Hello everyone. 2 of my 13 YA fantasy novels, "I FLY" and NICOLAI'S PLANET, which have both been recently polished and updated into new editions, can now be purchased as Kindle novels on Amazon. Links are below.
Reviews of "I FLY" can be found on my Reviews page.
Synopses of each can be found on my Posts.
Best wishes,
Andrew.
"I FLY"
https://www.amazon.com/I-FLY-Andrew-Hawcroft-ebook/dp/B00821ED0W/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=Andrew+HAwcroft&qid=1563278479&s=gateway&sr=8-2
NICOLAI'S PLANET
https://www.amazon.com/NICOLAIS-PLANET-Andrew-Hawcroft-ebook/dp/B00829AEPC/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Andrew+HAwcroft&qid=1563278452&s=gateway&sr=8-1
Tuesday 16 July 2019
Monday 3 June 2019
The outline for my Young Adult novel, NICOLAI'S PLANET
NICOLAI’S
PLANET
by Andrew Hawcroft
Outline
At a secret location, deep within the freezing
forestland of Eastern Siberia, Valentin and Mischa Valenko, two of Russia’s
most brilliant scientists in the field of electro-magnetism, prepare to
demonstrate their life’s work before a gathering of the Russian government’s
most high-ranking officials.
The Q-Drive will entirely replace the internal
combustion engine, that clunky, filthy relic of the twentieth century. Today, deep inside their highly-classified research
centre, this loving couple will attempt to finally change the face of the
planet for the better, with the pressing of a single button.
Instead, a jealous colleague, ousted from their team
weeks earlier, decides to sabotage the demonstration. It all goes to hell in a hand basket, as the prototype
Q-Drive detonates, and the attending dignitaries, along with Valentin and his
pregnant wife, barely escape with their lives.
The base, flooded with electro-magnetic radiation, is closed forever.
Barely escaping jail, Valentin and Mischa are
blacklisted by the Russian scientific community, and banned for applying for a
patent for the Q-Drive under threat of imprisonment. With no choice, the Valenkos decide to head
to the West, settling in London, England
Thirteen years later, and life is very different. Living in a leaky house in a low-end suburban
neighbourhood, Valentin works in a huge
toy store, selling over-priced toys to spoilt brats, and Mischa works long
hours in a fruit factory. Their only joy
is each other and their beloved son, Nicolai.
Mischa’s pregnancy was not unaffected by the accident,
it seems. Nicolai Valenko was born only
with only his left eye intact, the other is simply missing. It never developed. To keep staring to a minimum, he wears an
eye-patch to school, where he excels at softball and Art. Remarkably sanguine and at ease with himself
considering his disfigurement, Nicolai has become a popular and cheery young fellow. Despite his parents’ difficult lifestyle,
their love for each other carries the family through.
And then one day, his mother collapses.
The doctor’s face is grim when he announces it is a
form of accumulative radiation poisoning, her body finally succumbing to the
effect of millions of electro-magnetic particles embedded in it after the
explosion. She has only weeks to live.
What makes this tragedy somehow worse is that there is
a cure. Colobium, the infamous ‘anti-metal’,
and the most precious substance on earth. (Only seven pounds of it exist on the
planet, shared amongst various governments’ scientific bodies and held under
the tightest security.) It’s strange
polarity would absorb and eliminate the radiation in her body.
But a disgraced former Russian scientist in exile
holds no sway, and no amount of pleading to various governing bodies will see
him provided with the barest milligrams he needs to save the life of his
beloved wife.
With no hope, the devastated family try to make their
peace with Mischa’s forthcoming demise.
Except....
Except that one day, a friend in the Russian
equivalent of NASA, informs Valentin that a small planetoid is drifting close
to the Earth within the coming month.
This planetoid, jokingly labelled Eden’s Folly, has aroused great
interest in the scientific community due to the strange and fascinating
information their sensors and telescopes are providing them with. There is evidence of vegetation, bodies of unidentified
liquid, of mountain ranges containing unrecognised chemical elements, strange
weather patterns, strange thermal sources and unidentified radiations....and in
one localised area, large traces of Colobium.
Valentin, a man who loves his wife more than his own
life, embarks on an insane plan. He will somehow cobble together the components
and materials to build a spaceship, complete with a Q-Drive, in their front
room, blast off to Eden’s Folly, collect samples of Colobium, return to Earth,
and treat his wife before the radiation poisoning takes her from him.
