So…after nine novels, I thought I’d try my hand at another genre. I admit to knowing very little about script writing or screenplays–but thanks to advice from my son, Alex (educated at the Academy for Media Production in Pennsylvania), I’ve been able to cobble together something that looks reasonably similar to a miniseries screenplay. I decided to go with the Jake Fisher Mysteries as a place to start–specifically “Hit & Run”–-Jake’s first foray into detective work.
The challenge I immediately encountered was trying to work around the back-story, previously set up over six novels in the Cataclysm Series. I don’t know that I’d call the Cataclysm Series honest-to-God “Science Fiction.” Nor is it post-apocalyptic in the truest sense. Setting a series in the first days after World War III begins doesn’t quite make it Sci-Fi. (The zombie-like mutates might, on the other hand). That said, it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, and delving into crime-drama / mystery is enough of a challenge without adding the WWIII scenario. So I had to find a way to get Jake into his current circumstances: presumed / declared dead, no teaching job, no way to make money.
CHANGING JAKE’S STORY-– As an avid Marvel comic book fan, I was elated to see the first movie forays by the MCU. Back in the 1970’s when I was a kid, there just wasn’t enough CGI or media tech to handle it. But with decades of back stories–Marvel had to make some tough calls on movie plots altering the printed canon. Some, I thought, were actually improvements on the original stories. I’m hoping I can do the same.
In this screen version of Hit & Run, we bounce back and forth with the use of flashbacks. As a classroom teacher in 2020, Jake gets a call from his old C.O., now a general (Roberson) who has a big favor to ask. The general’s family is trapped at the embassy in the fictional country of San Sebastián, where civil unrest has made travel impossible. Yet the general is forbidden by his superiors to send a team down to rescue those in the embassy due to a sticky political situation. So Gen. Roberson asks Jake to take a rag-tag team of misfits (promised forgiveness of crimes and expunging of military records) to do an off-the-books rescue mission. Jake accepts. The mission succeeds, but Jake is captured. He is disavowed and declared officially dead by the USA. As he sits in prison, he befriends an old Aztec shaman, Huemac, who has also been imprisoned. Huemac teaches him aikido as well as imparting some philosophical knowledge, and they become friends. Then covid hits–and everything shuts down. Months pass, and then–like many countries–San Sebastián is desperate to send home potentially infectious foreigners. Jake goes home to find out his wife, Laura, presumed him dead and was about to remarry–when she contracts covid and dies. Jake is legally unable to get his declaration of death reversed (something which in the real world actually has some precedent)–and in desperation he goes to Arizona to seek advice his friend and mentor, Huemac. Huemac resumes Jake’s physical and spiritual training.
Fast forward to the present–(this part will sound very familiar)–and Jake is offered a job at his old high school as a security officer working with deputy sheriff and SRO Matt Miller. Miller throws him some side work as a detective working subcontracted by the sheriff’s department. Enter Jake Fisher, private eye! The rest unfolds much as the novel does, with help from Boo Andrews and Chris McNally, all aiding in the battle against the dangerous Church of Many Blessings; its pastor, Joseph Clarque; and the powerful and mysterious money-man behind it all.
THE MINI-SERIES–I am thinking right now of maybe eight to ten episodes, each somewhere around 45 minutes long. I include clips from First Lives After: Resurrection as well as some new scenarios with Jake learning from Huemac in a prison exercise yard. I’m hoping that folks will enjoy this, and that readers and fans of the series will forgive the changes I felt I had to make. What happens after it’s finished? Great question. I have a few contacts (very few) in show biz whose advice I will ask and follow. Until then, cross your fingers and wish me luck!
Writing with Jay Vielle 