Tag Archives: geoff holder

In which the Author enjoys proofreading a fellow scriptwriter’s work…

I’ve just copy-edited and proofread the synopsis for a movie written by a fellow screenwriter. He’s French, and

writes excellent English, but not being a native speaker there are all clearly all kinds of possible traps for the

unwary (for example, written French is typically both longer and more elaborate than written English, and so

sentences in translation can have multiple clauses and last as long as a paragraph, thereby trying the patience of contemporary Anglophone readers).

After a thorough overhaul and extensive proofreading the logline and synopsis are now both suitable for waving in

front of English-speakers in the film industry. Good luck, fellah.

This was the first time I’ve proofed and edited someone else’s work destined for the movie screen (as distinct from books, scripts for corporate videos, business documents etc.) and a fascinating process it was too.

It occurs to me that there may be other screenwriters and filmmakers writing in English but for whom the language is not their mother tongue. If you are in this position and would like an experienced copy-editor / proofreader /

writer to check that everything reads well in English, please get in touch. My rates are, as they say, reasonable.

The story is on Stage 32 and The Dispatch.

In which the Author has some Zombies reviewed on The Spooky Isles…

There’s a genial review of my book ‘Zombies From History’ on The Spooky Isles site. “Holder’s humour and writing style is very engaging,” apparently. The book serves as “an excellent and entertaining introduction to famous

historical figures” as “he hammers home facts which you may not forget in a hurry.” Oh, and “The illustrations are also rather amusing and really well done.”

And the reviewer, a former sociology student, appreciated the joke about a resurrected Karl Marx leading the

Living Dead faction of the anti-capitalism movement with the slogan “Zombies of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your brains”.

The full review is here. And ‘Zombies from History: A Hunter’s Guide’, the definitive work on what do do when the

historic dead return during the zombie apocalypse, can be purchased on that there Amazon for ready money here.

My thanks to MJ Steel Collins.

In which the Author proofs his next book: Bloody British History…

Bloody British History is my next non-fiction book for The History Press. It deals exclusively with the sanguinary

moments in British history, from prehistoric cannibals and the reality of Iron Age warfare to First World War

Zeppelin raids and the Gestapo’s detailed plans for ‘rationalising’ an occupied Britain in 1940.

Along the way you will encounter bloody massacres, revolting peasants, battles at sea and on land, foul murders,

royal executions, piracy in the English Channel, and a multitude of inventive punishments. There are also

explorations of the tactics of Roman Special Forces, how to boil people to death, and a medieval case of sex, lies and witchcraft.

William the Conqueror, Richard the Lionheart, Mary, Queen of Scots and the seven putative assassins of Queen

Victoria all get a look-in as well. Other episodes instruct you how to use medieval chemical weapons to blind your opponents, why the Wars of the Roses were like the longest football match ever, and the use of cheese as an

instrument of torture.

Yes, cheese.

One of the key moments between an author delivering the manuscript and the book actually being published is the revising of the proofs. These are the pages of the book printed out on double-sided A3 pages. The author combs

through the proofs, correcting any typos, formatting errors, incorrect image captions and so on. I’ve just completed this stage, and it’s a pleasure to see my prose matched with full-colour images on every page – not to mention

liberal splashes of graphic designer gore.

Here’s a preview of the cover, which may change a little between now and publication. Bloody British History will

be published in September.

And so: there shall be blood.

In which the Author takes part in the Creative Process Blog Tour…

The Creative Process Blog Tour

My thanks to Hilary McGrath for nominating me for this round of the Creative Process Blog Tour, where writers get to answer four questions and whitter on about their innermost creative processes.

Note: every word below is the absolute unvarnished truth.

Except for the lies.

What am I working on?

1) VAMPIRES.

I’m sending my completed iconoclastic vampire novel Palefaces out to literary agents. The tagline:

Cops – vampires – vampire cops.

There will, almost certainly, be some blood.

There will, almost certainly, be some rejections.

2) CRIME.

I’m half way through the writing of Sex, Lies and Croissants, a softboiled crime novel set in southwest France,

featuring a handsome but irredeemably grumpy British detective mixed up with porn stars, religious maniacs and

drunk Frenchmen with guns. First in a series, if the gods be kind.