Maxing out every credit card, selling every
conceivable item that anyone would buy, Valentin and Nicolai quit their jobs
and school, and embark on building the Ship in their front room, (cutting
through the ceiling for additional height) trying to avoid the sneering,
peering gaze of their troublesome neighbour, cobbling together a spacesuit out
of a customised wetsuit and aqualung.
With a desperately short time window, all obstacles
are overcome, and Valentin races home to blast off at the optimal launch-time.....only
to be arrested seconds from reaching his home.
With his disabled son being only too aware that the
Ship is about to be discovered, and that the launch window is fast
disappearing, he does the only thing a loyal and courageous son would do. Nicolai shrugs on the far-too-big
‘spacesuit’, closes the hatch, and blasts off.....
Seeing the Ship smash through the roof of their
suburban home, Valentin knows immediately (and to his horror) what has
happened. The Police agree to let him
speak to his son through the radio transmitter that Nicolai was supposed to man
back on Earth, doing his best to keep his son alive, and guide him to the best
possible landing site on Eden’s Folly.
With wretched technical problems even on its brief
fiery flight, Nicolai manages to somehow crash-land on Eden’s Folly, but far
from the mountain range where the Colobium lies. To get there, he must trek on foot, over nine
miles of the surface of this strange and terrifying place.
For Eden’s Folly is a deadly treasure-trove of dangers
that Nicolai’s child-mind gives names to; Starfish, Thornballs, Blue Mist and
Porridge Pits to name but a few.
Young Nicolai Valenko, twelve years-old, running out
of air in a hastily-built, homemade spacesuit, is weary, frightened, and a long
way from his damaged spaceship.
Still, he continues to survive terror after terror, to
finally arrive at the dark, hulking, metallic blue mountain range, only to make
the most shocking discovery of all....
Another Ship.
The outline for my Young Adult novel, "I FLY"
“ I FLY ”
A Young Adult novel by Andrew
Hawcroft
Outline
Jamie Cramer is thirteen years-old, and lives on the thirteenth floor of
Maycliff Towers in the dying English industrial town of Jaston. Jaston is a decaying, filthy, hopeless place,
founded upon a metal industry that saw its best years a long time ago. The people are despondent, violence and crime
is everywhere, and Jamie’s alcoholic mother, Shauna, has resented her son from
birth. They barely survive on her
welfare allowance, and his future is unsure. No, his future is bleak.
Then one night, under a particularly bright moon, Jamie can’t sleep and
walks into the kitchen. A moment later,
he discovers he is floating a few inches off the filthy linoleum.
As his astonishing ability progresses, his life seems to correspondingly
degenerate, his relationship with his mother deteriorating until things reach a
crisis point.
Only then does hope of a kind appear in the form of two warm-hearted
people who wish to adopt him. Things
finally seem to be turning a corner, and his future, once hopeless, now begins
to look dangerously positive.
The one thing he must not do, is let anybody find out he can fly.
For in these hysterical times, the consequences would surely be
disastrous…
Monday 4 March 2019
A sequel for THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS
Hello Everybody
It may come as a surprise, being the manly man that I am, that one of my favourite films is from the Hallmark Channel. I discovered it while working as a teacher in Madrid, and Hallmark movies, which I had never experienced before, were playing regularly, and suddenly became very important to me, when my 'safe and secure' job at the school suddenly came to an end. I didn't know anybody in Madrid, and only spoke the language to a modest degree, so any English-language programming was a godsend.
Then, one day, a movie called THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS was advertised, starring Brandon Routh and Kimberley Sustad. I absolutely fell in love with this good-hearted and genuinely romantic movie. (Although I can't seem to find a Region 2 DVD for love nor money! Region 1 only.)
Sometime after, while searching very reluctantly for another teaching job, purely as a writing passion project, I wrote a treatment for a sequel, called THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS: ONE FINAL TAIL. (Not a typo. Cat reference!)
Most sequels really just exploit the original, but I wanted to write something that expanded on the world and the characters. Anyway, I enjoyed writing it, which is always a good sign. Please find the treatment for THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS: ONE FINAL TAIL below, and I urge fans of just straight-up, non cynical, feelgood films to check out the original.
Best wishes
Andrew Hawcroft
Ireland. 04/03/2019
During the same day, however, just to pull the final plug on Cupid’s vital signs, Zachary’s parents show up again, and Zachary has a tremendous fight with them, letting rip about what it was like growing up with them arguing every time they breathed, and how hard he has worked to not become like them. He tells them he never wants to see or hear from them again. Devastated, for Zachary was really the only thing they had to be proud of from their decades together, the Stones leave, and Zachary is left in shock, but determined to hide it from Marilee.
