Me, a writer of moviescripts

Please support my project on Kickstarter

2015-08-18T11:50:00.000+02:00

Many of the flash fiction stories you have read on my blog over the years have now reappeared in two collections of flash fiction stories. These I hope to self publish with your help trough Kickstarter. If you have liked what you have read here over the years, please support this project.

Go to project on Kickstarter.

System shut down

2015-05-28T14:24:00.001+02:00

This will be my place on the web from this day: Désirée Nordlund - Writer - Screenwriter

I'll focus my writing time to write things I can publish for money. My dream to write full time, will continue to be a dream if I don't focus on those things that result in an income. Hard, harsh facts.

Thank you for following me and for your support. I hope it will remain.

Toil Thursday: Rory's Story Cubes

2015-05-21T10:00:00.000+02:00

nce upon a time there was a girl living in an ordinary house and lived an ordinary life. She liked to read and borrowed a lot of books from the library. It wasn't any library; It was the library with a capital L. L for library and L for large, long and lasting. It was the girl's favorite place in the world.

As it happened, the girl got ill. It started with coughing and fever and then she became so weak that the couldn't walk without a stick. This was not the kind of girl that longed for climbing trees, all she missed was her books. Her parents borrowed books for her now, and though they were kind and thoughtful, they somehow rarely seemed to pick books she liked.

So she started to write her own. And drawing images too as well. Yes, she lived as she was locked up in a tower, but when she draw and wrote and built her stories it was like she found a keyhole to another world.

Image from Rory's Story Cube App

Phases

2015-05-19T12:55:00.000+02:00

Everyone goes through phases in their lives. Some painful, some destructive, and some fortunate.

This past month has been painful.

Projects has been put on ice or seeking funds. That I can live with. I have always something to write, even if it is pleasant to write when there is an assigned director. This was just the cherry on top of a for other reasons shitty month.

I thought that GoKinema was a great experience, but in the end... They set up a screenwriter's contest to get a free script without consider legal use and forgetting that there was a writer coming with the package. I thought they were pros and it turned out to be a playground. And the result of this unprofessional behavior has, if not drained me of energy, moved the focus of the energy to less productive places.

Now I have decided to put all this sorry mess behind me and move on. It will take me some time let go. As it is now I can't even say "writer's credit" without getting foul thoughts and a bitter taste in my mouth. This will not be so forever. I've found a lot of support from friends and also other INTJ women who have a hard time to let go. There will be some more spitting and biting I suppose, but I am dedicated to not let them drown me and let all this be an unfortunate parenthesis in my life.

So, hopefully, things on this blog will soon continue as usual.

Image from Pintrest
Click on the image for more info

Screenwriting Challenge 2015 by NYC Midnight, LLC

2015-04-23T10:00:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow at 11:30 PM (EDT) starts this year's Screenwriting Challenge arranged by NYC Midnight.

In the first round the contestants will get 8 days to write an original short screenplay no longer than 12 pages. The top five from every heat goes on to the second round which will give 3 days to write an 8 page screenplay. The top 25 from this round goes to the third and final round where they have 24 hours to write a 5 page script. The page numbers are maximum numbers. I suppose one page scripts are completely okay all the way through if they are good enough.

Every round the writers get a genre, subject, and character assignment like Drama / Fatherhood / A fast food restaurant employee (example from their homepage), so there is no way to prepare anything.

They also state that every writer gets feedback from the judges.

They are open for registration very close to the first assignment are sent out.

Yes, I will participate. I know I shouldn't tell. But I'm so thrilled. I need deadlines to do a good job. I know I can be skilled on short notice and with lack of time, but it is not very often I've been in that situation. This is just a great way of testing my limits and skills without risking a project.

Wow, it's amazing

2015-04-16T13:06:00.001+02:00

Right now I am working on five different scripts - four shorts and one feature - all connected to a director.

All of them has not their finances quite in place and it is not certain that it will be five films, but still, it is quite a wow-feeling inside me when I realised what had happened the last two, three months. Lets hope I live up to it.

