09May

Dakota & Svetlana ARE Going to be a TV Series

• Saved in: A Real Piece of Work, A Truth Stranger Than Fiction, Chris Orcutt Books, Dakota TV Series, Fiction Writing, Film/TV, Mystery Writing, Screenwriting, The Dakota Stevens Mysteries Series, The Rich Are Different, Writing Experiences
• by Chris Orcutt
• with Comments Off on Dakota & Svetlana ARE Going to be a TV Series

I HAVE DECIDED that the adven­tures of Dako­ta & Svet­lana are going to be a tele­vi­sion series.
 

 
As I helped a friend with his screen­play today, some­thing occurred to me: Ever since I wrote the first Dako­ta Stevens mys­tery, A Real Piece of Work, I’ve always imag­ined Dako­ta and Svet­lana as a TV series, where each nov­el takes place over the course of a sea­son of 8–10 episodes.

When I look at my TV view­ing habits, for years I have been a keen stu­dent of series on Net­flix, BBC, AMC, Show­time and HBO includ­ing Mad Men, The Walk­ing Dead, Break­ing Bad, House of Cards, The Sopra­nos, Curb Your Enthu­si­asm, Rome, Unbreak­able Kim­my Schmidt, Lily­ham­mer, Mr. Sel­f­ridge, and Hell on Wheels.

The thing is, for years I’ve always hoped that some­one asso­ci­at­ed with TV pro­duc­tion would mag­i­cal­ly read my nov­els and see their poten­tial for a series. Up to now, how­ev­er, this hope has been pure­ly pas­sive. I haven’t tak­en active steps of my own to bring this about.

Until now.

 

 

I have decid­ed that the adven­tures of Dako­ta & Svet­lana are going to be a tele­vi­sion series.

Now, I know it sounds ridicu­lous. In the norm, just because I’ve decid­ed some­thing doesn’t mean it will hap­pen, but I have always believed strong­ly in some­thing the Scot­tish moun­tain climber William Hutchin­son Mur­ray said:

“Con­cern­ing all acts of ini­tia­tive (and cre­ation), there is one ele­men­tary truth that igno­rance of which kills count­less ideas and splen­did plans: that the moment one def­i­nite­ly com­mits one­self, then Prov­i­dence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would nev­er oth­er­wise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the deci­sion, rais­ing in one’s favor all man­ner of unfore­seen inci­dents and meet­ings and mate­r­i­al assis­tance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. What­ev­er you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Bold­ness has genius, pow­er, and mag­ic in it. Begin it now.”

 

 
Start­ing Mon­day, along with the two new nov­els I’ve just begun, I am going to be writ­ing a treat­ment for the Dako­ta & Svet­lana series, along with scripts for the first three episodes. My vision for the series is that Sea­son 1 would be the nov­el A Real Piece of Work told in ten episodes. Sea­son 2 would be The Rich Are Dif­fer­ent, and Sea­son 3 A Truth Stranger Than Fic­tion. I will write the treat­ment and episode scripts this sum­mer, and late in the sum­mer or ear­ly this fall I will be con­tact­ing agents, pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies, direc­tors, pro­duc­ers and actors, send­ing them the treat­ment, scripts and copies of the prop­er­ties themselves—the nov­els.

If you would like to see Dako­ta & Svet­lana on TV, you can help me:

1. Six degrees of sep­a­ra­tion. If you know *any­one* in TV, film, act­ing, etc., please tell them about me, Dako­ta and Svet­lana. Let me know about their inter­est, and I’ll send them copies of the books. For my con­tact info, just go to the “Con­tact” page at the top.

2. If you’ve read the nov­els and enjoyed them, and you have an idea for the name of a Dako­ta & Svet­lana series (e.g., House of Cards, Game of Thrones, Mad Men), please share it with me. If the series is picked up, as the cre­ator I’ll make sure you’re giv­en an asso­ciate pro­duc­er cred­it. :) (See David Mamet’s movie State and Main to get that joke.)

I have sev­er­al that I’m con­sid­er­ing now, but I’d love to get input from read­ers who love D&S as much as I do.

Wish me luck.

Thanks,

Chris
 

Tagged: actors, AMC, BBC, Dakota Stevens, directors, HBO, Netflix, producers, Showtime, Svetlana Krüsh, TV series

• Share on: Twitter
• Pinterest
• Facebook
• Google+