Plotting for television, the possibilities of mosaic novels – and the difficulties of asking an artist to illustrate the line: ‘He runs towards the door and slams it behind him’ – these were just a few of the topics covered by writer Paul Cornell when he visited Somewhere Else this week.
As a writer of science fiction and fantasy in prose, comics and TV – and one of only two people to be Hugo Award-nominated for all three media, Paul was brilliant person to talk about the differences in writing such varied forms.
It was also lovely to welcome members of Cirencester’s Catchword Writing Group to the session.
Paul talked about the experience of moving from fan fiction to actually writing episodes of Doctor Who for BBC TV. He has also written for Casualty, Primeval and Coronation Street, and is the author of Shadow Police – a series of supernatural crime novels and the Lychford series of novellas. He writes Action Comics for DC, and Wolverine for Marvel and has won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, an Eagle Award for his comics, and shares in a Writer’s Guild Award for his television. It was a fascinating talk.
Paul also organises the annual Fairford Festival of Fiction. To find out more about his work, the festival and to sign up for his weekly newsletter do visit his website at https://www.paulcornell.com