Cirrus@Austlit

'Chris Stringer is an investigative journalist who has been duped into doing a story, which conceals the identity of a murderer. In attempting to find the truth, he is dragged into a web of business and political corruption. Stringer is a six-part television novel with each chapter being a one-hour episode. Episode 1 establishes the key characters and the core dramatic question; who killed Gary Morley? Stringer uses a novelistic approach to develop a multi-episode high-end television drama. This prose text utilizes literary, cinematic and theatrical elements inherent within the high-end format to present multiple storylines and complex characterisation. Through the creative writing process Stringer extends the traditional skeletal approach to series development by framing the drama as a television novel. The outcome for this approach is twofold; firstly as a way of developing a high-end narrative with complex characters, themes and counter themes and secondly as a new way of valuing the work of the screenwriter by removing it from the industrial hierarchy of current script development and retaining the screenwriter’s original authorial voice in book form.' (Publication abstract)