Genre: Horror
Premise: A young married couple move to a remote cabin in Idaho only to learn that the land comes with a spirit that makes itself visible in unique ways every season.
About: He’s at it again! Shawn Levy is arguably running Netflix at this point. Stranger Things, which he produces, is Netflix’s Marvel. They are going to ride that thing for the next couple decades if they can. To keep Levy happy, they buy everything he comes to them with. And this latest score netted 7 figures! It’s a short story that appeared in six parts on Reddit’s famous “no sleep” subreddit which you can read here.
Writer: Matt Query (brother Harrison will help adapt the script)
Details: Roughly the length of a feature screenplay
One of the complaints I hear when I tell screenwriters to consider writing a short story is that it’s hard to get a short story published anywhere respectable. To them I say, this is the 3rd of 4th big sale that has come off of Reddit, which doesn’t require you to win over a single website publisher.
Here’s what I suggest you do. Write your script. Then write a short story version of your script. Put it up on Reddit, and if it’s good it’ll get upvotes and gain fans and now you’re in the game. If you’re lucky enough to sell your short story, you then ALSO sell your services to adapt the script. You know what that’s called? It’s called Double Payday.
And you already have a head start because you’ve written the script. That means you send in your draft after two weeks and the producers say, “Wow, this writer is fast! I don’t want to just work with him on this project. I want him to write that other project I have too!” All of a sudden, your bank is bothering you because you’re depositing too much money.
If you’re secretly a slow writer, well, it’s too late for them to do anything about that. They’ve already given you the job. You can use that time to figure out how to write faster. Rian Johnson notoriously said that he was wary about taking the Star Wars job because it took him so long to write scripts and they needed the script quickly. But he gambled on himself and came up with one of the best screenplays ever writ…. okay, maybe Rian Johnson isn’t the best example. But you get what I’m saying.
Former marine, Harry, and his wife, Sasha, decide to leave the urban rat race and get a cabin in the middle of Idaho. It’s a dream come true. There are beautiful views in every direction you look and you have an unlimited amount of land.
Not long after they move in, Harry and Sasha are visited by old-timers Dan and Lucy, who live on the property nearest them. After sharing pleasantries, Dan and Lucy ask to speak to Harry and Sasha about something serious.
You see, this land used to be Native American land and, as a result, there are spirits who show up every season. The first spirit, which comes in Spring, is the simplest. It’s a light that will appear above the pond. All you have to do to get rid of it is light a fire. But do not, under any circumstances, wait too long. Something terrible will happen if you do.
Next up is summer and while Dan seems to think this is an easy one, I sure don’t. A man will come running out of the forest buck naked being chased by a bear. You must kill that man. Whatever you do, do not allow him to come inside your fenced property. If he does, he will be very dangerous. You don’t even need to worry about the bear. All you have to do is kill the man. It’s preferable to shoot him because if you don’t, the bear will eat him alive and it’s no picnic watching. “Bear Chase” might happen 2 or 3 times a season.
Fall is bad. That’s when the scarecrow comes. The scarecrow will appear outside your yard, slumped over in a sitting position. You must not, under any circumstances, allow him to get within 20 yards of your property. You need to tie him with a rope, drag him away from the house, then burn him. He will occasionally come to life to fight you, but he’s weak. Just burn him as soon as possible.
Finally, there’s winter. Winter isn’t usually a problem for residents because it’s the ghost season. If you killed anyone in your life, those ghosts will arrive on your property and start milling around. Harry killed four people during his service. So that’s going to be no picnic. Unfortunately, you can’t get rid of the ghosts. You just have to suffer through them until they leave.
Looks like Harry and Sasha got more than they bargained for. But Harry doesn’t believe any of this spiritual nonsense. That is until, a few nights later, when the light appears. At first, Harry thinks the neighbors are involved. They planted it somehow. But there’s a part of him that worries all of this may be real. And if it is, what has he gotten himself into?
This was a REALLY GOOD short story.
