Valérie A. Brotski won the Creative Screenwriting Pilot Screenplay Competition with her TV Pilot, Broken Angels, a Nordic noir murder mystery series based on the novel by Russell Heath.
Her TV experience includes work on several comedies, including The Office and on Desperate Housewives. She is a member of the WGA and the WGA Committee of Women Writers and is repped by Logical Talent Management. Valérie shared her thoughts with us about the impetus and vision for her story.
1) What most attracted you to this story?
Russell Heath’s debut novel, Broken Angels, really struck a chord with me for several reasons. While Russell created very juicy characters, I fell in love with the main character, Kris. I alternately wanted to hug or throttle her. She’s very complicated. She makes bad decisions, she’s impulsive, and she has this raw, unfiltered anger inside of her. She says and does things that I might want to do, but would never dare. At other times, I was left shaking my head, wanting to warn her to “just stop and think for a minute!” There’s something magnetic about Kris, perhaps because I recognized a lot of the angst she has inside herself due to some of my own complicated relationships.
Kris, who is Athabascan, feels oppressed by the white world, particularly white men, and takes it upon herself to solve her mother’s murder. A white man or woman doesn’t rescue her in the end, which is a welcome departure from the standard White Savior we often see in stories about Indigenous people. Kris has only herself to rely on and I really appreciated that. When I received the book, I was already aware of the lack of attention given to the sexual assault, missing persons, and unsolved murder cases of Alaska Native and other Indigenous women. My passion for women’s issues and the desire to create awareness is an undercurrent of everything I write, so Russell’s story really drew me in and triggered my need to write about it.
2) What are the most unique elements of this story?
The setting first of all – Juneau is a very unique city, accessible only by boat or plane. It’s both a small fishing town and a major cruise port. It’s an Alaska Native cultural center with a thriving artist community, but like other places, it’s grappling with addiction and homelessness.
The other unique element of the story is how it addresses the treatment of missing and murdered Alaska Native women. The story is told from an Alaska Native woman’s point of view. Russell lived in Juneau for a long time and is very conscious of the unjust treatment many Alaska Native women face. In fact, murder is the third leading cause of death for Indigenous and Alaska Native women. Russell wanted to bring the injustices these women have suffered to light and I wanted to amplify that with the TV adaptation.
3) How did you secure the rights to the underlying novel?
Russell is a friend of my husband’s family. My husband grew up in Juneau and when Russell’s novel was published, my husband was one of the first to read it. Knowing my writing sensibility – I’m drawn to crime and psychological thrillers with complicated characters – my husband gave the novel to me to read. I was barely a quarter of the way through the book, when I knew it would make a good TV show. He put me in touch with Russell, I pitched my take on it over the phone, and Russell generously and graciously granted me a free option on the novel.
4) How did you approach the adaptation process?
Adapting someone else’s work is a challenge. I wanted to be respectful of Russell’s creation, but I also knew I couldn’t do a strict adaptation – some things had to change. All of the changes I made were heavily weighed – nothing was done on a whim – and I sought approval from Russell.
I’ve adapted material before and I usually start by making a list of all the plot points in order as I remember them, without looking at the book for confirmation. Then I go back and see where things actually fall within the novel and compare the two lists. I figure out which order works best and why. With Russell’s novel, I felt it could be split into two: the part leading up to a climatic midpoint and the aftermath. I looked at these halves as the first two seasons. From there, I broke down the seasons into what I felt were substantive episodes, and then built the pilot story from there.
5) What were the biggest changes to the story throughout the rewriting process?
Some of the clues that are planted in the novel don’t play as well on television. Details can be buried in text, but visuals are more easily remembered, so I had to figure out how to handle some of the visual clues, provide red herrings, or rework some of the evidence so that it could play better on TV. There was also some restructuring of plot points and some elaboration. For example, the novel opens with Kris arriving at the Juneau airport, but the pilot opens with Ben discovering Evie’s body. Also, Kris mentions that she works for a trucking company in L.A. We never actually go there in the novel, but we do in the pilot. I also added the Medical Examiner character and made her and the AWARE shelter director both Alaska Natives. I thought it was important to show successful Alaska Native women, not just victims.
The biggest change was to the Justin character. In the novel, Justin is a white man. In the pilot, Justin in Tlingit. One of Kris’s biggest issues in her life is that she’s untethered – to her family, her ancestry, and her spirituality. Justin represents all of that and becomes a spiritual resource for Kris in the adaptation. Additionally, in the TV series, he has to work harder to earn her trust.
6) Are there any personal aspects from your life you added to Broken Angels?
I think some of my impressions of Juneau seeped into my descriptions of the city. I also felt a great empathy for Kris as she struggled with her mother’s alcoholism. I have several close relationships that have been impacted by alcoholism, and I could relate to the frustration Kris experiences with her mother’s struggle.
7) Did you seek inspiration from other TV shows for the format, structure and tone of Broken Angels?
I really loved the way the gloomy Seattle weather set the tone in the TV series The Killing. The constant heavy, damp rain evokes the smell of decomposing leaves – perfect for a murder mystery.
8) How does the backdrop of Juneau Alaska enhance the story?
Juneau is an incredibly beautiful place year-round. In the short summers, it’s gorgeous and there are eagles everywhere. Juneau is actually situated in the heart of the Northern Hemisphere’s largest temperate rainforest. In the winter, it’s dark, moody, wet, and cold. Kris is a very solitary character. She’s alone in the world and to the uninitiated, Alaska can be a very oppressive environment. Nature rules supreme, and it’s a lesson Kris learns the hard way.
9) Discuss the role of specificity of detail such as the damage to Evie Gabriel’s body and the landscape.
Russell has such a beautiful style of writing. It’s visceral, which made the descriptions easier for me, since I didn’t grow up in Juneau nor have I spent a lot of time there. His detailed descriptions were a great help to me in capturing the essence of the city. Visiting some of the places in Juneau that are mentioned in the book also helped me get a feel for the vibe. I am a research nerd and probably over-research just to get one tiny detail. I even contacted the Juneau Police Department to get additional details about the autopsy process. I took what Russell provided in his novel and added to it, based on my experiences and research.
10) How did you balance solving a mystery with character development in Broken Angels?
I approached each scene as a way to further the story, whether it was to reveal more about the mystery or the characters. In structuring the pilot, I figured out where I wanted to go from point A to point B with the story and with the characters’ evolutions. Something I find helpful is to color-code the scenes on my storyboard, which is an Excel spreadsheet. I use one color for the mystery and one color for each of the main characters, so I can track the progression and make sure I’m giving enough attention to each.
11) How many episodes might there be in the season and what might happen in the middle episode?
I envision the series having eight-episode seasons. In the middle of season one, Kris and Justin track down her mother’s last boyfriend. They discover clues that take her on a search for a little brother she didn’t know she had. As her search and desire for family connection intensifies, it answers some questions while deepening the mystery surrounding her mother. This episode is pivotal because it becomes a catalyst for what happens in the final episode of season one.
12) Do you have a dream cast for Broken Angels?
I don’t like to get attached to the idea of specific actors because it rarely works out that the dream cast ends up in the project. That said, I do put together a list of names when creating a mini bible for a TV series I’m developing. Actors I’ve had in mind for Broken Angels include Ed Harris for Ben, Skeet Ulrich for Shane, and Martin Sensmeier for Justin. For Kris, I’d only want an Alaska Native actress to portray her, like Sovereign Bill, although she currently may be a bit young for the role.