It may come as a surprise, being the manly man that I am, that one of my favourite films is from the Hallmark Channel. I discovered it while working as a teacher in Madrid, and Hallmark movies, which I had never experienced before, were playing regularly, and suddenly became very important to me, when my 'safe and secure' job at the school suddenly came to an end. I didn't know anybody in Madrid, and only spoke the language to a modest degree, so any English-language programming was a godsend.
Then, one day, a movie called THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS was advertised, starring Brandon Routh and Kimberley Sustad. I absolutely fell in love with this good-hearted and genuinely romantic movie. (Although I can't seem to find a Region 2 DVD for love nor money! Region 1 only.)
Sometime after, while searching very reluctantly for another teaching job, purely as a writing passion project, I wrote a treatment for a sequel, called THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS: ONE FINAL TAIL. (Not a typo. Cat reference!)
Most sequels really just exploit the original, but I wanted to write something that expanded on the world and the characters. Anyway, I enjoyed writing it, which is always a good sign. Please find the treatment for THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS: ONE FINAL TAIL below, and I urge fans of just straight-up, non cynical, feelgood films to check out the original.
Best wishes
Andrew Hawcroft
Ireland. 04/03/2019
THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS
- One Final Tail -
Treatment
Screen Story and Screenplay by Andrew Hawcroft
A sequel to the film; ‘The Nine Lives of Christmas’ written by Nancey Silvers. Based upon the novel by Sheila Roberts.
Things are going pretty darn great in the lives of Marilee White and Zachary Stone. Almost exactly one year has passed since they first met in the cat food aisle of their local market in Jamestown. Since then, they have officially moved in together, with Zachary deciding not to sell the now-beloved home they both helped to restore. Ambrose and Queenie are probably officially a catty couple too. They haven’t announced it as such, but then cats tend not to.
(Eg: In an opening scene; Marilee wakes up with a smile on her face. Notices the bed beside her is empty. Finds Zachary working out in their makeshift home gym. She watches happily for a moment before Zachary goads her into joining him in doing sit-ups. Still in her pyjamas, Marilee manages two good ones and half of a third, before Zachary gallantly steps in with a little assistance. Three done, that’s enough body beautiful for Marilee.)
Indeed, early on, Zachary ruminates how differently their lives might have turned out if he hadn’t rescued a certain cat from a barking dog on his property. If he hadn’t gone against his then-independent nature and taken Ambrose in.....and quickly formed an attachment to him..... he might never have met Marilee the way he did.
Marilee herself is preoccupied with the opening of Ambrose House, her very own veterinary surgery, situated not far from her old workplace; Bosley’s Pet Supply Store.
It’s a testing time. The bank loan has covered the basics, but she is running the place solo, apart from her best friend, Sarah, who is now her receptionist. She cannot even afford building insurance until the place starts making money, and is operating on a shoestring budget.
Opening day comes, and that budget stretches to precisely one party popper and two plastic glasses of the world’s finest, cheapest champagne. The kind that comes from New Jersey. From that point on, it’s Worry City.
Meanwhile, Zachary, having overcome his childhood-related insecurities about serious relationships, is blissfully happy; to the point that his three friends at the fire station....Fire Chief Sam, Mark and Ray....shamelessly make good-natured fun of him about his failure to propose to her. They have taken to writing the words ‘ASK HER!’ in all sorts of places around the fire station, including messages left in the pockets of his uniform, writing it on the walls in safety foam, writing it in his food....
Little do they know that Zachary does intend to propose. He takes the step of going to a jewellers and buying an engagement ring...a rather gaudy and flashy one...that costs an enormous amount of money for a fire-fighter’s salary. Zachary bites the bullet and buys it nonetheless, despite the store reminding him they do not do refunds.
He plans to propose to her over dinner that night, marking the anniversary of their first meeting, with a small wedding planned for Christmas Day. It is to be ordained by a local minister, and is to take place at their favourite location; a quiet, enclosed park that contains a beautiful fountain featuring the sculpture of a mermaid. Marilee has confessed that after her parents died, she spent many hours sitting there, taking solace from the freedom and passion expressed in the mermaid’s pose, wondering what her life would hold...and perhaps wishing for what it finally did.
The wheels begin to fall off this train to Eternal Bliss when, moments after sitting down to the afore-mentioned meal, the doorbell rings.
Zachary’s parents, Nora and Arthur, still somehow together after decades of marital disharmony, have shown up unexpectedly while travelling through the area. They are interested in meeting the girl that seems to have changed their son so thoroughly.
