Tempus

Front

Title

Tempus

David J. Perry

Multiple Monkey Media

Bristol, UK

Tempus by David J. Perry

Kindle Edition v1.01

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the Amazon Kindle store and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Published by Multiple Monkey Media, Bristol, UK

This is entirely a work of fiction. Whilst based on the factual occurrence of the UK riots, any other similarity to persons or situations, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover by Someone Someone

Dedication

For Jackie and that amazing day in Perugia

Tempus

Screenplay

EXT. bRiStOl STREETS. DAY

So - this action heading stretches across the whole screen. There is little to say about this, so I will carry on adding random text to ensure that there is sufficient here that everyone can see what I mean.

EXT. station platform. day

If you were wondering, by the way, the 'scene string' output in the scene heading html is part of the export of Celtx. A greater man would go through and clean it up. I have not been bothered enough to do it yet.

Int. brian's house. day

Now, here's the thing. Once I get as far as considering Dialogue, everything goes to hell in a handcart.

dAvID J. perrY

(quietly, to himself)

Damned formatting. Everyone told me it couldn't be done in the first place. Why am I wasting my holidays trying to do something impossible?

EXT. STATION PLATFORM. DAY

David blacks out.

INT. HOSPITAL - David's Ward's Front Desk. DAY

A nurse - Elizabeth - is writing a note at the front desk of the ward. A couple of nurses are laughing, having been trying to get Elizabeth's attention.

1st Nurse

(the third time she's asked)

Lizzie..!

ELIZABETH

(laughing)

Hold on!

(finishes the form she's filling in, on Connor, dating it the 11th August)

What..?!

1st Nurse

God, how long does it take?

ELIZABETH

Yeah, you probably don't know, do you, how long it takes to do work?

The other nurses laugh, mock-indignant.

1st Nurse

Are you coming to Jenna's party tonight?

ELIZABETH

Oh, I don't...

1st Nurse

Oh come on! You have to. You never come out.

2nd Nurse

Come on, Lizzie..!

ELIZABETH

Look, I just...

1st Nurse

We'll pick you up. Nine?

ELIZABETH

No, I...

She rubs her face in tiredness, frustration.

ELIZABETH

Ok. Look. Get everyone on the forum to help this muppet. how hard can it be..?

*~*~*

Rear

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to the following people for their help in the creation of this screenplay: Jenny White, for her patient editing and terrier-like determination to get the story to actually make sense; Gill Kirk, for her initial input, guidance and endless creativity; Someone Someone for the cover artwork that seized me the moment I saw it; my gorgeous wife, Jackie, for her long-suffering patience and support; and to all the people who read this work, and, better, let me know what they thought.

If you'd like to join them, please do get in touch, via: Email,Twitter, Facebook, or my blog.

I also wanted to personally extend my appreciation to you for being broad-minded enough to consider reading something that lies somewhat outside the box of 'the novel'. It's something I passionately believe in. Drama, I think, should be valid whatever it's source, and I don't care whether that's literary fiction (which I very much enjoy reading and writing), video games (still a massively under-aapreciated source of narrative drama) or multiple media projects that combine them all.

Whilst I'm as concerned as anyone about the effects of ebook publishing on small independent book sellers, I'm also enormously heartened at the same time by the democratic groudshift in what is now available to read. The widening of our horizons, and the diversification of what now lies within the contemporary canon, is something that I think we should welcome with open arms.

Thanks for reading.

Dave

A Note On Formatting

This screenplay does not fit the industry standards layout and formatting, and it's perhaps worth briefly explaining why.

Standard screenplay formatting indents from the right-hand side for both parenthetical sections and dialogue. The Kindle Mobi format ignores both right indenting and bottom paragraph margins, and therefore is, until someone can prove me wrong, technically impossible. It looks likely, in the coming months, that the KF8 format may help in this regard. At the time of writing, though, it still isn't available, and it seems it won't be accessible to anyone with a Kindle 3 (Keyboard) or older.

Further, whilst it is possible to gain satisfactory results in the ePub format, it currently is impossible to get adequate distribution with ePub, as Barnes & Noble only accept submissions to their distribution mechanism from US authors, and the only other available possibility - Smashwords - does not convert screenplays cleanly.

For now, therefore, this is the reason that Tempus is only available on the Kindle platform. This does not reflect any sort of preference or hostilities towards any particular eBook format - it's purely for the pragmatic reason that I currently am unable to get satisfactory results in laying out a screenplay for any other platform.

Accordingly, for now, and until the standards change or improve, I hope you will forgive my response to the technical challenges of this layout. This also is the reason I decided to forego the standard typeface of Courier. As it's technically no longer formatted as a screenplay, there seemed little purpose in continuing to pursue this with a typeface that offers only more difficulty in reading.

Besides, hardcore purists can select monotype on their Kindles. ;-)

If you would like to investigate how I formatted this screenplay using Celtx (free scriptwriting software) and Calibre (free eBook management tool), you can find out more about it on my blog here.

About The Author

David J. Perry lives in Bristol, UK, with his wife and two cats. He is a mathematics teacher in an inner-city secondary school in Bristol, and firmly denounces the populist media view that 'kids are getting worse' and 'education is going to the dogs'.

He has had a long career in the creative arts, having, at various stages, experimented with fiction, screenwriting, acting, directing, stand-up comedy, filmmaking, and live and recorded music.

He is entirely aware that this makes him sound like he has the shortest attention span in history. It is a characteristic he embraces with pride.

Other Works By David J. Perry

Other Works

Coming May 2012: The Last Human Act of Kindness

One week in August 2011 gave a slap in the face to modern Britain. The UK Riots challenged our understanding of right and wrong, and divided the country into the haves, the have-nots, the opportunists, the nihilists, and the disgusted-and-yet-apathetic majority.

What was the end game? Where was the natural conclusion if the country had teetered on the edge of the precipice (as it did) and then continued to fall over the edge? What fills the gap that bedlam and nihilism create?

Crow would be the first to observe there’s nothing special about him; a desk job ties him to the city, on-going debts tie him to his job, and his girlfriend feels anything but a tie to their life right now.

But when anarchy descends, Crow has a simple choice; resist or run? Safeguard the girlfriend he loves, or the principles that he may ultimately have to risk everything for?

Crow’s search for the truth, for meaning, and for solidarity generates an slow awakening those he meets, and he becomes a reluctant leader of a disorganised and outnumbered resistance. As real governance collapses and is replaced by raw commerce, Crow continues to be driven by the need to do good – a force he doesn’t wholly understand.

In the end, the one thing that will save Crow – and the country – is the one thing is he hopes never to see, and expects always to find: the last human act of kindness...