Ninja Spotlight #5: Eric Kent Edstrom

Hi, gang, I think it’s time for another spotlight, what about you? Tonight I’m pleased to present Eric Edstrom, a fellow Dojo Ninja who has a book out!

What does your voice sound like?

My speaking voice is somewhat breathy, not particularly loud, but filled with humor and irony. Pretty much like my writing voice.

What social class, if any, are you a part of?

I am royalty. (in my own mind)

How many Ninjas does it take to change a light bulb?

It takes one to shatter a light bulb with a throwing star. Ninja’s want it dark!

Eric Edstrom is the author of The Undermountain Saga, a YA science fiction series about a group of teens who discover bigfoot’s high-tech city deep under the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Book 2, Afterlife, was released on July 1st 2012. The final installment, Starkiller, will arrive in December 2012.

twitter: @ekedstrom

Thanks for visiting, Eric, and best of luck with Undermountain!

Three Weeks to Script Frenzy!

Okay, so I’ve been thinking about what I want to do for Script Frenzy for a little while now, and here’s what I’ve got so far:

My Logline: A naive salvage pilot and engineer from Earth get lost in a distant part of the galaxy on their way home, and involved with a charming Alien Mafia Lady who has the star charts that can get them back home.

I actually worked backwards to this, thinking that I wanted to write something science fiction and going through some of the story genres, before settling on a Golden Fleece, and wondering what would make a compelling ‘Road trip through Space’ kind of movie.

Let’s give it the Blake Snyder chapter 1 logline tests:

* An ironic hook? Well, yeah. The irony doesn’t have anything to do with the science-fiction aspects, just that my poor working schlub heroes are getting in bed with the crime lord, as it were.
* Compelling mental picture? It works that way for me. I’ll try to get some more feedback on it from other people over at the Script Frenzy forums.
* Audience and cost? I think it gives a pretty good notion of the cost to start with – it’ll be a bit on the high-side, because science fiction space effects don’t come cheap, but will be closer to the range of a typical crime thriller than a really big sci-fi action-adventure blockbuster. And you’ve got science fiction nuts in the audience, and crime thriller types, and anybody who really appreciates fish-out-of-water comedies.
* A Killer Title? Okay, I admit I’m coming up blank on this one so far… how to sum up all of that, especially the irony, in a title??