It all goes downhill from there. Despite Marilee’s best efforts to set a positive mood, the Stones are as comfortable together as a sparking power cable and a puddle of petroleum. Seeing the initial happiness of Zachary and Marilee seems to antagonise something un-noble in their characters, and they begin to paint a picture of marriage that could feature in a Stephen King novel.
After they leave, Zachary loses his nerve about proposing, as his old insecurities begin to rise again.
Marilee accidentally lets it slip how tight things are financially for her at Ambrose House, and Zachary, most of his own savings having gone on the non-returnable ring, is angry with himself for not being able to help her.
Things don’t improve with the return of Blair, former professional model and former beau of Zachary. She is going through her own troubles, having been told more than once lately that she is getting too old for modelling. Having nothing else to fall back on, she has started to reluctantly manage her retired father’s pet store, drinking heavily. This only fuels her resentment of the happiness that Zachary and Marilee have found, both of whom she sees too often for comfort from her store.
Ambrose House, however, is starting to pick up. Marilee is particularly popular with the kids, often using a hand puppet called Santa Paws to put nervous young pet owners’ at ease.
One regular is Mrs Smith, owner of somehow-still-alive Bootsy, plus Flotsam and Jetsam, Lancelot, Parkins, and numerous other dogs. Mrs Smith is very rich, and is regarded as a bit of a joke by other people in Jamestown. During one conversation, however, she lets down her guard enough to tell Marilee some of her own horrifying and tragic history....and her love for dogs becomes more understandable.
Marilee herself is finding true joy in her work, blissfully unaware of Zachary’s aborted proposal, although The Question has been playing on her mind for some time.
But...she reasons...who says the man has to do the asking? It’s 2019 after all!
On an impulse, she decides to ask Zachary to marry her that very day. She has not the money for an engagement ring of her own, but Mrs Smith, from whom Marilee cannot keep the idea, comes to the rescue. She gives Marilee her own engagement ring, a truly beautiful thing. Marilee is stunned at this generosity, and at first refuses it, but Mrs Smith says it is merely karma. Marilee has always been good to her while others laughed at her behind her back, (she may be old but she’s no fool,) and she can think of no better home for it than on the hand of the only person in Jamestown who has shown any affection to her.
During the same day, however, just to pull the final plug on Cupid’s vital signs, Zachary’s parents show up again, and Zachary has a tremendous fight with them, letting rip about what it was like growing up with them arguing every time they breathed, and how hard he has worked to not become like them. He tells them he never wants to see or hear from them again. Devastated, for Zachary was really the only thing they had to be proud of from their decades together, the Stones leave, and Zachary is left in shock, but determined to hide it from Marilee.
He goes to visit her at Ambrose House, where Marilee’s sudden proposal of marriage comes at the worst possible time. When faced with it, Zachary cannot say yes, leaving Marilee shocked, humiliated, and wondering what their future holds. Her own insecurities about being alone, which have been with her since her sister got married, come back in full force. A distraught Marilee puts Mrs Smith’s engagement ring in a drawer.
About this time, a face from the past re-enters Marilee’s life. John Day, Marilee’s teenage boyfriend, arrives in Jamestown, having finally left the Marines, where he attained the rank of Staff Sergeant. He confesses that although he has no regrets, there is a point where a man stops wanting to take and give orders, and to just live his own life. Over coffee, Marilee confesses most of her attraction for him as a teenager was because of his love of animals and helping people in general. John confesses that in joining the Marines, he thought he was still helping people, but after the things he has seen, he has had enough. He wants to do things his way now.
Marilee is immensely proud of her old flame, and impressed by his resolve to take charge of his life, but Zachary feels the first pangs of jealousy, which are thoroughly and deliberately stirred by Blair, who has caught onto all this. She sees John Day as her way back into Zachary’s life, ridiculous though this may seem.
Zachary and Marilee struggle to keep their relationship on track. Zachary wants them to stay just the way they are, living together with no commitments, just taking life as it comes, free and easy. Marilee, however, is finding it difficult to get past his rejection of her, and Blair continues to make machinations to drive the pair apart...with some success.
These ‘war games’ against the couple reach their apex when Blair fakes an intimate encounter between John and Marilee, and Zachary moves out, heartbroken, despite Marilee’s pleas of innocence.
That is when the impossible happens, and sitting by their once-beloved fountain, Zachary is approached by his father, who has tracked him down. Arthur, for the first time perhaps in his life, has taken a good hard look at himself, and makes a heartfelt apology to his son. He tells him that Nora and he are together, not because of love, but because they were too weak as people to be alone. That’s not love. That’s dependency. But in his son, he sees a man who is stronger than him, whose very career puts other people above his own needs. He sees someone who is better than him in all respects, and even a jaded cynic like himself can see what Zachary and Marilee have is special.