The invisible art of punctuation

2015-04-13T10:00:00.000+02:00

For me writing is more than just the right choice of words. It is also a matter of how it is expressed, or “said” if you like, with punctuation. The use of dots and commas and colon is supposed to shape the sentence and give it life. To help you hear the text in your mind. Exactly as I intended it, of course.

A punctuation classic is “woman without her man is nothing”. Depending on your mood, or perhaps, rather your sex, you will likely do this: “Woman without her man, is nothing” or this: “Woman: without her, man is nothing”.

So, yes, where you put your commas matter. It is part of the expression and a vital art to your writing. For a screenwriter it is convenient to be able to add a “!” at the end of a line of dialog instead of stating the questionable “(yelling)” or even worse “(angry)” over it. Or a “…” to indicate doubt, though it is easy to… overdo it by… adding… too much… of it making it… unreadable… and direct too… much.

Now, here comes the funny thing: I thought that by adding these… things, these punctuation marks exactly where I wanted them, creating the pauses, at the precise moments where I wanted them, I thought I was adding a perfectly readable subtext for anyone reading it. Every writer know that the written language is full of limitations when it comes to expressing subtext as emotions. A “Yes, I know” could mean almost anything, really. Hence the use of :-) and such; which you of course cannot add in serious literature of any kind. Well, anyhow, I thought that those subtle “…” were completely understandable as a doubt; a hesitation for whatever reason. I thought even more so when it comes to texting, SMS-ing, chatting, those quick written conversations often clogged with yellow circles with different faces instead of actual words. To my surprise I got replies indicating that I could just as much have written “woman without her man is nothing” and leaving the interpretation to the other half of the conversation, because no matter how artful my punctuation was it was wasted here. (No, don’t worry, this person knows about this story, so this is not you.)

The person, who so easily missed my “…”, is a lover of stories and reads a lot. It is not a matter of lack of education, reading habits or brains.

I love music, but when it comes to anything but fundamental listening, I need a guidebook. Howard Shore told in a documentary about the music to the Lord of the Rings how he had used different types of flutes for the “Shire”-theme in the beginning and the end to express the change and growth. That was a detail that was wasted on me. I did only hear the difference when I played them after each other. My love for music is not less. My right to love music, no matter how little I know about what I’m hearing, stays the same.

The world is probably full of readers who don’t get my meaning of this! They still have the right to read and interpreter my texts. And I have no right to blame them if they don’t get it as I intended. I can only write the best I can, hoping that my writing gets through. Maybe the text doesn’t hit the chord I intended – most likely it doesn’t – but hopefully it hits some strings and finds any chord. Maybe the lovely art of punctuation and the knowledge of where to place a comma to find a pause in the right spot are wasted on most of the readers. But - and this is important, I think - is that even if it is so; even if only one in a million gets the point and sees the beauty; or the errors in your use, you should always write the best you can. Don’t do any less, ever.

It is the love of words that makes you a writer, not the love of the readers. In every art there is always something vital invisible to most beholders, something only visible in its absence.

Image from Pintest.
Click on it for more info.

Social interaction

2015-03-27T14:59:00.000+01:00

Writing is the only time I feel safe
Writing is the only time I feel sane
I feel like I've come home when I write
I feel like I belong when I write

Every step away from writing makes me feel
Unsafe
Insane
Homeless
And as odd man out. Out, out, out.

Every glitch in social interaction makes me want to flee
Every glitch in social interaction makes me want to hide
Social interaction is not personal
Social interaction is just me acting

I feel like I've come home when I write
I feel like I belong when I write
Writing is the only time I feel safe
Writing is the only time I feel sane

Image from Pintrest. Click on it for more info

GoKinema 2015 - A collection of links

2015-03-25T10:00:00.000+01:00

GoKinema 2015, Open Set, Photo: Christian Holst

I just wanted to collect the different blog entries and articles about GoKinema 2015 and the movies made on my script "the Kill" on Open Set. Some written by me, some by others.

The original script "The Kill"

The article on Go Into The Story.

The article on Voodoo Film (in Swedish)

My blog entry about the event.

GoKinema's News entry.

