#mad lori

[buddivorce]

yearly occasion where i think about performance in a leading role by mad_lori and how i wish sherlock holmes and john watson were up for oscars in the drama romance film of the century director ang lee

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Spotlight Fanfiction #10) To a Stranger

I’ve spoken at great length elsewhere about the were and when this fanfiction originated, so I won’t reiterate everything here.

 But suffice it to say, this is the fanfic I’m proudest of, and believe it or not, this is the only one I’ve ‘scratched the serial numbers off of’ and am currently pushing as an original script (with, of course, the full knowledge and support of @MadLori, the creator of the original fic this one is based on, Performance in a Leading Role.)

Like “He Kissed Me First”, “To a Stranger” is a fanfic of fanfic. In this case, it’s another AU, but this time of Sherlock. In PIaLR, Sherlock and John are actors who meet and fall in love on the set of a gay dramatic romance film, and the struggles they face with being queer in Hollywood. As a screenwriter at that point in my career, and having begun to work in film as well, the tale caught hold of my imagination and I couldn’t stop thinking about the made-up film in the fic, “To a Stranger” (named after the Whitman poem of the same name).

This fic didn’t teach me while writing it so much (although I did a lot of reading and watching lectures about story structure for the screen as I wrote it), but it’s been the catalyst for me learning tons more about the film industry in the aftermath.  

The screenplay has already been through it’s first round of film festivals and laurels, a laugh of an award-win that was suddenly retracted when the festival realized it had forgotten to eliminate the category, a table-read that blew up act three so it required a re-write, a signing with a director and subsequent mild development hell, a return of rights to me, and is now making the rounds through the major broadcasters in Canada today as part of the drive to produce more Canadian work during the lockdown. It’s been... a ride I didn’t expect. I have learned SO MUCH about how films are (and aren’t) made

I still hope one day it gets made.

It felt very appropriate to end this series on my own serial-numbers fic because while profic is the path I happened to stumble onto as a fanfiction writer, a) it was never my original aim, and b) I would never have got here if it wasn’t for all the comments, beta-reads, critiques, opportunities to play, and safety net of the fanfiction community.

Thanks for following along with me. I hope you enjoyed the stories as I introduced them. And if you liked the fics, please consider heading to my website to check out my profic, too.

[scifrey]

Time for a “To A Stranger” screenplay update. I’m not sure where I last left the narrative, so I’ll pick up from after the festivals in 2016. The screenplay did passably well – four laurels, one honourable mention, one award that I won (and then un-won), and placed in the 60s in the Nichols. However, it didn’t attract production attention, which is why I had even put it into the festival circuit in the first place.

The way festivals are organized for screenplays is weird, and for reasons I don’t understand, they try to hide the screenplays and results? I don’t get it.

Anyway, the summer of 2016 came and went, with no offers, so I tucked the screenplay away and started working on a webseries instead. Around this time, I was discussing the screenplay’s journey through the festival circuit with a friend in film and he said “I’d like to read it.”

He read it, liked it, and asked for permission to make it. He’s a director with his own small company here in Toronto. I discussed with @Mad_Lori and we hashed out an agreement and contract between us to make sure that everything was on the up and up, and I signed it with his production company.

Since then I’ve done a few edits for length and to turn the story more script-y. Recently, I had a wonderful group of actor friends over to mine to read the whole screenplay out loud. When you do that, you really find places where you repeat yourself, or have too many big emotional moments side-by-side without breathing space for the audience, or, in my case, make Mark cry in like five scenes in a row. :p

I took a few months to pull the screenplay apart and piece it back together in a better fashion – including adding some B-plot, because, you know, I forgot to do that in the first version * headdesk * - and the screenplay is now more-or-less locked and back in the hands of the director.

We’ve discussed dream casting, locations, and some other production considerations (such as agreeing that we should hire a whole Behind the Scenes crew / someone with a camera so you guys get to follow along on social as the film is made).

Right now, the director is working on securing funding, and an executive producer to oversee the production.  