In that moment, Zachary realises he doesn’t care what Marilee may or may not have done. He wants her in his life.
He leaves to tell her so, but unfortunately runs into a drunken Blair on the way home, and tells her he is going to marry Marilee as planned, that he loves her and that’s the end of it.
Blair realises she has lost, or that she simply never had a chance to begin with, and in a drunken rage, throws a flaming bottle of spirits through the window of Ambrose House. In seconds, the building is ablaze, and Blair becomes horrified at what she has done.
Back at their home, Zachary rushes to tell Marilee how he doesn’t care what the truth is, and that he loves her no matter what. This is not good enough for Marilee, who, still battling her own insecurities, insists that he should know her well enough to know she could never have done such a thing.
The next moment, however, Zachary gets the call that Ambrose House is on fire. He rushes over there, knowing that the building is not insured and that he has to save it if he can.
Alongside Sam, Mark and Ray, he tackles the blaze as best he can, but it’s too advanced. Against the advice of Sam, Zachary enters the flaming building to retrieve Mrs Smith’s engagement ring from the drawer, when part of the ceiling collapses on him, and, just as when he was a child, Sam saves his life.
For a time, Zachary’s life hangs in the balance, as he lies comatose in a hospital bed.
In the waiting room, a tearful Marilee is counselled by Sam. He tells her how much Zachary has changed because of knowing her, but how change still needs time, and Zachary is still learning, despite having come so far. It is here that Marilee realises how much her own fears have played a part in her behaviour. Recalling Mrs Smith’s tragic back-story, she also realises how much she has taken good things for granted lately. She talks about how from the moment you wake up beside your loved one, every minute after that is a gift. And when you close your eyes at night, you say ‘Thank You’, because you got to spend another day with the one you love.
Ambrose House is a smoking ruin, and not insured, but Marilee hardly cares. Sam tells her to go home and get some rest.
Zachary finally wakes up in hospital to find a tearful Blair there. She confesses it was she who started the fire, and has confessed all to the police. After being detained, her father paid her bail, but her court date is fast approaching. She pours out a heartfelt confession of all her feelings of envy of his and Marilee’s happiness, how modelling had defined her until she couldn’t get work anymore, and finally, she confesses it was she who faked the relationship between John and Marilee. She has told Marilee everything.
Perhaps surprisingly, Zachary understands. He says he realises how lucky he is to have found Marilee, how his own demons made him do and think crazy things, and how sorry he is that Blair hasn’t found that someone who could rescue her from herself. Her confession, along with his own father’s apology, have woken Zachary up to what matters, and to what has been going on inside him. He promises to speak on her behalf in court.
Sometime later, Sam enters and gives him Mrs Smith’s engagement ring, which they found in his uniform. Little more needs to be said, and he soon leaves....
.....allowing Marilee to enter. The two barely exchange a word, just holding each other’s hands. Silently, Zachary places the engagement ring on her finger. Marilee just nods and kisses him.
On Christmas Day, Jamestown is abuzz, but no place more so than the little park with the fountain, where Marilee and Zachary, their friends and family around them, are officially married.
Out of the blue, Mrs Smith, who has been invited, shocks the couple to their core with a ‘wedding present’ of a blank cheque to open another Ambrose House.
Sam quietly tells Zachary that he had wanted to wait until Zachary was stronger before telling him, but his rescue of Zachary from the burning building was his last, and a fitting one to end on. He has decided to retire, and wants Zachary to be the new Fire Chief. When an astonished Zachary accepts, Sam gives him a small wrapped box, containing his own set of keys to the station.
Finally free from doubts and fears, Zachary and Marilee kiss one more time under the kindly gaze of the mermaid in the fountain.
THE END
Saturday 16 February 2019
Outline for romantic-drama screenplay BORN AGAIN
BORN
AGAIN
by Andrew Hawcroft
Three
Page Outline
PROLOGUE
Red dawn.
Saturday.
15 year-old John Nolan wakes up alone in his tiny
bedroom. The calendar on the wall has
days crossed off until today, circled in black.
The Big Day. The day when John
finally becomes worth something. Today,
John will get his first crack at an Irish Dancing World Title. Then he will matter.
He really is alone in this, though. His father, Donald Nolan, a cleaner, cares
nothing about it. His vague daily aim is
to finish work and get to the pub early and join his surrogate drinking ‘family,’
of similarly broken and hiding men. His
son, through sheer grit and focus, is showing character traits that Donald never
bothered to develop. He’s becoming something his father can only sit in the
shadow of, and that rests badly with Donald.