Dick Pope visits Gothenburg (in Swedish).

An article on Imago.

Note on ISA.

Blog entry at Garn Creations (in Swedish)

"The Kill" on Imdb.com (film from day 1)

"The Pros" on Imdb.com (film from day 2)

Watch The Pros here

Edit 2015-05-13:
Since I wrote this it has turned out that Gothenburg Studios which hosts GoKinema is not a professional, serious company when it comes to screenwriters and their scripts. Hence that the films made at Open Set is no longer available.

Using Scrivener for writing screenplays

2015-03-24T10:04:00.000+01:00

These days I try Scrivener for writing screenplays. No, I am not a friend of Final Draft. I have used it and liked it, but it was expensive and there were tools for free doing the same thing and more. So, I dived into Celtx. I enjoyed the desktop version of Celtx very much, but now they have gone online and what I liked with Celtx is no longer there.

When working on a screenplay, well any longer text really, you do a lot of things beside the actual final text. I do mindmaps, write about the characters, do loglines, synopsis, outlines and collects links, images, articles and other stuff. In desktop Celtx you could collect all these things in one project file, which for me was exactly what I needed. No more flipping between writing program and folders and browsers.

When Celtx went online all those things vanished in a smoke. Then I began my search for a new tool and found Scrivener. For some reason, I hadn’t thought about special programs for writing novels. I had always written these things in MS Word. First I transformed my current novel project into Scrivener and I became deeply in love. I read that the program had a rather big start-up time for a newbie, so I took my time and didn’t give up to figure things out, knowing that if it was such a good program as the reviewers said it would be, the things I wanted to do should be doable. And they were.

A few transformed writing projects later, I continued with trying its movie scripts functions. All the good things about Scrivener are still there of course. I can collect my files in one place, I can link to things, all the things I could do in Celtx, only better here. But, and this is a very large but, the screenplay exported out from Scrivener needs to be checked carefully and if it is a long script it will be difficult and tiresome to get it good. You see, the program has no clue to keep a character and the following dialog together in one piece. There are no functions for keeping one format together with the next. And delivering a file with the character’s name at the bottom of the page and the dialog on top of the next is not very impressive. On the contrary, it is what Noriaki Kano would call a unfulfilled basic requirement, and basic requirements are those that the customer expects to be there, which does not make the customer happy, but only unsatisfied if it is not there; like you expect a car to have four wheels. When it comes to writing movie scripts this car – Scrivener – misses a wheel.

I still use Scrivener for writing screenplays though. I like the rest of the program and after all there is hope that this glitch, this unfulfilled basic requirement, will be corrected in time. Otherwise I will have a boring and frustrated time adding an empty row here and there, which I can survive if it comes to that.

Writing lyrics

2015-03-18T09:23:00.001+01:00

One and a half year ago I took a crash course in song-writing at Coursera, because I had been asked if I could write some lyrics. And, frankly, I hadn't a clue. Sure, I had written some funny, less serious stuff and improvised some horrible things, but nothing for real, meant to people to hear and enjoy in sober condition.

This was the first lyrics I wrote that I felt turned out well (it is not part of the project I had been asked to write lyrics to), getting the metrical line and feet right. First I thought it was just getting the same number of syllables in every line, but my mother quickly taught me the ideas about dactyls and iambs (like – υ υ). Then the first thing my mother says is "you can't sing words like 'soap bubbles'". I think I figured that it worked with "Goldfinger" and should work with "soap bubbles" too. Well, perhaps she is right, but I still like it. Here it is.

Soap bubbles float by thousands over the garden
Shimmering in all colors that there is
Just as we now in love move ourselves to Eden
We are Adam and Eve in love’s first kiss

We live resplendent afloat in a soap bubble
When you are in love this becomes your world
Comely fair universe without any trouble
Life outside of this rush by us in whirl

Every bubble must burst
And then we will fall
Totally unrehearsed
Causing some appall

Lying sprawled on the ground smelling reality
Facing each other’s vulnerability
Dealing with our world’s sudden mortality
And the forever lost tranquility

Every bubble must burst …

For the first time our love is put to trial
Time we need to outride the bad weather
If we so soon turn shock into a deep dismay
We will not likely last long together

Every bubble must burst
And then we will fall
Together we may nurse
Keep playing our ball

Personality types of your characters

2015-03-05T10:00:00.000+01:00

In my latest projects I have tested to use personalities according to Myer Briggs for my characters. There are sixteen personality types according to Myer Briggs, each a combination of four letters, one for each trait.

