Final Curtain Update

First Place Trophy

Been a bit remiss about posting on this blog. I think it's because I'm posting more on Facebook. Not that I'm completely giving up this blog. Social media changes, and one finds what one needs to get one's message across. I still have plans for Darkling Delights, and I'm still accepting guest posts from authors who write in the speculative fiction genre.

Anyway, something cool happened this summer. My feature-length screenplay, Final Curtain, won first place in the crime drama category at the Indie Gathering Int'l Film Festival. It's also a finalist at the Imaginarium Convention. I've entered it in a few more screenplay contests. Curious to see how it'll do.

I even had the chance to have my screenplay work-shopped at Indie Gathering, with actors playing the characters. Just a short scene, mind you. Audience and actors shared in giving feedback. Some interesting observations for us writers who were featured. And some interesting

Work Shop. Photo by Missy Goodman

screenplays. :-)

Final Curtain is my first crime drama screenplay. It's gone through several incarnations, including the former title Dress Up. College theatre students are turning up dead, and widowed homicide detective Abel Black determines to stop the killer before his daughter Poly is the next victim. Helping him deal with the case, and his recalcitrant son, Brad, is Japanese-American homicide detective Seiichiro Toshihiro.

Seiichiro was a fun character to write. Partly named for Seiichiro Tatsumi from one of my favorite manga, Descendants of Darkness, Seiichiro is a retrocognitive who's trying to solve the mystery of his father's murder. Born in Osaka to a Japanese mother and an American father stationed in the Army, his father's mysterious murder was the catalyst that inspired him to become a homicide detective.

Abel Blackmore was named after Blackmore's Night because I liked their song "Under a Violet Moon." A recent widower, he's torn between guilt for not being at Lisa's bedside when she passed away and revealing the truth to his children that he went to get a sandwich. While Poly understands and empathizes with him, Brad refuses to be placated and blames Abel for keeping him and his sister from saying goodbye to their mother.

I hope you enjoy this little behind the scenes post. Next time, I'll be sharing some tidbits from the newly re-released The Ripper's Daughter.