing

Inspired by a mildly disturbing Channel Five documentary, which featured an interview with a man whose job it was to repair lifelike sex dolls. The secretive and offbeat nature of the job got me thinking that it would make for an interesting protagonist in a thriller.

7 – The Room

This is probably the story I’m most proud of, although I wrote it about 8 years ago now, so I don’t think the writing’s as good as it could be. It’s the one people respond to most when I show them, anyway. I didn’t start out intending to write an Internet Rear Window, but it kind of turned out that way. I’ve written a full-length screenplay based on this story, which is also up on Authonomy.

8 – The Luckiest Corpse in the River

Can't remember where I got the idea for this one, but it seemed like such a good setup for a mystery that I was surprised I hadn't seen it used before.

9 - Her Favourite Colour is Death

This is the only time I've set out to write a completely dislikeable protagonist. The working title was 'A Good Start', which is probably more elegant, but if I only have time to read one story, I go for the one with the overblown title every time.

10 – Pavane

This is a writing exercise: my ‘Dick and Jane’ story, which will be familiar to anyone who’s read and been inspired by Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’. It’s not great, but I had fun writing what is basically the third act of an early nineties ‘psychotic wife/husband/lodger/babysitter’ movie.

11 – Spacious Three Bedroom Flat

Another micro story. This was my entry for the Waterstones ‘What’s Your Story?’ competition. I’d been househunting when I wrote this, and wondered what it would be like to see a completely honest estate agent’s blurb. Even better: a completely honest blurb for a haunted house…

12 – A Living

This was the first story I wrote when I decided to try writing. I entered it for the Get Britain Reading prize. It didn't win, but they published in the Sun Book of Short Stories and I got a trip to London. I still see the book occasionally in libraries, which is cool. view book

David - Thanks, I had a feeling it might be a bit too instructive, but it's the first time I'd tried writing a full script and all the actor directions was probably my inner control-freak coming out. It is finished (in draft form, anyway) and is about 80 pages. Going by the page-per-minute rule, I think that's about right for a low-budget thriller. I hadn't thought about what kind of movie it could be, but I always thought it would be a good script in a budget conscious sense, because it doesn't require a great deal of actors or locations, but has good parts for actors to get their teeth into and lots of opportunity for a director to get creative with the restricted space. It's actually based on a short story; I'm thinking of starting an anthology of my stories on here as soon as I get my novella edited a bit!

James - the pitch did seem obvious after I wrote the story, but the funny thing was I hadn't intended to do a 21st century Hitchcock story when I was writing it... it just sort of turned out that way! When I was fleshing out the screenplay, I added a few nods to that. I was going for a deliberately slow buildup, as I like the kind of movies that take their time rather than open with a big bang, but you may be right that I've been too slow here.

Cindy - sorry, thought I'd replied to you more fully before! Again, I was going for an almost anti-climactic ending, 70s style, but maybe that's not quite come through on the page. view book

Hi David

Thanks, I had a feeling it might be a bit too instructive, but it's the first time I'd tried writing a full script and all the actor directions was probably my inner control-freak coming out. It is finished (in draft form, anyway) and is about 80 pages. Going by the page-per-minute rule, I think that's about right for a low-budget thriller. I hadn't thought about what kind of movie it could be, but I always thought it would be a good script in a budget conscious sense, because it doesn't require a great deal of actors or locations, but has good parts for actors to get their teeth into and lots of opportunity for a director to get creative with the restricted space. It's actually based on a short story; I'm thinking of starting an anthology of my stories on here as soon as I get my novella edited a bit!

James - the pitch did seem obvious after I wrote the story, but the funny thing was I hadn't intended to do a 21st century Hitchcock story when I was writing it... it just sort of turned out that way! When I was fleshing out the screenplay, I added a few nods to that. I was going for a deliberately slow buildup, as I like the kind of movies that take their time rather than open with a big bang, but you may be right that I've been too slow here.

Cindy - sorry, thought I'd replied to you more fully before! Again, I was going for an almost anti-climactic ending, 70s style, but maybe that's not quite come through on the page. view book

Thanks for the feedback, guys! I'm also working on a 'real' book, but this is the most substantial thing I've completed, so thought it would be good to put it up here. I'll be interested to look at some of the other books on here as soon as I get a minute.

PS thanks for letting me know about the mistake Cindy! view book