Thus he rarely misses a chance to complain about, or take a crack at,
his son’s ambitions and achievements.
Yes, John is going to do it quite alone today.
But the hardest childhoods often make the most
interesting children, and John is driven like no other. He finds the money for his dancing, his fees,
his shoes and his transport, himself. He disciplines himself. Trains by
himself. He will become Somebody in his life by himself. When he turns 16, he will be out the door and
into a bedsit. He will live alone and he
can’t wait.
Then, on the journey to the World Irish Dancing
championships venue, riding with a friend, their vehicle is blind-sided by a
drunk driver. Both his legs are broken,
an arm, his collar bone...
End of.
For a long time...
TODAY
A red dawn. Saturday.
John Nolan wakes up alone in a small flat in a small
Irish town. Eerily similar start to the day perhaps, only this time John is 45
years-old.
The last 30 years have been a cavalcade of drive, huge
ambition, hard work, near-misses, almost-success, failed ventures and failed
relationships. Somehow, incredibly so
given his great self-discipline and determination, John has not managed to
achieve any of those childhood dreams and ambitions of a global dancing career,
and is ending up effectively living his worse-case scenario.
John owns a very small Irish dancing studio not far
(enough) from where he grew up. (This is
all he could afford, where the work is, etc.)
This Saturday morning will involve a series of junior classes, teaching
(too) young children baby steps while hard-lipped parents look on.
And there aren’t even enough of those, as the bills on his studio doormat show. The economy has played its part. Too much of the town is on Welfare, including
his father, who remains alive but is just a vacant shell of a man whom John
doesn’t speak to at all.
But before the day’s responsibilities take over, John
will have precious hour or so to himself.
As he warms up, he struggles to recall, and to return to, that primal
thrill that Irish dancing gave him as a boy.
The creativity, the expression, the venting of things repressed, the drama, the adventure and pleasure that
came from choreographing his own steps.
As he dances more and more, we see the barest hints of this fire begin
to flicker in his eyes.
Then too soon, the cars begin to pull up and the
classes begin.
So John Nolan’s life goes on, day after day, living
for those stolen hours of expression until two things happen.
1) A giant, gleaming glass-and-chrome monstrosity
of a dance school opens up in town, All styles catered to. Kid’s crèche.
In-house Starbucks cafe.
2) A
13 year-old Russian boy, Kasian Karelli, and his mother, Tatiana, show up at
his studio.
The first of these occurrences is a punch to the gut
for John’s business.
The second, following shortly after, will go a small
way to remedying his pain. The
reserved, wary, but quite stunning beautiful Tatiana Karelli would like to pay
private lessons for her son to learn Irish dancing. They have recently arrived
from St Petersburg. Although she remains tight-lipped about their background,
she has come to live in Ireland just to help her son advance. It seems her son’s passion for Irish dancing
means as much to her as to him.
Whatever. John
now needs the money badly, and God knows, proud mothers pushing their
‘talented’ children forward is nothing new to him. But he will soon find out how wrong this cynical
presumption is. In fact he will find out
he is wrong about a lot of things concerning this quiet, polite, and strangely
compelling mother and son.
For one thing, Kasian is a prodigy. An incredibly
gifted dancer, blessed with a natural musicality, athleticism and dedication
that no teacher can instil. Entirely
self-taught from video-tapes in Russia, he has all the drive, discipline and
focus that a young John Nolan had (has?) but without the over-reaching need to
prove himself, coupled with the love of a devoted parent.
As Kasian progresses alarmingly quickly, John finds
his own passion for dance...and for life... being re-ignited, and as the Irish
competition dance circuit beckons...and is quickly dominated...this passion
only grows and grows.
But things are not
all that they seem. Tatiana and Kasian
have their own shadows to run from, and shadows have a bad habit of sculking in
the background until somebody turns on a bright light.
John Nolan is going to be that bright light to Kasian
and Tatiana, and in the process, certain things he might have once called
‘impossible’ are going to happen...
Outline for M.R. James screenplay adaptation COLD TO THE TOUCH
COLD
TO THE TOUCH
Based upon the stories of
M.R. James.
Conceived and adapted for the
screen
by Andrew Hawcroft
Outline
Cold
To The Touch (first produced as a play of mine called
An Unsettling Evening in Southend’s
Palace Theatre in 2011,) is a deliberately lean and sparse (tonally) screenplay
that adapts five of M.R. James’ most famous short ghost stories, and plays them
out in a single film of atmospheric chills, shocks and slow-burning dread.
