The D word has finally reared its ugly head. We have to be realistic as I’m not working on this full time. So we decided on:
31/12/08 - Presentation-style treatment, 10-15 pages, just for internal use.
15/02/09 - Original draft treatment, 30 pages minimum
01/04/09 - Rough draft
10/05/09 - First draft

These deadlines will give me enough time to develop the story properly. He says.  

The three of us met again, in a pub in Bristol. Again it looks like we’re coming from the same place, which can only be a good thing. We tried out a few ideas, and the guys fed back on my latest version of the story, which is nowhere near a draft at this stage. I introduced a major change to the story about a week ago, which takes it to a darker place. I think it works well, and thankfully it looks like the others agree.  We seem to have the last act more or less figured out (albeit in a sketchy kind of a way), so it’s largely a matter of working back from there and filling in the gaps, which naturally won’t be as easy as it sounds.

We also agreed to go for a voiceover narration, which is something I usually try to avoid, but in this instance it’s probably the right thing to do. For one thing, it’s a way in to the protagonist, which is what the story needs. The director has a few ideas about the tone of it, which I’m happy to go along with. The whole story (which I always saw as a straight drama with a touch of tingly freakout) is developing a strong thriller element which means that we have to really concentrate on what information we feed the audience, when we feed it to them and what effect that’ll all have. It’s a slight departure from the kind of thing I normally write, but it’s great that there’s a small team of us developing it from early on. Hopefully this safety in numbers will protect us from having the story run away from us in the wrong direction.