First I go here to this quick test. This is a very basic, which is to prefer in this kind of situation.

Then I go here and read more about the personality type gained from the previous site. They have good, long texts about general behavior, strength and weaknesses, relationships, careers and so on. Reading those gave me interesting angles on my characters that I had not thought about. (They have a test too, but it is far too long for these kinds of needs – and funnily enough came to the wrong conclusion about me.)

But, I had a character with a mental disorder and the personality site above is a bit all over positive and does not go into medical things, so I found this site: Disordered personalities and found a personality that fitted my needs for the character.

One could always question if people could be put in labeled boxes. The problem, I think, with not doing it, is that you put all in one box and presume they are all like you. Or even worse: put all that fits you in one box and the rest in another box – we and them. We are all unique, but that does not make us all the same as the rest of us. Some of us are very different from some others and some are the same in some things and not in others.

Finding my personality type has help me a lot understanding why other people behave so strange.

When I looked at the resulting characters passed through the Myer Briggs machinery they felt like a bunch of people with more variation than I had ever felt I succeeded with before. They also felt solid. I had a team of three that had gained their roles in the group in ways I had never thought of if I hadn’t used the personality types as a base.

To describe a character in a movie script

2015-02-23T10:00:00.000+01:00

Most movie script writers know that you write the character’s name with capital letter first time of appearance. I also think it is common knowledge to keep color of hair and eyes out of it and it for most times is redundant knowledge what color the shirt has. Amazingly enough, brand of watch and precise age are both common traits it seems, especially among scripts from the yet not known writers.

Both are pieces of information you actually don't need to tell.

When writing a movie script it is easy to forget one thing: it is not a novel. Of course it is not a novel you say, and yes, I know you know it is not a novel. The point is that those producing the movie have read the script. When you read a novel you need information about a character early. When you meet a guy or a gal it is nice to get a fairly clear image of who it is and not halfway in learn that the fair boy you imagined is an old man. When you finished the book, you have finished the project as well. The story is ended and the book returns to its shelf. When it comes to a movie script the process has just started.

What’s the difference?

It is such monumental difference that I’m amazed that so few mention it. All those people making a film create the characters from the whole script! Those “JENNIE (43) enters in a blue costume” are close to irrelevant. The character’s age is interpreted based on what she does, her family situation and so on – the whole picture. If she is a parent she is probably over twenty, if she runs alongside a car, she is not likely past sixty. Unless it is a story about teenage parenthood or superpower at old age, any age between twenty and sixty could do just as fine. If not, probably other things in the story tell us what we need. To yell that the age is precisely “43” is only limiting in a way that is not for the good. Remember, the writer's excellence is with words and story – but leave the creation of the film to those who know the trait. It’s a movie script, not a manual.

Besides, is really the first thing you think about when a new person entering a room his or her age? The precise age!? Stick to describe what would be your first impression of the character, and only what is needed for the story.

This is where the brand of the wrist watch comes in. I don’t know my brands. If you tell me it is a… whatever brand, it doesn't tell me a thing. And the expensiveness of a brand can differ over the world as well so what is bought at Harrods in one place could be K-Mart in another (well, perhaps not, but you get the point). Use words that we can all understand, like “expensive” or “cheap” and leave the selection of brands to somebody else.

It is amazing how much you can cut if you only can leave your imaginary sense of control of the story behind you.

Remember that for the reader the project has just about begun when they finish reading. You've built a skeleton. If you have not covered it up in unnecessary garnish, its strong bones will show. Don’t draw the attention to the less vital parts of your story, and especially not with things limiting the options to get it sold.

Image from Pintest. Click on the image for more info.