3) BLOODY HISTORY.

I’m working through the proofs for The Bloody History of Britain, which will be published by The History Press in September. This will be my 31^st non-fiction book. Expect:

Cannibals from the Dawn of Time

Anarchy in the UK (12^th century style)

Pirate Monks

The Six Executions of Henry VIII

Plus Norman genocide, Nazis, Zeppelins, Jacobites, and a surfeit of lampreys.

All this and murders, torture, massacres, punishments, castrations and executions galore. You’ve got to laugh,

haven’t you?

4) SEX.

I’m using allure, coquetry and a packet of powerful pheromones in the hope of attracting agents or publishers to a non-fiction book on some of the stranger but universal aspects of sex and sexual culture.

5) SHERBERT LEMONS.

Notes are being made and ideas corralled for a YA fantasy involving cryptozoology, time travel and sherbert

lemons. There may also be a fantasy/high-tech film screenplay incarcerated in the oubliette.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My natural tendency when I am writing is to upset the apple cart of expectations.

When writing about vampires, I want to destroy the entire accepted vampiric mythology and create a completely

new take on their origins, behaviour and sexuality.

If I’m setting a crime novel in rural Gascony – beloved by Terry Wogan and other Brits – my hero has to loathe

other expats and everything they stand for.

In The Bloody History of Britain I avoid the clichés of history and tell stories from the shadows: how Scotland

invented the concentration camp, the reason the Wars of the Roses were like a football match, and why King John was marginally better than that narcissistic psychopath Richard the Lionheart.

My ghost books are sceptical about ghosts. My paranormal books interrogate the paranormal rather than just

going ‘Woooh!’ Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, it is my pleasure to tamper with accepted ideas and default genre preoccupations. Punk iconoclasm, that’s what we need.

Why do I write what I do?

I wrote my very first book, The Guide to Mysterious Perthshire, because I was living in Perthshire and it was

something I wanted to read – but there was simply nothing like it on the market. I write non-fiction on the weird and the strange because of a longstanding conviction that the world is weirder and stranger than most people think,

and that some of the data gathered may actually lead, one day, to a paradigm change.

And I write fiction because it is a socially acceptable way to kill people.

How does my writing process work?

I don’t actually have any ideas myself. I pay a subscription to an ideas-generating company based in the Cayman

Islands and they send me ten creative suggestions a month.

Who I nominate next…

I now pass the baton to those fine individuals and writers Kirstie Swain and Moore & Reppion. Good luck, chaps.

In which the Author gives a creative writing class…

The third in the ongoing monthly series of creative writing classes here in SW France will take place on Saturday

24 May, at Nogaro in the département of the Gers.

The full-day course will be on the subject of ‘writing the plot’ and is aimed at all writers and novelists, whether

you’re just starting out or have almost finished your novel.

We have people coming from the neighbouring départements of the Landes and Haute-Garonne, as well as from

various other parts of the Gers/Gascony. There are still a few places available.

The details: 10am-4pm with a break for lunch. The fee is €20. To book or to enquire further send me a message

via the electric internet on geoffholder1@mac.com.

I’ve just finished a vampire novel, where you can solve all kinds of plot problems with a bit of biting and

bloodsucking: I’m conscious, however, that this may not entirely work for writers of chicklit or police procedurals,

so I’ll have to rein myself in. Oh well.

In which the Author writes a vampire novel…

After writing dozens of non-fiction books on mysteries, witchcraft, zombies, ghosts, poltergeists, murders,

bodysnatching and other gleeful subjects, I’ve finally finished my first novel.

It’s a vampire novel, which will perhaps surprise no one given my genre tastes, but in addition to featuring serial

killers, explosions, bodily naughtiness, and jokes about Jimi Hendrix, it is also an alternative history.

Basically, I’m attempting to do nothing less than replace the current standard vampire mythology with an entirely

new one based around evolutionary biology and cutting-edge archaeological thinking.

I know, modesty has always been one of my greater faults.

Now that the novel is finished, the real hard work begins: trying to find a publisher or agent. Despite having written 31 non-fiction books, when it comes to getting a first novel published I’m back on the starting block.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Geoff Holder / Geoff Dupuy-Holder

Screenwriter, Author, Curmudgeonly Old Git