Phin Hall's Blog

Eight months ago, I got the opportunity to write a screenplay and, at last, the second draft is complete. I call this the ‘Clothes Rack’ draft. This is where the story gets written in full for the first time, but it’s still only a general sense of how the final story will be – it’s like a wardrobe full of clothes, that can now be shifted around, added to and taken away, though the general shape will remain the same.

In case you’re interested, this is the full list of drafts I go through before handing the work over for publishing:

The Butcher’s Block: Having got an idea of the plot and the main characters, it’s time to start writing. What is mostly happening in this first draft is getting down broad chunks of plot, slicing out subplots, forming characters and producing prime cuts of location and dialogue. By the time it’s written, there is a mound of bone and flesh, but the story is far from a living, breathing and complete creation.
The Clothes Rack: The first draft is placed to one side and the whole thing starts again, with a full write through from start to finish. By the time it’s done, the structure of the rack (aka. the story) is in place, but the clothes (in this case, chapters/scenes/paragraphs etc.) are not fixed in place. They can be moved around, taken away, added in and adapted. This is usually the draft I send to beta readers for their valuable input.
The Marble Block: Just as a sculptor chisels a statue from a rough block of marble (or other substance), so too, in the third draft, the story is chiselled into shape – the dialogue is tightened, description is crafted, characters are brought to life. This is the draft I send off to my editor.
The Tower Block: Over the course of a few months, I watched a block of flats in London turn from an architectural eye into a mound of rubble, from a wasteland into a building site, and finally into a luxurious (and far too expensive) apartment block. This is what happens to the story in draft four. Following the editor’s suggestions, the entire structure is worked over, broken down and built up, with the aim of transforming it into something far more beautiful, complete and satisfying than it was before.
The Stage Block: Books are essentially speech. Whether they are read aloud or silently, they are still communicated through voice – either physically or mentally. This being the case, I get up in front of a microphone (not actually on stage, but as good as) and read the text out loud in its entirety. This is the best to test if the story makes sense, flows, and generally feels right on my tongue. Anything that is clunky or needlessly repetitive or any one of a thousand other things that could be slightly off gets changed. I will usually record this for the audiobook at the same time, thus producing the Stage Block Draft, which you may also call the Final Draft, or Finished Product.

I restrict myself to these five drafts because my natural inclination is to keeping tweaking and polishing and generally messing around with the book rather than getting it out there. Certainly, there are always things I’d like to change when I look at the finished product, especially the more time passes and the more experience I get … but letting it go is all part of the process.

By the way, if you can think of a ‘block’ to replace ‘Clothes Rack’ for the second draft, please let me know. “Writer’s block” is not an option!

As the title suggests, I have a new audiobook coming out. It’s due to be released on Audible later this month (May 2017), but it will be right here on this site in just a few days!

I’d like to say a big thank you to my son, David, who edited the mess of audio I gave him, and even managed to get the whole thing finished up by the end of April. Good job!

Watch this space…

An exciting opportunity has arisen to write a screenplay based on a specific aspect of World War II. Having spent the last month or so researching – reading every book on the topic and watching what felt like most of YouTube – I am now starting work on plotting out the scenes.

Just thought I’d share that. And you never know, you might even get the chance to watch it on the big screen one day…

So, with only a vague idea of where this book is headed, I have set out on the voyage to write the third in the Omnifex Chronicles: Montgomery’s Fear of the Dark.

The aim to get 50-60 thousand words written by the end of November, which will hopefully make up the entire first draft. Subsequent drafts will grow the book by up to 20% as plots reveal themselves and have to be tidied up and have back stories added etc. Most of the plots emerge as the book’s being written, but the main one (and a few side plots) is already laid out.

I’ll keep the daily word count updated on my Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/phinhallauthor/ and I’ll also update the sidebar (on the left there)

Right – that’s 138 words I should have written in this book!

Check out the cover from the CWR design team – lovely work!

Now that I have a tentative title and a possible plot for the third Montgomery book – “Montgomery’s Fear of the Dark” – I have decided to change the voice for this one. By voice, I really mean the book’s point-of-view. For Montgomery’s Trouble in the Underworld and Montgomery’s Battle with Atlantis, the whole story is told from Montgomery’s point-of-view. This worked fine for what was a fairly straightforward plot, even with a few twists and turns, but book 3 is going to be faster paced and with more story strands woven together. At this point in the planning stage, I’m looking at around 5 different points-of-view, adding Marlah, Alcott, Gabriella and Jeff’s voice to Montgomery’s.

I’ll let you know how it goes as the writing begins…

Well, it’s been a slightly longer time coming than I’d hoped, but finally, a mere six months late, the second book of Montgomery’s adventures has arrived.

The back cover blurb says:

Hundreds of metres below the city of London, thirteen year old Montgomery Vane tries to forget about his horrible new school on the Surface and master the powers he used to defeat his evil Aunt Payton. But figuring out how to control his magic is a lot harder than he hoped. And there’s no time to lose! A terrifying new threat is surging through the Underworld. If Montgomery is going to help save his friends from the fearsome soldiers of Atlantis, he needs to learn fast – even if it means forging the most unlikely of alliances.

Ebook and Paperback available on Amazon, or you can get MOBI and EPUB versions from this site, here.

Enjoy!

The new map, drawn by Jon Wotton, in all its glory!

In preparation for the release of Montgomery’s Battle with Atlantis next month, Jon Wotton – the guy who made the map of Steepleford – is working on a new map of the Underworld city of Lundarien.

Here’s a copy of my preliminary sketch. Jon’s will, thankfully, be much better!

The weeks are streaming past, and November is suddenly mere moments away. So, while I’m busying myself with the plot for the murder-mystery novel – which is proving to be a very different creature from plotting my other novels – I thought I’d give you the premise for the story.

It goes as follows:

Following the death of his father, Lord Protector of Trinity Isle, our protagonist reluctantly heads into the English Channel the funeral, hoping it will be a short (and final) visit to his old island home. Events, however, conspire against him and he soon finds himself drawing into investigating his father’s possibly-suspicious death. Old friends and new raise up to offer assistance, but the string of deaths that follow suck him deeper and deeper into island life. Will he ever get to leave?

From this vantage point (i.e. before I start writing), my hope is to present Trinity Isle as a humorously insular place, full of bizarre rituals and eccentric characters – a strange but amusing backdrop to the terrible deaths that take place there.

One thing that has me stumped, however, is what the protagonist should be called.

Ideas?