Tools for the screenwriting process

2015-02-14T11:37:00.000+01:00

Which tools to use for planning and writing a screenplay is a very personal selection and nobody but you can tell what is right for you. Don't trust any commercial telling you anything else. Especially those insisting to take care of the whole process for you.

Here is my selection of tools, and what I like and don't like about them.

The first thing I do is a mindmap in FreeMind. I use a template I have made to get started quickly. FreeMind is easy to use with the keyboard, which is a good thing for a writer. I write, move, delete, add, draw arrows, add icons without any trouble. The backside is that it is a file on disk. I keep it all in my dropbox, but I need the actual program to work with it. Usually not a big problem, but when I work with someone it would have been easier if it was available as an online tool. I have not found any online mindmap tool that has even been close to FreeMind.

When done with the mindmap I plan the scenes and this I currently do in SuperNoteCard. It is available both as a downloadable desktop program and as an online service. While FreeMind is completely free, SuperNoteCard is limited in its free form. As an online service you pay by year. I like the structure of the program where you handle "notecards". You can put them in stacks, add common referenses, like attach characters, and put them in one or more category. In the online version you can also add images to a card. It is simple to use and with complete freedom when it comes to contents on the card. It is however not a pin-board. The cards themselves has limited visual options when it comes to organizing. Export options are good and you can present your work in understandable written easily. How I wish I could connect the mindmap with SuperNoteCard!

And then SuperNoteCard with Celtx...

I've just started to use Celtx in its online form and it is to early to tell if I like it or not. It's desktop form was a dream, but so far the online version has not lived up to the same status. I miss the option to add any files or urls to the project and start them from Celtx.

I would also like a todo-list somewhere in all this.

In the desktop version of Celtx I had all files collected in the Celtx project, but as an online service, this is no longer possible. I want some form of basket to put it all, keeping a whole project together, allowing me to use my preferred tool. If you have some ideas for this, I'm interested.

Update: more about tools here

Photo from Pintest. Click on the image for more info.

The importance of conflict in the story

2015-02-09T10:00:00.000+01:00

A friend of mine wrote a book with a story that was too cute for my taste and in my opinion completely lacked of conflict. My friend pointed out that her characters were strong and secure and they could handle situations as adults - hence no need for conflicts.

I've been thinking a lot about conflicts in stories since then. Why is it important with a conflict in the story? You can't read anything about how to write a screenplay without having the importance of conflict written in giant neon letters. And why would I have thought her story better if there were conflicts in it?

First of all, conflict does not have to be verbal arguments, angry yells or fighting. A conflict could be as simple as two friends wanting to do different things on their day together - they will probably not yell, fight or get pissed of at another, but still they have different goals and one or both need to divert from it. A conflict.

Conflict drives the story forwards.

There can be a promise of a potential conflict ahead that makes you want to continue the story, but if that promise is never fulfilled you may feel cheated.

A story tells us who we are, who we could be, how we should (or shouldn't) act. By being right and doing right from the start, there is nothing to learn or understand. And since none of us are perfect, the flawless characters will not only be uninteresting but also hard to relate to. A lifestyle seminar always begins with telling us how we probably behave and live right now, what will happen if we continue this dreadful life and then finally tells us what to do and what will happen if we listen up and keep working on a change. It's not only that they cannot charge the price they do if they kept it down to five minutes, only telling us what to do, we would simply not listen if a mr or ms Perfect entered the room telling us all what he or she does to be perfect and then leave. We need to be seduced.

In a book or a movie we have the option a lecturer does not. While the poor speaker only can tell us his or hers life story and hope to win our hearts, we can show the tale from the beginning and let everybody see all stupid mistakes finally leading to the big, grand, and so very vital, change. That possibility is unbeatable.

On the other hand, doing as my friend did, you get a "yes, I've been through problems, but now I'm fine" and it truly were. Character after character told their life stories and although they all were intriguing and full of conflicts, most of them ended in "but now I'm fine", excluding what we just learned from the rest of the story. That is not exactly to use the media optimally. And it is not fair to the story to not successfully give it a change to seduce its readers, or viewers if it had been a movie.

