Spielberg swoops in and locks up a short story from the /NoSleep subreddit, a growing breeding ground for movie projects.
Genre: Horror
Premise: After his friend takes his life, a young man teams up with the girl being blamed for the suicide to look for a mythical spire popularized in a local ghost story they believe to be the true cause of the death.
About: We have ANOTHER short story sale – this one picked up by Amblin! Steven Spielberg’s company! This is another sale stemming from the /Nosleep subreddit. “It” producer Roy Lee will co-produce. The most amazing thing about this sale is that the story was posted five years ago! Never give up, right? You can read the short story here.
Writer: Tony Lunedi
Details: 8 pages
How many times do I have to say it? Short stories are the new spec scripts. Evolve or die. Okay, maybe keep writing screenplays. But if you aren’t expanding your portfolio into shorts at this point, I don’t know what to tell you.
A couple of days ago in the comments section, one of you pointed out that you’d queried everyone in town and only gotten back two replies. Another reader replied to this comment that the days of cold querying were over, that most people in town expect you to use online resources to get noticed (places like Scriptshadow, the Black List, social media, self-publishing, /Nosleep). They let real people do the vetting process for them since they no longer have the time or patience to do so. I don’t know if we’re all the way there yet. But we’re close. And it makes sense. If you’re serious about this profession, you’ll figure out a way to get your work seen. And when your skill level lines up with your marketing savvy, someone will take notice.
That last part of the equation is crucial. A lot of writers get their stuff out there, and when nothing happens, blame the delivery method. If people aren’t responding to your work, there’s a good chance something’s wrong with your writing. If you’ve got the dough, you can hire people like me (writers often send me a script and say, “Tell me what’s wrong with my writing so I can improve it”), or you can take the feedback you get from the public, create your own online curriculum, and get better in those weak areas. But you never want to blame “the system” for your lack of success. Once that happens, you’ve sealed your fate, because it means you’ll stop trying to get better.
“Robert Edward Kennan killed himself in the Fall of 1999…” That’s how our unnamed 17 year old narrator starts his story. After Robert leaves two suicide notes, one to the beautiful but cold Alina, the other to mutual friend Fletch, rumors spread that Robert killed himself because Alina rebuffed him.
Our narrator regales us with his love for scary stories, particularly ones steeped in local New England lore. There is one in particular, The Widower’s Clock, that chronicles a clockmaker in the early 20th century who built an elaborate clock, the kind that appears on giant churches, complete with life-sized dancing figures. When he caught his wife sleeping with another man, he killed them and placed each of them inside these dancing figures. The clock never sold, and the rumor is that it is buried on one of the many uninhabited islands off the coast of New England.
This is relevant because Robert indicates in his suicide letters that he heard the bells from the clock and followed them to their source, where he witnessed something horrifying. Alina believes if they can prove the clock exists, she’ll be off the hook as the cause of Robert’s suicide. So our narrator joins her, Fletch, and the only other person who knows more about the lore of this area than he does, the tall and gangly “Scary Kerry,” to locate the clock. But when he begins to fall for Alina himself, he loses crucial perspective, putting the entire pursuit in jeopardy.
This is SO MUCH better than that abysmal piece of garbage we had to endure the last time a short story sold. Whereas that story was marketed exclusively to literary types more interested in metaphors and symbolism than logic and narrative focus, today’s writer is focused solely on providing an entertaining story. And boy does he succeed.
The thing I’ve learned about horror stories is that they don’t jump into GSU (goal, stakes, urgency) right away. They begin with a mystery. Eventually that mystery requires our characters to try and solve it (and GSU appears). But before that, we’re pulled in by the mystery itself. The simple question of “Why did Robert commit suicide?” is a good one, since the implication is that his death is connected to an old ghost tale.
And not just any ghost tale, but a creepy one. Arguably, Lunedi’s most prominent skill is detailing these old ghost tales. He doesn’t stop at the facts. He paints a picture. I loved, for example, how the clockmaker finished this Magnus Opus of his, had two major bidders on the line, only for the Depression to hit, ensuring that the clock would never sell. These are the details that turn average stories into great stories.
This detail is extended into characters as well. Nobody gets introduced without backstory that contextualizes them. Even secondary characters. For example, Lunedi doesn’t write, “I found out something was wrong on Tuesday morning when Fletch’s rust-bucket didn’t show up in my driveway like it usually did. Instead his dad arrived.” He writes, “I found out something was wrong on Tuesday morning when Fletch’s rust-bucket didn’t show up in my driveway like it usually did. Instead his dad, an air force officer nowhere near as affable as his son, was waiting for me.” It may seem like a small change, but notice the difference in the way your brain imagines this person with the first example as opposed to the second. We can SEE a former Air Force Officer. We can’t see a “dad.” A “dad” could literally be any adult male.
My biggest takeaway from this story, however, is how much effort was put into it. When you read all the other stories on /Nosleep, it isn’t that they’re lazily conceived. It’s that they’re lazily explored. These writers believe they can throw something together in an inspired weekend and blow everyone away. When you read the level of detail in this story, the way the characters are conceived and explored, the way the plot evolves, the way the prose is written – you can tell that this story was obsessed over.
To bring this back to screenwriting, I see the same problem. Writers put stuff out there that’s clearly four, five, even ten drafts away from being ready for discerning eyes. They’re so happy they finished, they want to share their work with the world. But that’s not the work that gets recognized. The work that gets recognized is the work that the writer worked meticulously on. They didn’t stop until they got every character and plot beat and line of dialogue and line of action and subplot and reveal to where they were satisfied with it. You clearly see that in Spire. I don’t see that nearly enough in the scripts that I read and would identify it as one of the major differences between amateur and professional work.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If you’re considering writing a horror movie (or short story), consider setting it ANY TIME before the ubiquity of internet and cell phones. With each passing year, we become more connected, more available, easier to track down – all things that work against a good horror scenario. With horror, the feeling of isolation, of nobody coming to your rescue, needs to be present. And the past is the best place to find that. This story is set in 1999. I don’t think it works if it’s set in 2019. I believe this is a big reason “It: Part 1” worked. It’ll be interesting to see how they deal with this in the upcoming sequel, which takes place in the present day. I have a feeling it won’t be as scary. (As with every guideline, there will always be exceptions to the rule)
