Mike grew up reading good plots and writing them.

Well, reading them.

The first plots he got to write himself were probably not all that becoming, indeed smoky, sketchy affairs.

Then, more library raids, more books, more manuscripts, more… well, more reading really.

First complete book at age 11 – unpublished, abandoned (lost?)

Then plot drafting and redrafting, narrative wiring and rewiring. A few sparks, plus-the odd short circuit. A couple of book beacons lit. No buildings burnt down.

First adaptation for stage at age 12 – Dickens’ stage set side wall came crashing down on a classicly startled Scrooge to the good humoured reception of a very much entertained crowd and one bewildered Bob, a tale many times retold to town, with half the town’s boys in on the job.

Bob Cratchit had walked in left stage and closed the door a tad bit too hard for the “bolts on a budget” our faithful (or rather fateful) set “designer” had so bolted with not one ounce of bother about any of all that modern nonsense like workplace safety or any other such.

Then more stage work (and more reading). More scripts, the early skeletal frame of a screenplay.

And further reading.

Registering quotes and taking notes. In libraries both public and private.

On rare occasion from dawn to dusk in one, dusk to dawn in the other.

Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Hardy, Orwell, Woolfe, Payne, Calvino, Tolkien, Zahra, and both Lewises (C.D. and C.S).

Developed more scripts, plots, twists, turns, plots, and more works, turned book-reading itself into a disciplined study of sorts, and shifted into writing more sereenwork as training ground for a sharpened focus onto the impact of great dialogue.

With speech or silence, overtly or subtly, word or gesture, bluntly or otherwise.

Some failures, a couple of wins.

The odd shot at a bigger plot. Misses and hits.

And character creation. Many, many characters.

In every story, a whole life well-lived.