Exactly one month today we get to enjoy the new adaptation of Rebecca so this seemed a good time to share an excerpt from Du Maurier's The Rebecca Notebook. I've become kinda obsessed by it over the years. One glance at the picture above will, I hope, explain why.

First, Rebecca itself. Yes, the parallels with Jane Eyre are often cited and easy to draw, but Rebecca, a masterfully written psychological thriller, deserves its place in the canon on its own merits, as does My Cousin Rachel, a novel I always think of as Rebecca's even-more-sinister step-sister. There's no arguing with the quality of the prose or the skill of execution in either book; you could make a case for asserting that its only Du Maurier's popularity - and possibly her gender - that prevent her from being more widely studied.

What I love about the notebook is the glimpse we get into a great writer's planning process. It starts with the small stuff. Look: she plans in actual chapters. And look; Max was called Henry.

Then other qualities emerge. The notes are sometimes brief summaries of potential action, but we get possible lines of dialogue ("lying in fifteen fathom water, sir...") and in some entries (chapters 22, 23 and 24) longhand rehearsals of entire scenes. She's also specific about the potential colour and atmosphere of scenes; we have "At any rate, strike the peaceful note..." or "Sense of foreboding." And there are reminders to fix potential problems - "Must separate these two chapters by a more intimate depressing reaction..." as if Du Maurier is recognising pitfalls even as she plans.

​And all this the work of a storyteller not even at the top of her game yet. Incredible, and not a little depressing given this particular writer's current struggles.

Anyway, roll on October 21st. Let's hope this new adaptation does justice to its wonderful source material.

As part of this year's September Shorts I've asked writer friends to contribute posts inspired by the title One Cool Thing. They'll be telling you about one cool thing they're looking forward to as Autumn approaches. It might be a book or movie, a tabletop or computer game, an event or visit to a special place, a chance to achieve something... or perhaps even an exciting new project.
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Today is the turn of Dan Smith, writer of top-draw survival adventures to thrill and spook; Boy X, Below Zero, She Wolf and (out this month!) The Invasion of Crooked Oak. You can find out more about Dan here.
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Dan Smith: Kobra Kai

Wax on. Wax off. Breathe in. Breathe out. When I was a young teenager, back in 1984, those words were loaded with excitement and meaning. They meant kicking the bad guy’s ass, winning the competition, and getting the girl … even if you were the skinny kid.
 
Last weekend the in-laws came over and we had wood-fired pizza, red-hot from the oven. Afterwards we put on Netflix and the first thing I saw was a splash screen for Kobra Kai – a spin-off series from original Karate Kid film. And there was Ralph Macchio as grown-up Daniel LaRusso. Thirty-Six years later. I said to my son that we should check it out, but although he’d seen the original film, he couldn’t remember it so we decided to refresh our memories. A quick search and there it was on Netflix. The Karate Kid (1984 original, of course).

I was pretty sure my in-laws would fall asleep, but we loaded up the film and settled down. Two hours later, the in-laws were still wide awake, and my mother in-law was so invested that she sat up with a ‘Yes!’  and clapped when Daniel-San executed that perfect crane kick. That is the power of The Karate Kid. It keeps mothers-in-law awake.

We always knew Daniel would beat the bully, of course, but that’s not where the story lies. The story is in the relationship between skinny Daniel LaRusso and the wise, warm-hearted Mr Miyagi. It’s about courage, friendship, perseverance, honour, and respect. It’s a film that makes you feel good. Yeah, there’s a bit of 80’s cheese, but it doesn’t detract from a great script and great characters. There’s a reason we’re still watching it thirty-six years later - The Karate Kid is a stone-cold classic.

So Kobra Kai is next on the list. I’ll let you know how it turns out.

​Oh, and here’s an interesting thing. The Karate Kid was released in the summer of 1984. That same summer saw the release of Gremlins, Ghostbusters, AND Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The 80’s were lame in lots of ways but, man, they made some excellent adventures.
 
Wax on. Wax off. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Join Radio 4 randomly at any time of the day and you can tell - often in less than half a second or so - whether you're listening to scripted or natural talk. Funny to think that even with the evident skill of the Beeb's voice-actors and the experience of their script-writing teams, listeners can nevertheless tell instinctively whether talk is real.

Why is that I wonder? I guess there could be some sub-auditory response to tape quality? More likely its non-fluency features; the umms and ahs of natural speech. Perhaps intonation plays a part - we do seem to have a surfeit of voice-actors who, however they try, sound plummily as if they're, you know, acting.