We had a long talk about it, and we’ve decided not to crowdfund the film – partially because we don’t want to dig into your pockets and make the fans feel like they HAVE to donate, partially because if the production doesn’t go forward, we’d have taken your money for nothing, and partially because the rules about how films are funded can be a gray area when it comes to submitting to festivals. Also, we don't want to be taking advantage of the fans. It's not cool.

And we really, really, really want to submit it to festivals.

This is one of those stumbling-block, pre-production hell moments that could go a few different ways. We could simply fail to secure funding; it’s possible that the granting agencies and executive producers we approach could have no interest in making this film, and that’s where the project flounders and sinks.

We could secure funding and then get caught in a back and forth about locations, hiring, casting, revisions, any number of things, and while the production company is trying to sort it out, the funding can dry up. We could get an executive producer on board, get funding, film it, and then be stuck in a long, painful editing process. Or we could make it, decide it’s not good enough, and bury it. You honestly never know.

The film could be made and ready to circulate by next festival season. Or it could be years. Or it could be never. I honestly can’t tell you one way or another.

What I can tell you is that everyone currently attached to the film earnestly wants to see it happen.

I say “we” a lot above, but honestly, my part in the whole process is actually done now. I’ve handed over what we call a “locked” screenplay – that is, there are no more changes to be made before production begins. If changes do have to happen, that’s a further negotiation between me and the director/producer, and that’s when I start inserting colored pages and asterisks all over the place. But this version ought to be the one that the actors perform at the first table read, at least.

I’m hoping to be on set during the filming itself so we can workshop and make changes on the spot, but beyond that, my part to play as the screenwriter is more or less finished. I’ve got nothing to do until it’s time to walk the red carpet, really!

So, uh, do any of you guys have some Executive Producer friends you can toss my way?

[scifrey]

PART 1 - The Tease | PART 2 - Lori Announces It | PART 3 -  How This Screenplay Came To Be | PART 4 - The Fic is Posted | PART 5 - Continuity Questions | PART 6 - the Importance of Fanfic | PART 7 - Nichols Competition Reader Notes | PART 8 - Festival Results | PART 9 - I Got LaLaLanded | PART 10  - Cheeky Update | PART 11 - The Screenplay is Optioned 

 Hello friends! It’s time for another TO A STRANGER update.  

Welcome to PART 12 - Gimmie

I last left the narrative with information that a film director had signed the rights for development on the screenplay, and that his company was working on pre-production in Toronto. That was in August of 2018.

It’s now April 2020, and with all film production halted due to the global pandemic and preventative lock-downs, what little the production company was able to do has ground to a stop.

After a conversation with several other filmmakers, and my agent, I came to the difficult but ultimately freeing decision to invoke the sunset clause on my contract with the director, and sever our ties. He’s a nice dude with some nice ideas, but clearly this thing wasn’t going to be happening under his company or we would have been much further along than “I’m talking to some people” after two years.

The screenplay, IP, and all the rights have been fully returned.

Which is good, because just after I decided to pull the plug on this relationship, my agent reached out with an offer to pitch some stories to a really big player in the media development game. This company is looking for some unpublished novels, short stories, and scripts to turn into audio books or audio dramas.

So, TO A STRANGER has been pitched to this company. Please keep your fingers crossed!

And there’s a big grant available to Canadian artists right now to help creators transfer their thwarted art into a digital format so the audience can still access it. It’s meant for folks whose plays were cancelled, or art shows were pushed back, or for people like me, whose films got shut down. The grant provides both money and mentorship, allowing artists to find ways to transform their in-person thing to a remotely-created-and-shareable-online thing.

 I also pitched TO A STRANGER to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) as an audio drama podcast (professionally performed and produced, of course).

So that’s where it’s all sitting now--just waiting to hear from either of these opportunities. (That’s the joy of being a professional writer... so much of your time is spent waiting to hear back.)

As always, thank you so everyone following along, and for your support and love. I look forward to the next update.

