Saturday, April 30, 2016

My 'writer's storyboard' for "THE EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY MURDERS" (Kindle Fiction)

Writer's storyboard - visualizing some elements helps make a project real through the long months of writing

What comes first - the book or the movie?
As a Creative Director in advertising, I've learnt to think visually. As a result, I like to do a book storyboard using Googled photos - like this opening scene
This approach helps to achieve a heightened sense of reality - as important for the author to sustain enthusiasm overvthe long months of writing  as it is to the reader living the story.
I've almost shot the movie BEFORE I've written the book.


Excerpt from The Egyptian Mythology Murders




Chapter 1




A female mummy from ancient Egypt lay outstretched inside a hospital scanning machine.


The British Museum had brought the mummy to St. Thomas’ Hospital for a non-invasive examination of the body beneath its wrappings.


“We’ll begin by doing the head and neck in two millimetre slices. I’m just relieved that nobody will have to give this patient the bad news that she’s terminal.”


The radiologist had made the joke to bridge the jarring disconnect between ancient death, wrapped up in magical spells, and the modern day machinery of medical imaging. 


The radiation scan - at a dose lethal for the living - blasted through the linen windings. It was like a penetration of sunlight warming the bones after the ache of the desert night.


The machine hummed. A spinning cylinder curved around the mummy’s head like a night sky arching over Egypt.


The sand-dry cells of the body, spread out in an undulating landscape on the CT tray, stirred in a sudden breath.


Life! Resurgent life! It eddied, thickened, mounted in force, blowing, gusting, then blasting through the mummy like a desert sand storm.


She opened one green eye to look out through a small gap in her wrappings.


“Shall we pipe in some comforting music for the patient?” a voice said outside the chamber...