Anyway. The natural rhythm and tone of informal human speech is one of the great strengths of Radio Rental, a podcast which collects together real people telling real stories. The tales are macabre, eerie, often frightening, but the voices? Man, those voices are real people - hesitant, uncertain, scared - clearly still trying to make sense of what happened to them. The stories work particularly well in contrast to the (pretty silly) scripted conceit of the show; that a VHS rental store-owner is sharing them with us via video tape. You've got to admire their commitment to this device: the website is a pitch-perfect recreation of a local rental store from 1986.

I'm hoping you'll give it a go... and what's more, that you'll start with a stone-cold classic: Laura of the Woods. Hop to episode 4. Fast forward to 16:00. Then settle back and feel the chills.

This isn't acting, folks. This is for real. 

Idea for...: a YA novel
Condition: semi-complete pitch
Price: £15.99 inc p+p
Contact: mossfletcher@gmail.com

Teenage reservoir noir. An agoraphobic girl, a sunken secret and a bid for freedom that isn’t all that it seems…

Fourteen-year-old Oscar Redzia can’t take any more.

He’s leaving his moorland home and never coming back. His two best friends – Cameron Fencer and Ellie (‘Mac’) MacFarlane – are helping him plan. The three of them have worked secretly to prepare, packing a rucksack with a sleeping bag, spare clothes and food, torch, matches and a jerry can of fuel… then hidden it in a barn near the reservoir. They’ve figured out an escape route, identified a vehicle for Red and decided upon a date. Red’s drunken uncle won’t be abusing him anymore.

But the morning after Red’s leaving date, Fencer and Mac discover something’s gone wrong. Red’s house is a burned shell and his uncle’s body is among the ashes. Red’s missing… but when Fencer and Mac check, the secret rucksack is still there. The village is swarming with police. Soon the cops will discover the bag, dust the stuff and find their prints all over the jerry can and matches. It couldn’t look worse for them. Driven by terror and panic, cops closing in, the two friends fill the bag with bricks. Fencer keeps watch as Mac rows it out into the centre of the reservoir to drown it.

​Our story begins three years later. 

Red’s still missing but any leads have dried up. PC Kelly Martinez, a determined maverick who won’t let the case go, still pays periodic visits to the remote town, convinced she’s missing something. It’s the hottest June since ’76. The reservoir is almost empty, a sun-baked basin of cracked mud. Holidaymakers come to visit the skeleton of the drowned village that sits at its centre, sloshing through the clay to explore the ruins. Every morning on the way to school, Fencer checks the water-levels, dreading what he’ll find.

One day he’s going to see the rucksack emerging from the mud. The stubborn and unstoppable Martinez will find and retrieve it… and their secret will be out.

I guess this idea really belongs in Hangfire - my repository for the ideas I'll never get around to realising - with the other edge-cases. Check them out if you want...

​As part of this year's September Shorts I've asked writer friends to contribute posts inspired by the title One Cool Thing. They'll be telling you about one cool thing they're looking forward to as Autumn approaches. It might be a book or movie, a tabletop or computer game, an event or visit to a special place, a chance to achieve something... or perhaps even an exciting new project.
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Today is the turn of sci-fi writer Eugene Lambert, the brains behind the wonderful Sign of One trilogy. You can check out his website here.

​Eugene Lambert: Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years

One Cool Thing that I’m looking forward to curling up and watching this autumn, as the inevitable Lakeland rain hammers down outside, is Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years.

As the title suggests, this 3-episode ‘documentary’ takes a fond and intelligent look back at one of my favourite television programmes of all time, the long-running (32 years!) SciFi comedy series, Red Dwarf. Here I must confess that I’ve already taken a sneaky little pre-Autumn peak at the first episode. Impatient me. Anyway, suffice it to say that it’s an absolute delight for any ‘Dwarfers’ like myself, lurking out there on the cosmic couch of fandom. It’s stuffed full of hilarious clips (personally, I’m particularly looking forward to Dwayne Dibley and Mr. Flibble), but equally good are the reminiscences by the cast members themselves. It took me back to the early days of the pilot episode, which I never saw and featured a different Kryten, then fast-forwards through the years as the show develops.

So if - like me - you’ve enjoyed the misadventures of lonely space-bum Lister (the last human alive), Rimmer (the uber-cowardly hologram), Kryten (the spaceship-cleaning mechanoid) and Cat (the pinnacle of feline evolution and hence by far the vainest creature in the universe), then I suggest you have an Autumnal binge! It’s available on Freeview, the Dave channel.