Cold
To The Touch will take audiences out of the
comfortable world of the technological and pragmatic, and return them to the
childhood fears that hide inside all of us until brought out by the right
circumstances.
WRITER’S NOTE: Regarding the five stories I have adapted; while taking the essentials of the plot for
each, I have, in places, adapted them with my own creative content regarding
settings, plot points and characters, hopefully respectfully endorsing the
spirit of each classic tale while adding something fresh to the telling.
The five short stories chosen to be adapted
are;
CANON
ALBERIC’S SCRAPBOOK: An English amateur
archeologist travels to a remote cathedral in France in search of artifacts to
outdo his similarly-motivated friends.
As night falls, eerie, mocking laughter arouses his interest in the
building, and a pale and nervous sacristan shows him a book that suggests an
unpleasant possibility as to the culprit.
A
WARNING TO THE CURIOUS: A young History student of good background has squandered his
inheritance money on the fast life. He
arrives in the English seaside town of Seaburg with the aim of replenishing his
fortune by finding and digging up the legendary third crown of East Anglia, rumoured
to be buried somewhere on the coastline. Unfortunately for him, he will be
successful.
NUMBER
13: A traveling
academic staying in Room 14 at a Denmark hotel, finds the quaint national
tradition of having no rooms numbered 13 to be amusing….until the room beside
his becomes occupied in the night-time hours by more than the salesman staying
in Room 12
“OH
WHISTLE AND I’LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD”: A schoolteacher, holidaying upon the desolate
beaches of Burnstow, discovers an antiquated whistle whilst poking amongst a
ruined Templar abbey. Blowing the
whistle attracts to him the increasingly undesirable attention of….something.
CASTING
THE RUNES:
When a magazine editor refuses to publish the disturbing articles of a
local self-professed master of the occult, he finds himself in mysterious
possession of a slip of paper bearing strange Runic symbols, and the English
words…’Seven days are allowed’. From
then on, he cannot escape the rising feeling that he is being followed…and not
by a man.
In the age of cynicism, social media and
smartphones, Cold To The Touch escorts
the unsuspecting audience back to a state they had forgotten. It will be an unsettling return, but a
memorable one.
-
Andrew Hawcroft.
Copyright ©Andrew Hawcroft 08/01/2010
Tel (00353) 872383083
Outline for fantasy-drama screenplay TERRITORIALITY
TERRITORIALITY
By Andrew Hawcroft
The fishing town of Gormandy
Gormandy's only claim to fame these days
is Sefton's Wound, a natural crevasse in the sea floor a few miles off the
coast, that, due to unusual geological elements, cannot be probed by any
electronic scanning device. Nobody knows how deep it is or what it
contains. Scientists from around the
world continually arrive to search for these answers and, at the same time, provide
a modicum of income for the largely redundant fishermen and tourist businesses of
Gormandy.
On land, thirty-five year-old Hayley
Fender owns Fender’s Cafe, one of the few businesses still open and not boarded
up with graffiti-covered planks on the once-bustling Gormandy Boardwalk. She lives above it with her thirteen year-old
son Dominic, and eleven year-old son Ethan, who is afflicted with higher-level
Downs Syndrome.
She scrapes by each day as the town
scrapes by, running as it does on Welfare payments, political apathy, drunken
violence and an ever-decreasing populace.
Then one day, two young American men
arrange a meeting at the Town Hall.
Electronics specialists with an interest in underwater transmission
technology, they claim to have brought the answer to Gormandy's problem. Wishing to patent an invention called The
Attractor, an underwater device that transmits electro-magnetic waves to
redirect marine life (including fish) from traditional migration routes, they
request a month’s trial so they can achieve their patent and mass-market it.
The idea of tampering with Nature and,
more importantly, stealing the fish stocks of the neighbouring fishing towns is
finally thought to be too high price by the townsfolk, and they grudgingly
refuse to comply.
However the head of the GFU, a man of
ill-morals named Hugh Cramer, has other ideas.
When, days later, the fish suddenly
return to the Gormandy waters in vaster numbers than ever before, the populace
are too glad to question the miracle too deeply.
Unfortunately, events take a sinister
turn, and the town of Gormandy
Outline for romantic-drama screenplay THE HAPPY ENDING PROJECT
THE HAPPY ENDING PROJECT
By Andrew Hawcroft
Outline
A two-man documentary crew for a low-end Canadian TV
production company turn up at a hotel room in Vancouver.
There they meet James Lantern, a 39 year-old Englishman
with possibly only 5 days left to live before a potentially fatal heart transplant
operation. This is the man they have grudgingly agreed to document on his quest
to try and meet a certain woman he has fallen in love with.