A couple of things popped out right away. First, usually when you have a horror movie, there’s a single horror element. A ghost. Zombies. Demon possession. As a result, you have a good feel for what you’re getting into and that gives you a sense of safety as the reader. “Cabin” creates four distinctively different horror scenarios that give the story a “4 for the price 1” feel to it. It’s immediately more exciting than your average horror film.
Next, I loved how we get the bare-bones backstory out of the way of who Harry and Sasha are, why they moved here, then AS SOON as that’s taken care of, we go right into Dan providing the rules of the land. No wasted time in the story, just like a screenplay.
What the Dan rules do is create a sense of anticipation. Once we learn about these four things, we have to stick around to see them for ourselves. Of course, it helps that each of the four spirits are unique. That’s part of the intrigue. If the writer had written, “In summer, zombies show up, in the winter, werewolves, the fall, demons, and spring an axe-murderer,” I would’ve been out. It’s the creativity behind the things coming that make them so intriguing.
This is why I always remind you to come up with more creative choices. Nine out of ten writers with a similar idea would’ve used the werewolves, zombies, demon stuff because that’s what everybody chooses. You have to dig deeper to find the cool stuff like this.
There’s also something cool about how the spirits aren’t singular objects but rather objects that require specific actions to take place to defeat them. It adds even more excitement to the dangerous element. Let’s say the scarecrow was just a scary scarecrow. We’ve seen that already. In “Cabin,” it’s not just a scarecrow. It’s a half-alive thing that you need to kill in a specific way. This ensures that the reader isn’t just thinking ahead to what this scarecrow is going to look like. But is Harry going to be able to a) kill it and b) kill it the way it’s supposed to be killed?
Once you’ve created anticipation for anything in your story, you’ve succeeded. Because now the reader has to read to find out what happens. If Harry and Sasha would’ve come here and there were no neighbors and then 25% of the way into the story, the light shows up and we don’t know what it is and they try to figure it out over the next 20 pages and blah blah blah – I’m not saying that wouldn’t work. But this way that the writers did it is much smarter.
This is going to be a weird comparison but this is the same way James Cameron structured Titanic. Once we got everyone onto the prep ship, the characters go through a graphic illustration of everything that happened to the ship that led to its sinking. This makes the viewer want to watch the movie so he can get to these parts and see how Jack and Rose navigate them.
There are only three reasons I didn’t give this a “genius.” One, it seemed like they could’ve done more with the three spirits. I thought for sure they were going to accidentally kill a real person dressed up as one of these things. Or I thought that we’d get a surprise and there’s an additional ghost. It’s revealed that Sasha killed someone and kept it a secret. Next, the ending could’ve been better. It was almost there but it definitely wasn’t the best option. And finally… WHY THE HECK WOULD YOU STAY AND LIVE HERE???? I get that views are stunning but I mean… I’ll take a 1 bedroom basement apartment in Brooklyn any day over this.
This is the first time – I think ever – that I’ve seen a writer inject a Native American angle into a horror story that worked. For me, at least. Usually, the Native American horror thing is explored in a very cliche mumbo-jumbo way that’s never that interesting. The way these spirits attack is so specific and unique, it truly brings the concept alive. I’m not surprised AT ALL that this sold for 7 figures. It’s worth it.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Another complaint I hear from screenwriters is that they don’t know how to write a short story. Dude, short stories are easy. Remember, all stories have the same basic format. There’s a beginning, the setup, a middle, the conflict, and an ending, the resolution. The only major difference is you’re going to be inside your character’s head more so you’ll be conveying their thoughts. That takes some getting used to. But the coolest thing about short stories is they offer more creative flexibility. You can tell the story through newspaper articles, for example, blog entries, letters, or mix all of them together. Don’t be afraid of the short story format. Embrace it! It allows you to tap into story opportunities that aren’t there in the screenwriting world.
What I learned 2: All good stories amount to dangling juicy carrots in front of the reader. This one had three really juicy carrots (bear chase, scarecrow, ghosts) that I would’ve followed for as long as they were dangled.