When you are caught up in a story you live with its characters. None of us are perfect and it is easier to like someone who is like yourself or has treats you recognise. But perfectness has a nice ring to it, so by following our new alter ego we learn how to reach this as the character learns. And what is there to learn if the character was not exposed to conflicts? If she always got what she wanted, when she wanted it? And not only exposed to conflicts, but being right in the middle of them, forcing the character to act? Yes, you would probably shy away if it really were you, but if you for some reason could not, or if you one day should turn bold and brave, then what should you do? What should you dream about doing? That is why conflicts in the story are so important.

Captain Vivia

2015-02-06T10:04:00.002+01:00

Monday the 26th I saw the two versions of ”The Kill”. Five days later, on the 31th, I had the opportunity to see yet another film for which I’ve written the script: “Kapten Vivia” (“Captain Vivia”), director Simon Jansson.

It was screened last in a group of other short films which had recived the same kind of financial support. Of the other films one was a bit fun and one had potential to be good, but the rest was close to an agonizing experience. And then came “Kapten Vivia” as an uplifting, liberating and incredibly beautiful ending. Yes, I know I'm biased, but I've only written the script; the beautiful photo, Ping Mon Wallén's outstanding acting performance and Simon Jansson's direction skills and the accomplishment taken by others involved are all beyond my control, and therefore something I feel I’m free to praise without a brag factor involved.

"Kapten Vivia" is about a girl who loses her beloved mother in a car accident, and to top it all she takes the blame for it. Therefore, she escapes into a dream world. But even there, she cannot forever forget what happened.

It is the third of my scripts that Simon Jansson and Sx2 Productions has filmed. The first was "A vital meeting" which premiered in 2010. In the autumn of 2009 I got in touch with Simon, who sought a short film script to turn into a film. I had just sold my first, to a producer in the US even, and Simon was thoroughly professional and I wrote and got paid unsuspecting that the buyer was fourteen years old. That's what's so wonderful with the Internet. A lot of prejudices never get a chance. And what movie he made of the script! Then as now, he gives me the feeling that he will become a well-known director.

Alla images belongs to Simon Jansson
and is used with his approval.

GoKinema 2015 - Open Set and "The Kill"

2015-02-04T12:34:00.000+01:00

Edit 2015-05-13:
Since I wrote this it has turned out that Gothenburg Studios which hosts GoKinema is not a professional, serious company when it comes to screenwriters and their scripts. They brought in another writer without asking me and they had no idea this was wrong, nor felt any need to explain or excuse this. Instead they prefered to pretend that neither of the films ever existed.

GoKinema 2015 First Day from Gothenburg Studios on Vimeo.

Every year Gothenburg Studios arranges an event they call GoKinema. It is a meeting point for professionals and enthusiasts who want to see and learn more about making films. They have an expo and seminars and the very popular Open Set – making film in front of an audience. The crew has a day to film an about four page script. This is then repeated for two or three days, with different cinematographer and director, but the same script and set and most of the crew. This year they had held an international contest for the script and my contribution "The Kill"… well, it won.

Photo: Christian Holst. GoKinema Open Set 2015, stated as "Living room" in the script

So I had the fortune to see my script turned into no less than two films by established professionals (and yet another two made by film students – though these were not made in front of an audience and not with me present, and so far I’ve not been able to see the final cuts).

Photo: Christian Holst. GoKinema Open Set 2015 Ardalan Hakimi Fard and Ninja Thyberg

Photo: Christian Holst. GoKinema Open Set 2015, Dick Pope and Cecilia Torquato

On the first day award winning Ninja Thyberg directed and the equally award winning Dewald Aukema was DoP, with Leif Edlund and Ardalan Hakimi Fard as the two characters in my script. On the second day Leif Edlund acted against Karin de Frumerie instead, with Cecilia Torquato as director and Oscar Nominee Dick Pope as DoP.

Photo: Christian Holst. GoKinema Open Set 2015, Dewald Aukema

The results were two different films, though based on the same script. And, in my opinion, both very close to its spirit.