In the meantime, you can still read the fanfiction version here. And if you’re interested in me and what else I’ve written, you can find my novels here.

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EDIT: I did not get chosen for the grant (apparently they had EIGHT THOUSAND applications), but I’m still waiting to hear from the CBC Podcasting team about whether they’re interested in taking it and funding it from their own budget, as well as from the major media company.

[scifrey]

It’s now been a year and a half since I first posted “To A Stranger”, based on Mad Lori’s Performance in a Leading Role, on Archive of Our Own. The response was phenomenal and the comments and kudos from the Sherlock Fan Community have been heartwarming. I talk about the process of writing the script/ fanfic here, if you’re interested.

(I’m currently struggling with the rewrite of one of my non-fic novels, and sometimes when I’m really bummed about it, I go back to the TaS comments and read through them all again to remind me that my work is loved and that people can be generous and kind, and that the hard work is worth it.)

It’s now also been just over a year since I decided, with Lori’s permission and the encouragement of Kelley, Random Nexus, and the rest of the Sherlock Community, to tighten the fanfiction up into an original script and start submitting it around to film festivals and screenplay competitions.

Yesterday, I heard back from my final competition, so I thought I would give everyone a snapshot of what has happened with the script.

Here are the competitions I submitted to:

Toronto International Screenwriting Competition The Carmesi: International Screenwriting Contest for Diverse Voices. 2016 Launch Pad Feature Competition Depth of Field International Film Festival Vail Screenplay Contest California Women's Film Festival (Summer) Hamilton Film Festival - Canadian Film Market 2nd Annual Stage 32 Happy Writers Feature Script Contest Shore Scripts Screenplay Contest Neu World Studios International Film Festival Script Pipeline Screenwriting and TV Writing Competition Toronto Independent Film Festival Slamdance Screenplay Competition Vancouver Lift-Off Film Festival Canada International Film Festival The Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting

Now, what happens when you submit is that someone – usually an intern, a volunteer, or a jury member – sorts through the submissions and organizes the selections for the first-round readers to take a crack at. At that point they either reject the entry for being incomplete or incorrect, or at the next stage, decline to include it in the festival/competition. The screenplay (or finished film if it’s a film festival) is then moved out of consideration.

But if they select it for consideration in the competition, then the screenplay is called an “Official Selection” and you get laurels to use on posters, on your website, and in media packages. Like this:

To A Stranger was named an Official Selection / Finalist of the four festivals above.

However, only three of those announcements were made public as it turns out that the Canada International Film Festival had accidentally included and judged categories that it had intended to eliminate. We finalists were informed and shouldn’t have been. (You can read more about that small disaster here.)

From there the judges read the scripts and suggest their winners. Rejected scripts often, at this point, receive notification that they weren’t selected as a winner, and sometimes get suggested editing notes. My notes were… wildly contradictory. One reader said they loved the distinct voices of the characters, and another said they were unrealistic and that people never have such distinct voices. Some were mad that it was a gay love story where gay issues weren’t the central topic of the film, and some were relieved that it was a gay love story where gay issues weren’t the central topic of the film. Some loved the mood and tone of my descriptions, and some said there was too much “authoring” happening in the descriptions.

From there, To A Stranger was given two awards:

(The latter being the “Rising Star Award” at the Canada International Film Festival that I was informed I had won, and then immediately told that actually, they were eliminating the category. Oops, sorry.)

In summary, I entered 16 competitions over the length of one calendar year, was made an official selection four times, and won two awards (sort of).

However, what I really wanted out of the competitions – a producer to contact me to discuss options – never happened.

The producer who DID contact me about it, though… well, that’s a story for later. Once the discussions that are happening can be made public and contracts are signed.

I’ll keep you appraised of what’s happening there. My hopes are up, but as they say in the world of film:

Everything is nothing until it’s actually something.

Thanks for taking this journey with me, Fandom. I can’t wait until I can tell you about what happened next.

[scifrey]

I was asked to repost/make rebloggable the silly wee epilogue I wrote in the comments of To A Stranger, which is based on the Sherlock AU fic Performance in a Leading Role.