The woman in question, however, is a painted character
on a science-fiction book cover. A
fantasy figure painted by a local Canadian artist who has been known to use
real-live models to paint from.
The possibility
that this character may be based on a real woman, is the flimsy foundation for James’
quest, a quest that seems as silly and impossible as the usual TV-lite tripe
covered by the cynical and disillusioned two-man crew of presenter Dan Lone and
cameraman Joe Chinelli.
Except, as the days and hours pass, and the two men
discover that the woman in the poster does exist, it becomes a lot
harder to remain objective about James Lantern....
Outline for fantasy-drama screenplay THE MAN IN THE PAINTING
THE MAN IN THE PAINTING
by
Andrew Hawcroft
Outline
When thirty-four year-old Harriet Painter,
and her eight year-old son George, settle in a quiet English country cottage,
she hopes they are at the beginning of a fresh chapter in their lives, finally
able to put the pain of recent years behind them.
A lawyer working for the esteemed legal company
of Carter and Black, she has at last seen the courts impose a restraining order
on her former husband, Scott, after years of increasing incidents of physical
and mental abuse.
Succumbing to a long-held desire, she has
finally bought the old stone cottage she discovered on her way to work a year
ago. It is a warm, friendly place of
great character, deep in the English countryside, and a fine home to enjoy new
beginnings.
One day, while cleaning her new pantry,
Harriet falls through the rotten floorboards to find herself in an ancient
cellar, long hidden from
human eyes. The dark and dust-caked room
contains only one item, a leather-shrouded, five-foot painting depicting a
medieval knight in armour, standing before a dark forest. There is no title and no artist’s signature.
Harriet is strangely taken by the painting
and decides to bring it into the house, placing it above the fireplace in her
living room. It almost immediately
begins to have a positive effect on the lives of her and her son.
But when Scott, reaching the end of his own
psychological tether, discovers where she lives, despite the restraining order,
he embarks on a series of intimidation tactics.
Added to this, her company have demanded
that she represent a member of the notorious Janey family, importers known for their
criminal and violent business dealings, in a case of illegal importing. A case nobody would take on unless they were
given no choice.
One night, unable to sleep, fragile from
the fears of her life, Harriet enters the living room where the painting is
kept.
She turns to see with horror that the
landscape of the painting is empty, and that a huge armoured figure sits before
the dying fire…
Outline for romantic-fantasy screenplay GLADLY
GLADLY
by Andrew Hawcroft
OUTLINE
Cameron Callendar has just reached forty, and it’s all gone
wrong. At this point in his life, he was supposed to be a successful
writer of fiction, a happily married family man, fulfilled and secure, and he
certainly came close to these things in the past, but somehow it never came
together.
He barely makes a living with sales of his early novels (back when he
had an agent, publisher, optimism, ambition, confidence and a future) as
e-books, but it’s not enough. His days are spent still trying to get
the career that never came, and hopefully the richer, fuller life that was
supposed to come with it.
And then one day, at 3.17pm in the afternoon, everything
changes when his doorbell rings.
Standing there is a bizarre-looking young woman. Thin as a nail, bright
blue hair that might not be hair at all, dressed in the most garish and odd
mish-mash of clothes.
She seems barely to have the energy to stand upright, but seeing him
seems to make whatever trials she has clearly gone through to get here, worth
it. She regards Cameron as a door-stepping Jehovah’s Witness might
upon finding Jesus in jeans and a Blue Harbour jumper.
Whatever she is, (and Cameron quickly suspects she might be mentally
troubled) she is clearly on the limits of her physical strength. A
large glass of milk in his kitchen later, she seems restored enough to start
talking.
She says she is from the year 2372. That she has come on a one-way
journey to find the man whose books she discovered on an electronic book-reader
lying in junkyard. He is apparently her idol, her hero...her very
reason to keep living....
....Because 2372 sounds like hell. A world ruined by the
Corporation Wars, she, and the other 19, 000 humans left on the Earth live dire
lives of pure survival.
The only reason Cameron doesn’t call the police, is when he casually
asks her what her name is.
Gladly Higgins, she says.
The thing is, Gladly Higgins is the name Cameron has recently come up
with for a string of trashy sci-fi novels
he reluctantly plans to write to make some money.
Only he hasn’t told anyone that name.
As the day passes, Gladly will tell him more and more of her story, and
these conversations will begin to convince a lonely and jaded man that
perhaps....just perhaps...something incredible has come into his life.
And not a moment too soon....
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