What did I do on the set? Nothing but watching. And no one expected me to do anything else. Actually, most of the crew didn’t even know I was there. A moderator guided the audience through the day and one of them interviewed me between two takes, but other than that I kept a low profile.

Photo: Christian Holst. GoKinema Open Set 2015, Karin de Frumerie

One thing I learned when it comes to writing is to keep the image moving. If they had followed my script to the letter, much would have been like talking statues; a pretty picture with dialog. Fortunately the directors and cinematographers had better sense than that and made the images interesting and intriguing.

Photo: Christian Holst. GoKinema Open Set 2015, Leif Edlund

In the audience I got questions about which version I preferred and how it felt like to have my script altered. I cannot see it like that. It would probably been different if I didn’t feel that both versions kept the spirit of the script and became something completely off the charts, but now this was not the case. My goal was the script. That is the part I take pride in. To have professionals do a film on something I have written is sheer joy. It wouldn’t cross my mind to tell any of them how to do their job. Just the fact that my script – taken to the letter – would have been too static to be interesting says a lot about that a writer is a writer; No less part of the machinery, but still a part, not the all wise mind.

It was two day's I'll always keep with me in my heart.

What is GoKinema? from Gothenburg Studios on Vimeo.

I'll be back

2015-02-03T10:00:00.000+01:00

Yes, I'll be back here. Soon.

Yes, I'm still writing movie scripts. And yes, I am writing them in English. Just have some patience with me. Though I've worked hard for this look on the blog, I think a restart deserves a new look. I'm working on that now.

Yes, life moved on, and no, it has not moved back, it has just started in include something instead of exclude. Some things in life just stays to strong. Or it is just me with hubris.

But when I saw the sudden amount of hits on this blog, likely due to my winning of GoKinema contest, I realised that some things should not be neglected.

Life moves on

2014-04-26T19:52:00.001+02:00

I've decided to finish this blog.

It has served it's purpose well; it helped me become a better screenwriter and find my way into the business.

But today... well... I write novels in Swedish mostly.

What I need today is a possible door to Swedish readers and a way for me to practice writing in my native language; something much neglected for many years. Hence leaving this place in the digital universe for a new: a Swedish blog.

Thank you for these years and all support.

Blog entry 1305, signing out.

Do your research or make a fool of yourself

2014-04-17T09:00:00.000+02:00

When I read the comic The Phantom as a kid there was a story where a rich guy claimed to have found the grave of Cleopatra, the last queen of old Egypt. Since the Phantom himself had relics from the grave and knew that the tomb itself was destroyed, he knew the discovery was a fake and went to Egypt. There the press walks into a newly discovered pyramid by a big hole in the wall and looks at Cleopatra’s sarcophagus standing alone on the floor of a large hall. The Phantom claims it is a fake and gets chased and caught in the major labyrinth systems of the pyramid.

Anyone with any knowledge about pyramids and Egypt’s history can see that the persons responsible for this story had now idea of what they were doing. Yes, I saw this as a kid too.

Pyramids were built to be seen. They have been know and seen since they were built. Smaller ones have been covered by sand over the years, yes, but they were not for pharaohs. There is no way you could discover a new, big pyramid buried in the sand, excavate it in secrecy and place a false sarcophagus inside. Besides, the discovery itself is worth every attention.

Then you don’t break a wall to enter a large hall. Pyramids are basically solid with one or two small chambers inside with tunnels to them. Pyramids do not contain labyrinths and lethal traps.

The tombs in the Valley of the Kings may however. And here is a funny historical mumbojumbo in that Phantom story: Burials in pyramids were abandoned looong before Cleopatra’s death. Since the pyramids were plundered, the pharaohs began to build their tombs in what became known as The Valley of the Kings. Secret work and sometimes built to be lethal for those who entered. The workers were likely killed when the grave was done. This custom was also abandoned before Cleopatra.

So, placing a false sarcophagus in a large chamber within a pyramid no one knew of, claiming it has mazes and traps and then insisting Cleopatra is inside that sarcophagus… You don’t need to own the real mummified snake to know that it has to be a made-up story.