*

MmeLibrarian8:

That was absolutely so beautiful!! The poem recurring to give closure- sigh, and tears.

But seriously, Roland takes one look at Mark that evening and says," Go to him. You don't get love like that and walk away. I respect your honoring what we have had, and I will cherish its memory. But Go to Him."

Losyark:

Yeah, in my mind Roland comes back from the wine shop with something that will go with dinner, and something that is bubbly.

Mark isn't sure why Roland bought bubbly, because Roland doesn't like it. But Mark puts it in the fridge anyway.

Roland and Mark make dinner together (Roland picks up the smooshed rosehead and puts it in a blossom vase; Mark has a blossom case because Roland thought it was quirky and bought it for him at a thrift shop), and Mark clearly wants to talk about something. Mark says nothing, though, and they have dinner. Mark is chewing himself up inside and Roland is patient and waiting for him to gather the words and the breath and the courage.

While Mark does the dishes, Roland picks up the journal and flips through it a little. Clearly Mark isn't going to be able to say it. It's up to Roland, then. A slip of paper slides out of the book, and Roland reads it, then sets it down on the island, precisely under a hanging light where it is sure to be seen.

"He's eloquent," Roland says.

Mark starts, reaches out with a soapy hand to snatch the journal away, and stops himself halfway through. "I... that's...."

"Mark, I know who he is," Roland says. He closes the journal and leans on the island.

"You do?" Mark asks, guiltily.

"He's the hydrangeas, isn't he?"

"The hy... huh?"

Roland smiles sadly, turning the rose in the blossom vase so it will spread nicely. "He's the hydrangeas. He's the stumble in Jack Layton Park. He's the knock on the door in your brother's old building. He's the pat on the gravestone of that woman who isn't related to you every Sunday afternoon. He's the way you turn your face away from Princess Margret when we walk down University. He's the way you ignore your mother's calls."

Mark is stunned, all the breath knocked out of him. "Roland--"

"He's Ben, isn't he?"

"How do you know--?"

Roland's smile gets wider, and sadder, even as the corners of his eyes crinkle up. "Sometimes you say his name. Instead of mine."

Mark drops his dishtowel, he's so mortified. "Roland, I'm sorry."

Roland stands. "Don't be."

"Roland--"

"Look, Mark. I like you. I like you a lot. What we have, it's good. It's nice. But it's nothing like what HE has." He taps the cover of the journal.

"No, Roland, wait, I--"

"Mark."

"What about you? It's not fair to you for me to--"

Roland walks around the island and takes Mark's face between his hands and kisses him quiet, slow and soft. "Shut up, you silly man," he whispers against Mark's mouth. "Mark Farthing, you care about other people entirely too much. Time to take care of YOURSELF."

Mark nods, miserable, bites his lower lip and savors the taste of this last kiss.

"Now," Roland says, stepping away. "There was a hotel card in the journal with his room number on it. Here, I've left it on the counter. There's champagne in the fridge, and I know you have some of that ridiculous dark chocolate you like in your desk drawer. Go on."

Mark nods again. "Thank you."

"Thank YOU," Roland says. "You're a good man. Now got get your reward for being so. Ah!" he says, stopping Mark as he dives for the fridge. "Go change your shirt first. You have suds on your belly." He turns Mark bodily and pushes him up the stairs.

When Mark disappears around the corner, Roland fetches his coat, and leans down to give Hightower a scritch.

"Bye bye, menace," he says to the cat, and then steps out the door, steps down the street, and steps aside.

[scifrey]

TO A STRANGER has been named a quarter-finalist in the Carmesi House International Screenwriting Contest for Diverse Voices.

[scifrey]

I spoke with Chase over on the Three Patch Podcast last week about To A Stranger, my fanfic screenplay based on @madlori‘s seminal Sherlock fanfic Performance in a Leading Role.  I had a great time talking about the process of breaking the story and find the three-act structure hiding in the Whitman poem. Listen to it here.