Charles Harris

Two screenwriters once walked into a Hollywood producer's office and said three words 'Jaws in space.' Those three words won them the contract for the blockbuster movie Alien.The ability to pitch well is essential for all writers, directors and producers in cinema and TV. Strong pitching skills will accelerate your career - not only helping you sell your projects, but also developing them in the first place, focusing on what makes a story work, clarifying character and plot, and working more successfully with industry collaborators.This book takes you from the essentials of what makes a good pitch to advanced skills that will help you in all kinds of pitching situations. Charles Harris gives a clear-sighted view of how pitching works in the industry and a series of very practical techniques for developing a gripping and convincing pitch. Drawing on his experience, he examines the problems that can arise with both mainstream and unconventional projects - from a range of different cultures - and explains how to solve them. He also analyses the process of taking a pitch meeting and shows you how to ensure you perform at your best.

If you enter there is NO TURNING BACKRoss Blackleigh is on trial for four crimes which he insists he didn't commit. A detective inspector and a thoughtful self-reflective man, he goes against his counsel's advice and takes the stand in court.This is his story.Ross found himself wandering the streets one night, bleeding from the head and unable to remember the past year and a half. But before he could make sense of it, he was summoned to a crime scene where a nurse had been brutally murdered.His amnesia unnerved him and, fearing the worst, Ross allowed himself to be taken to hospital, only to be viciously attacked by a stranger with a knife.Suspecting that the attack was connected with the nurse's murder and that his own police colleagues were behind it, Ross set out on two parallel investigations: one into the killing and the other into his own mind.But when he digs into his own psyche, he is scared by what he finds...Is Ross being set up or is something far more disturbing behind the killings?

Designed to take you from the moment you first put your pen to paper to pitching and selling your completed screenplay, this is one of the most inspiring books on screenwriting you'll ever read.Practical exercises will teach you the craft of writing for film and television, both mainstream and independent, the art of building your own plots, characters, dialogue and scenes. It gives you the skills you need to succeed and helps you critique your own work, meaning that at every step of the writing process you'll be producing the best scripts you can.This book is filled with essential writing tools, including techniques for overcoming writer's block and how to find your unique voice. You will learn how to pitch and get your work optioned, how to work as part of a team and how to make the best use of social media - in all a comprehensive companion that you will keep coming back to as your career develops.

Take an inner city estate, knife crime, an over-ambitious wannabe tabloid journalist and a dodgy PR agent - then add the police, restless locals and a riot - and you have a fast moving satirical thriller that exposes the underbelly of modern urban life.When the secret love-child of a famous footballer is stabbed, local newspaper journalist Jason Crowthorne teams up with celebrity PR agent Tony Potts to embellish the story and land Jason a dream job on a national tabloid and gain Potts publicity for one of his biggest clients.What could possibly go wrong?But soon their fake news story spirals out of control, and Jason finds himself on the run from the police, sparking violence and endangering the young victim's life.Best-selling author and film-maker Charles Harris takes you on a fast-paced ride through London in the twenty first century, with black humour and a cast of vivid characters...

A hapless British rocker gets tangled in a deadly plot in the Caribbean in this brand new comedy crime by award-nominated novelist Charles HarrisFINALIST FOR THE 2025 PAGE TURNER AWARDS AND TOP 100 AMAZON BEST SELLER FOR POLITICAL HUMOURThe most dangerous gig of his lifeAxMan Flyn is desperate to make his mark. A fading British rock-star, he grabs a chance to front a high-profile charity concert in the Caribbean and do some good in the world. But hardly has he arrived than he stumbles in on the assassination of the island’s president in a coup. And, to his horror, the new gangster-president frames him as the killer.AxMan has to go on the run, chased by a police force which is determined to stop him revealing the truth. A real softie, despite a tough stage image, now he’s forced to come out of his shell and fight for his life. And the only person who can help him is another gangster. But of course nothing is ever straightforward and AxMan’s pride and hunger for fame keeps getting in the way - along with his over-eager fans.If stories of fish out of water, unlikely heroes and twisty plots strike a chord with you, you’ll love this rollicking witty tale where celebrity rock meets a dangerous underworld of violent mobsters, desperate guerrillas and unscrupulous politicians - and death is on the playlist.

What the police really mean when they talk about us, or themselves. This book will inform, entertain and perhaps even help when next accosted by the boys in blue.The language used by our police is both very funny, very scurrilous and very revealing. It reveals all kinds of attitudes towards “civilians”, towards different police branches and towards themselves, from DWE (… Driving While Elderly) and the many rather less than flattering terms that coppers use for civilian Police Community Support Officers (eg: CHIMPS – Can’t Help In Most Police Situations).When you start reading the entries you begin to see how police, men and women, really think, the pressures they are under and the way the service operates in today’s world.

From noir and dark satire to spies and off-beat crime, the seven short stories in this compact, yet perfectly-formed, collection brim with excitement, invention and compassion.Buy now or download for freeA magician walks into a cupboard and is never found…A sleeper agent lives in fear of retirement…A cat-lover suspects her husband of murder…A dog’s name risks ruining a love affair…Now with bonus novella The ProcedureWhen two astronauts find themselves stranded in a distant galaxy far from earth, they don’t panic – the space mining company they work for has a rescue procedure that has never failed. But the procedure brings its own surprises…Bestselling and award-nominated author Charles Harris brings his typical dark humour, razor-sharp eye and the effortless control of a master storyteller to pack a novel’s worth of plot into a page, revealing worlds that are both recognisable and yet subtly shifted as he tells of the moments when lives are changed forever.In genres that vary from mystery, magic-realism and supernatural fantasy to off-beat romance and espionage, the seven bite-sized stories and novella in this short, yet perfectly-formed, collection are brimming with surreal invention and compassion.“A natural story-teller” – Ian St James Awards