Do your research or make a fool of yourself.

A thought

2014-04-12T09:00:00.000+02:00

I've received feedback on two texts (not published on this blog) telling me that my main characters are unfriendly and gives a bad first impression.

I can't help but wondering if I would have received the same response if the main characters were male.

Toil Tuesday: Story Cubes

2014-03-25T09:00:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time there was a child who questioned if she was good at anything at all. She thought she was good at eating, but she was told she ate too much, and that was bad. She liked to play with her ball and while throwing was okay she had a hard time catching it again and then it bounced away and more often than not the ball ended up in the street or found its way through someone’s window. She was no good at reading – the small strangely shaped fly poops didn’t make any sense to her. One thing she was good at was sleeping, but as with eating, she did too much of that too. Others made fun of her when they played hide-and-seek, because she could never keep from peeking. Depressed the little child stood there, alone in her room. She wasn’t good at anything. Then she heard her mother playing the piano downstairs and she began to dance to the melody. She felt that this was her call: she was good at dancing. To prevent the grown-ups from telling her otherwise, she promised herself never to show her dance to anyone.

Exploring character

2014-03-17T09:00:00.000+01:00

In every story there is at least one character. Every story is told by at least one teller. The characters in the story have no voices of their own. They are described through the storytellers, like you and I.

Every image of a person, written or painted, is told through the eyes of the creator of the image. They are not a direct voice by the person portrayed.

Why is it important to keep this in mind?

Because a story is characters in movement. They moving and talking. So?

When you meet people in real life they are real. They have a voice of their own. You perceive what they say and do as you and keep your own memory of what happened based on who you are. When you use that memory to describe the person and what he or she did and said, it is your memory talking, not the person you met.

In a story, like a novel or a movie, we experience the illusion of living, talking characters, but all we actually get is the voice of the writer or the film crew. If you as a storyteller want every banker to be fat liars, you show them in such way. This does not mean that each and every banker is a fat liar. Your perception of bankers is not likely how each individual banker would describe his- or herself. In your story they do not have a voice of their own. All there is is your voice.

When you meet people in real life they are real. They have a voice of their own. They affect directly, by their own, as individuals.

A portrait is a description by someone else.

As I see it, your job as a storyteller is to look past your own voice and listen to those who, once your story is told, will be robbed of their voice. You can give voice or mute whoever you like. It will always be your story and your descriptions, but remember that they will cast in solid concrete once reached an audience. There will be no turning back.

The question is: will they experience your point of view of the world only, or several positions? Will there be one voice, or many?

A general update

2014-03-14T09:00:00.000+01:00

No, there will be no Face Friday today. Time has not been what I have had most of this week.

Strange expression, don’t you think? You always have the same amount of time. A day is 24 hours. A week 7 days. Well, anyhow, I thought I should do a little update on my novel writing.

I have finished my first draft of “The Unwilling Goddess” a few weeks ago. I’ve sent it to some friends for feedback. The few who finished reading have been a little too positive so far, but I’ve also gained valuable insight in where I have missed. There are two characters I know I will develop further and one vital scene that is not clear enough what happens. The first two chapters are not that well written I have learned too, but that is not surprising – I mean, it was the first text of its kind that I had written in years. I’ve re-read parts of the draft, adding Adobe’s little yellow post-it notes in the margin, but I’ll wait at least a month before I read the whole of it. I need to get some distance, so I read what there is and not what I want it to be.

In the meantime I have started a new novel: “Born a Priestess”. It takes place in the same world as the previous but in another place. My graphic novel The Recreators is part of a larger story, and when I cut it down to become a moviescript I focused on Simmiolas and his story. My new novel is about Vepresila, a woman he meets during his journey and overall is what I had to cut earlier, but better.

Then I have The Moon People Fragments too.

New board on Pintrest

2014-03-12T09:00:00.000+01:00

Follow Désirée Nordlund's board Realm of Fantasy on Pinterest.

Have you seen my new board on pintrest?

It is meant to be a dreamlike inspirational board with a favour for colors and shapes.