Crime drama script – The opening extract

Another of our Professional Writing assignments was to create a script for television in a genre of our choice. We were asked to write the opening eight to ten minutes of the programme and specify which channel would be suitable for the show. I chose to create a crime drama that I named ‘Forensic’ to be shown on BBC One. As a HUGE fan of programmes such as CSI:NY, Criminal Minds, Silent Witness and Waking The Dead, I was eager to try my own hand at crime writing.

Below is a small extract from my script, if you would like to read the full piece (which of course, you would) you can do so by clicking here.

INT. SCHOOL KITCHEN – DAY
A friendly, plump DINNER LADY, who looks to be in her late fifties, is bustling around the kitchen. She is by herself, finishing up after the school day. The large, stainless steel kitchen seems very empty and quiet. She carries two large, fit-to-burst bin bags towards the door.

EXT. SIDE ALLEY, SCHOOL – DAY
The dinner lady heaves the bags on to an already over flowing pile, misjudging her efforts and knocking the bags to the floor.

DINNER LADY
(muttering)
Tsk, damn bin men. Easiest job in the world and they can’t even do that properly, leaving it all here in a…

She stares at the cause of her abrupt halt. A YOUNG, DARK-SKINNED BOY’s body lays lifelessly in a pool of blood beneath the scattered bags, his school uniform stained deep red around an unnatural whole in his stomach.

DINNER LADY (CONT’D)
(screaming, backing away frantically)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! SOMEONE, SOMEONE HELP!

 

Hooked…? Read on.

A Blooming Affair – A Short Story, Part 2

      WAIT! If you haven’t read Part One of this short story, please do so before you read any further! You can find it by clicking…HERE. Wouldn’t want to ruin it for yourself, would you? If you have already read Part One you are very sensible and please continue. I would also be very grateful for any constructive criticism you may have regarding my short story, although nothing too horrible please, I’m not sure I could handle it…

      On this particular evening I was admiring the woodland with my children. They bounced around beside me, happy and content now winter had passed. Their rich golden heads – a hereditary gift from both their mother and I – bobbing dizzily from side to side, occasionally bumping into each other as they enjoyed the sun and the gentle breeze. The woodland was calm, my family and I the only company for the newly emerging bluebells, interrupted here and there only by a tiny bird or mouse, until I felt her footsteps through the earth below me.

            As the dog-walker approached I watched as the small, cream dog bounded alongside her. She was accompanied today by a tall man, a fellow dog-walker I presumed, as also added to the pack was a large labrador, his big pink tongue lolling casually from his mouth. I talk here of course, of the labrador’s tongue, not the man. I considered quietly the idea that I should perhaps get a dog of my own to attract the attention of this beautiful woman, the only woman to have ever caught my eye since my wife. She was so different from my wife that I could scarcely believe I had even noticed her, her hair was dark and seemed to capture and keep the light, a stark contrast from the glow of gold my wife had radiated, and her skin was pale, like beautiful, smooth ivory. Her elegance emitted almost a sense of coolness which you might imagine to be unpleasant, but as I watched her walk and chat amicably to her acquaintance I lost myself in her, and felt a warmth I’d never felt before almost washing over me, trickling through me like new life in my veins. As she swung around sharply to face me, however, I snapped out of my dream like state and realised two things, very fast, and at the same time. In my preoccupied condition I had failed to notice the small woolly creature approach me, sniffing and sweeping its nose from side to side along the soil, to finally reach a standstill in front of me and do none other than cock its leg. I’d also failed to correctly identify the warm, relaxing sensation that washed over my entire body as I gazed at the woman I implored to acknowledge me. Now, as she looked directly at me, turning her graceful body towards my family and I and striding purposefully back the way she had come, I realised my mistake.

            “Harvey!” She addressed the small, lamb-like dog. “Stop pissing on that poor daffodil!”

A Blooming Affair – A Short Story, Part 1

 I wrote this short story for a recent assignment as part of our Professional Writing unit. It revolves around the grief the narrator has had to deal with in the past and looks at his new love interest, a mysterious woman who catches his eye in the woods. This is part one of the story, part two will follow shortly. The story is named ‘A Blooming Affair’ and hopefully you’ll find an interesting twist to the tale of this flowering romance. Oh, it was also a great excuse to put up pictures of my adorable Bichon Frise - Hugo, who features in the story but under a different name. I wanted to protect his privacy, you see, didn’t think he could handle all the press and papparazzi outside his door… enjoy.

            I saw her almost every morning and evening, strolling through the woodland with her small, woolly dog. So woolly, was he, in fact, that on first glance I mistook him for a sheep. She was beautiful, this dog-walking lady, in my eyes anyway. Yet she never noticed me, and we never spoke. She’d come close but never close enough and I would find myself static, surrounded by my family; invisible to her and unable to talk. I studied her when I could, picking out the graceful detail on her face and in the way that she walked. I was captivated by her despite the overwhelming realisation that she was out of my league, a completely different species. Through her beauty I attempted to derive her age and I’d hazard a guess that she was in her late thirties, although sometimes when she’d pass me on one of her evening walks, perhaps after a stressful day at work, her attractive face edged elegantly closer to her early forties. But anyway, what was age? I’d lost track of mine many years back. 

            I wouldn’t be lying if I said I was lonely.  An onlooker would question how I could possibly feel such an emotion, because, amongst other things I was part of such a massive, beautiful family. I had brothers and sisters and cousins and second cousins, aunts and uncles and even an ancient old grandma. Bless her, we all thought she’d give up the ghost long ago but year after year she came back fighting. But this supersized family, as loyal as there were, for they rarely left my side, couldn’t replace the gaping, aching hole that punctured my life; the real core of my loneliness – the death of my wife. Four years ago, during a particularly long and deadly winter she had contracted a fatal illness in which she simply could not withstand the icy depths of the harsh season, and although much breath-holding was carried out by my relatives for a new lease of life as winter faded, my soul mate passed away and spring arrived with a fresh wave of grief and loss. I found myself left not only without a soul mate, but without a soul.

            As the years passed I withered through the dark winters, crippled by the cold and the memory of what had happened, curled into myself and hidden, distanced from my family and friends by the heaviness of what held me down. Every year I’d think I’d reached the end, that I couldn’t possibly bring myself out of this. I felt the weight of the earth above me and the cold froze my soul, the hard frost of winter and of loss immobilised my senses as I struggled through the pain. Seasonal affective disorder stretched to its extremes, tautened by the grief and memory of my wife.

“Keep trying, Dad” the children would whisper through my dark veil of mourning and the dirt and debris of things I couldn’t deal with, and I’d withdraw even further into myself, believing surely that I would let them down and never make it through the cold. But each year spring would arrive and I would feel my heart begin to beat again. The weight would lift and I would push through the depths of my grief until I could feel the sun on my skin once more.

(For Part 2 click HERE because it’s really exciting and you can’t carry on your daily life without knowing what happens…)